There may never be another filmmaker like Quentin Tarantino. If there is, we surely are in luck. But in all likelihood, future generations will just be students of his, and thank God for that fact alone. He's a filmmaker's filmmaker. His love of cinema verges on fetishism. His mission in life, it seems, was to keep his celluloid memories alive and in the American psyche in a time long past it's expiration date. So long as there's a reel and a way, Tarantino will give you a ticket to the greatest shows on earth, filled with filthy language and splattering gore violence. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is his 9th feature film. It's been announced as his second to last film. Rumor has it, if the film basks in an exponentially warm reception, this could be his last film. I pray we can all sit down one last time for the number 10, but if Quentin is seriously considering it, I'll warmly and happily accept that. The truth is, it's all been leading up to this moment. Quentin's personal crescendo, encapsulating all he has learned and all he has experienced as a man living in Hollywood and a successful filmmaker from within it. He went for it, and he did it. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the best film of 2019, and easily his best film since Pulp Fiction. For me, nothing short of perfect. Everything I wanted it to be, and yet it still shocked and surprised me. I'm convinced that after the second and even third viewings, i'll still find new things to love about it. For nearly three hours in length, it grabs you up from your seat and never lets go.
Here's the story. The year is 1969. We meet the dashing Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his frisky stuntman sidekick, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). The dynamic duo of black and white television, and old, gunslinging cowboy movies. They were the best, they were the most handsome and they were the most talented. They were the best actors in Hollywood.. until now. After an unkindly meeting with his agent, Marvin Schwartz (played in outrageous fashion by the great Al Pacino), Rick is told in no uncertain terms that his time as a leading man is over. In other words, he's lost everything. Reduced to playing walk-on roles in late-60's TV shows, and B-grade Italian spaghetti westerns that nobody will ever see. Devastated, he returns to sulk in his luxury home in the Hollywood hills, while Cliff goes home to a dingy trailer next-door to a drive-in movie theater, to feed his loyal pit-bull Brandy. California Dreaming is not all that it seems. But wouldn't you know it, Rick Dalton has a new neighbor. One Roman Polanksi and his wife, superstar Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). The contrast doesn't get much starker. As Rick Dalton disappears into the hazy California sunset, Tate and friends are dancing in the middle of it. We begin to alternate between these two stories. Rick Dalton's personal misery in landing mediocre roles, and Sharon Tate humbly enjoying her career at it's peak. She's so humble, in fact, she attends screenings of her own movies in town to kick her feet back and laugh with the audience. But in the middle of the high and hard times of show business, evil lurks in the background, ready to attack. That evil being the Manson family. Cliff, Rick and Sharon all have individual run-ins with Charlie and the gang, dismissing them as your average dirty hippies, not realizing they are all about to make a head-on collision with Helter Skelter.
From it's very beginning, Tarantino doesn't just show you how things were in 1969, he places you there right along with it. I was there with all of them. Many of the sequences here include interludes of driving with an authentic live radio blasting (not unlike K-Billy's Super Sounds of the 70's) the soundtrack of our film. Killer psychedelic tunes and radio ads narrate the few times where our characters stay silent, which in any Tarantino film, is brief. The first hour and a half of the film may even puzzle viewers with how little happens between the characters. But that's the point. Tarantino places the audience through multiple POVs in order to illustrate this time in Hollywood. It was a technique I didn't expect, but I adored it all the same, and if anything, I'll always remember these sequences first when I think of the film. DiCaprio lights up the screen as the manically depressed Rick Dalton who goes between arrogantly strutting on set as if he's still a hot shot, to wrecking his trailer in a fit of insecurity and rage. Brad Pitt is effortlessly cool as Cliff Booth. Dude is the suavest partner-in-crime since Paul Newman. Robbie plays Tate, and with the responsibility of playing the prime victim of one of the most gruesome and horrifying murders in American history, she needed to bring honor in this special tribute to her. Not only did she bring honor, but she also brought beauty, grace, wistful optimism and love. If she had a a song, it would probably be "Good Morning, Starshine", though we all know she was a Paul Revere and the Raiders fan. Tate represents here all that was good of the late 60's. That far-out, free-spirited, love your neighbor, flower power that most Californians at that time adopted.. so long as you didn't take it to the extreme. If you did, you'd turn into one of those goddamn dirty hippies.
That's the other thing that Tarantino explores in 1969. If you were worried about a film about the Manson family that glorifies them as super cool anti-heroes, you best sit down and let this film do the talking. Because Tarantino clearly doesn't just hate Charles Manson, he loathes him. The man who, in his mind, killed the 1960's and the Hollywood he loved. On that note, you might be asking yourself.. this film doesn't really reenact the events of that horrible night, does it? Well, I promise you, this is a spoiler free review, but lets just say the events of August 8th 1969 don't play out here as they did in history. What results is the biggest middle finger ever given to the Manson Family in an epic finale so mindbogglingly brutal and relentless, it will make your jaw drop.
I left the theater having felt like I drank a strong cocktail of Boogie Nights and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, ripped a bong and got awakened by a punch in the face. This is a movie, and a trip and an experience you won't soon forget. See this thing, right now. See it twice. See it three times. Invite in into your head and let it stay there and stew. Explore this tapestry of Americana, booze, sex, drugs, rock' n' roll and movies. You'll be exhausted, but you will be satisfied.
