ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019)

7/30 - Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019) - 5+/10

I get it...I appreciate it... but I don’t think I actually liked it. I recognize the skill and passion on display, but that at best put me in the middle on this one, which I think puts me at odds with most everyone else. I don’t care. Despite the good flourishes, I was not interested in what it was trying for or wanted to say... this one didn’t click for me.

By the final third, it gets fun and flies, but much of it is an interminable slog to get there. Full of the most egregious and glorified Tarantino masturbatory tendencies flung across the screen. The long pan ups on the back of someone, mostly nubile women or gruff machismoed males. The fetishizing of feet in this one was like hanging out with your nudist uncle who “isn’t going to live by their rules anymore” as he hangs the gibbly bits for all to peruse, be they inclined or not. Excruciatingly indulgent framing of cars cars cars and the butter churning plod of unknown to most LA landmarks, bottom slapped red asses of the “tune on the town”, and teeth grinding juggernaut of media, small screen and big, worshiped like the god pole of Zeus himself - it was all such a glut.

A conservative fantasy, adoring a time of wonder and preserving with the crank of his camera a world that was not meant to sustain. It is hard not to examine the film and not see Tarantino in the tired and passed by hollywood icon who is scratching to stay relevant and take swings at these “millennial hippies” (I mean, they cast Lena Dunham and daughters of Andie McDowell, Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke, Kevin Smith, the Bowling movie making sisters as Manson family members - the next generation literally killing the last). Certainly the most aware of his work, but the intent of lashing out spoke louder than the black craft of magic making. The sorcery is there but the strings were more present than ever before, if not blatantly flashing or grubbly thrust in your face.

When it does kick in, if you haven’t been swept up in the nostalgia for a generation I have no identification with or placement for, or aren’t enamored with the character portraits of a passing person and his place (both men and their generations), the ample violence and gore that goes overboard for what would be preferred but expected might taint you beyond reproach. There was a visceralness to this batch of over-the-top gory mayhem that supplied an innate ineffable disgust.

The sets and detail was amazing, though it was effort fanatically realized despite my disinterest. The acting and most of the casting (didn’t care for Pacino’s bit) was top notch. Leo was pretty damn fantastic. Pitt was cool, stealthly dark, perpetually unfazed. Qualley was breath-catching sexy. Robbie brought an effervescence and vitality to her Tate portrayal. She was there, I suppose to find the hope before it was lost on the fateful night that was to be (or not be?:) ). But, I think she deserved more of a character and room for a performance; flesh out the her rather than the “her meaning”. She is a setting, a promised innocence to lose.

I have thought a bit about it but I don’t know what to make of the death of a particular spouse. I couldn’t quite place the metaphor or necessity, and certainly didn’t care for it. Seemed to simply inject an element of irredeemability into that character. I don’t know.

Bit tired and unsatisfying. Like a squeeze from a lemon that has been zapped of its tart. I don’t have a deep desire to see this one again.