As much as I feel that Quinton Tarantino’s filmography is basically required to have seen to be considered a “professional” critic today; I must confess that counting OUATIH I’ve only seen 4 of his movies, only one I would consider truly loving. Those being Inglorious Bastards, Django Unchained and Hateful 8. I mention this because I’m not exactly familiar with his inspirations, motifs, cliches etc aside from his foot fetish so I don’t have a clear frame of reference for his design sensibilities aside from what more learned and experienced critics can tell me. But I do plan on rectifying that someday when I have the time. But for now I have little working knowledge of the backstory behind Tarantino’s love letter to the golden age of Hollywood and 1960's LA.
Given that I have no forward knowledge of the murder of actress Sharon Tate by members of the Manson Family and the cultural tsunami that that had on America and the movie industry I’m undoubtedly going to have a far different opinion then most older critics who if they haven’t lived that event have at least read about it at some point in their lives. So please keep that in mind as I give my two cents. But first things first, this is a damn good movie, not the best I’ve seen but if you have knowledge of the Sharon Tate murder then you’ll probably get far more out of it then I did, like this would be your “Inglorious Bastards”. Let’s face it, my generation may not know about the Sharon Tate murder so they probably couldn’t get more out of this as they would in seeing Hitler getting gunned down along with the Nazi high command in a burning theatre. You can see why Inglorious Bastards is currently my favorite Tarantino movie.
Our story is mostly a "day in the life" type of story where we follow characters and see how their day is going and all the wacky misadventures they get up to and eventually leading up to the fateful night. First we have Tate herself (played by once of the few saving graces of Suicide Squad; Margot Robbie) just going about her day and watching herself in The Wrecking Crew yet surprisingly despite her fate being the focal point Tate isn't the main focus. That honor actually goes to Leonardo De Caprio's Rick Dolton and Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth a former western star and his stunt man/best friend respectively. Rick was a western star back in the day but with the western falling out of favor his carrier is in a downward spiral with only two options left, play the villain and get his ass kicked on western shows for the rest of his carrier, or take Al Pacino's advice (yeah I know his character has a name but lets face it, its Al Pacino) and move to Rome and get back in the spotlight with Spaghetti Westerns. Cliff on the other hand has a more interesting day, starts off with driving Rick to his latest shoot, going to fix his T.V Antenna, fighting Bruce Lee and ends up with the Manson family staring daggers at him.
As this movie focus' mostly on this one day I can't go into too much detail in terms of plot. But in staging and the technical department, holy crap you'll feel like you stepped into a time machine. Everything from locations, the costumes the music it all does feel like Hollywood 1969. Even the scenes where Di Caprio's added into classic movies and T.V shows were done almost seamlessly, I haven't seen this type of editing done this well since Forrest Gump. Even the poster for the movie looks like a Drew Struzan masterpiece, needless to say the attention to detail was on point.
However a detraction for me is the Sharon Tate scenes. Without knowledge of who this person was and why her death was such a tragedy you inevitably lose something. And I'm sorry but if you have to have supplementary knowledge to fully appreciate a piece than it sadly suffers. Thankfully while the knowledge of Sharon Tate isn't entirely necessary (hence the focus on Rick and Cliff) I still have to criticize the fact that the real events have to take a back seat for the made up characters, while its nowhere as insensitive and egregious as what Michael Bay did with Pearl Harbor I still have to call it out. But it's still a Tarantino movie so you'll still be in for a good time, still wholeheartedly recommend this movie, not just as a fan of Tarantino but as a movie goer in general.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Once upon a time in Hollywood is owned by Quinton Tarantino, Columbia Pictures, Bona Film Group, Heyday Films, Visona Romantica and Sony Pictures Releasing.
Hi David I loved your review of once upon a time in Hollywood; I would highly recommend watching pulp fiction it is probably the most similar and Jackie brown is a phenomenal movie Michael Kenton is in it playing a undercover cop also watch kill bill vol 1 and 2
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