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Saturday, December 14, 2019

ONCE UPON A TIME... IN HOLLYWOOD (2019)

I guess you had to be there. Not 1969 when most of the story takes place. Not at a 70mm showing in its early weeks of distribution. No, you’d probably have to be at a pitch session with Quentin Tarantino putting over his grand idea of an overarching story to capture the cultural shift in L.A. at the time of the 1969 Manson Family murder spree. What we got was this distressingly self-indulgent stroll thru an altered movie industry, already well-settled into late ‘60s decline, and a pair of laid-back macho buds, fading Western star Leonardo DiCaprio & his hardly aging stunt double/’batman’ Brad Pitt, navigating a professional & personal relationship being tested by changing circumstances out of their control. (DiCaprio playing just the sort of half-forgotten tv actor Tarantino loved to bring back from the brink.) A loose storyline that barely sustains interest while we wait for presumed violence to show. But after two hours of show-offy period detail*, the bloody massacre we’ve been counting on plays out as a loony detour so shockingly tasteless (and so sloppily presented, as indeed is much of the film’s action) as to nullify the simple pleasure-of-their-company aspects of the film. (A spot on perf from Pitt and a spectacularly good taste of Steve McQueen from Damien Lewis.)  Adding insult to injury, Tarantino slaps on narration for the last act, as if the young Quentin was still giving in to the commercial instincts of his disgraced, former producer Harvey Weinstein telling him how the youth market wouldn’t have a clue about the Manson Gang and needed voice-over explanation.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Considering the emphasis on period detail, many boo-boos in here.  See IMDb under GOOFS.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: Moving the action a few years later, Robert Altman’s THE LONG GOODBYE/'73 gets so much right this film gets wrong.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-long-goodbye-1973.html

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