Review

Tarantino is always someone I have trouble with. I would say that I generally enjoy his stuff. I know he's a talented director and everything. But I often find that his worlds feel a bit mean-spirited and dirty. Something that I don't think a Tarantino fan would necessarily disagree with, just something I go back and forth on. His movies are something I need to be in the mood for, as opposed to other directors I like more where I'm always down to view their stuff. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood surprisingly subverts that being largely pretty optimistic. A particular oddity given the subject matter (the Manson family stuff).

The thing that I didn't like about Once Upon a Time, though, is kind of its core thesis. Once Upon a Time is about films, about Hollywood. So it's kind of exactly the same as all the other films that are ostensibly about Hollywood. (Hail Caesar!, Singing In The Rain, Sunset Boulevard to a slightly lesser degree. To name a few.) Not all that much is going on plot-wise. We're more just kind of flowing scene to scene seeing little vignettes of Leo's character's acting and Brad Pitt futzing around. I find that by the end of most of those sorts of films we haven't really done all that much. In this one we can see Leo's character as a representation of Hollywood at large, struggling to move on from the pulpy 50s and 60s to the dawn of New Hollywood in the 70s. It works fine, it's mostly just fairly in your face and like I said not a whole lot is going on. I would continue drawing that line on and say that the move in some ways is also about Tarantino himself, stating that he can in fact make different things that aren't his typical fair. That part I appreciated.

Decently funny though. I will point to the scene of Sharon Tate going to the movies to see one of her films as being noticeably sweet and breaking up that rhythm. That was a nice highlight that felt like it went against Tarantino's typical desire to make things that are cool and dirty and skeezy. Even if she wouldn't put her goddamn dirty feet away. Polanski mercifully did not darken our doorsteps with his presence too much. Also I don't recall any N words happening so that was nice.