Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood

If you want to see an excellent film and have any knowledge of or experience with the 1960s, Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood is the film you have been waiting to see. Quentin Tarantino is not one of my favorite directors because the language and the action of his movies are off-putting to me; however, OUTH is his best film to date.  The story is of a washed-up movie star (Leonardo di Caprio) and his stunt double (Brad Pitt) during the 1960s when some really bad movies were made. The acting back then was … stilted… predictable … mediocre, and Di Caprio and Pitt perfectly capture that aspect of the film-making business. When an actor is on the downhill swing, life loses a lot of its luster, which sometimes makes actors take roles they otherwise would refuse, including starring in a series of what were called "spaghetti westerns" back in the day. Di Caprio's acting perfectly captures the desperation of the actor trying to stay afloat in an industry that is all he has ever known, and Pitt has the role of second banana down pat, hitching his future to DiCaprio's success, which leads to his career taking a dive along with DiCaprio's character's career.

Tarantino is the master of detail, and this movie is densely detailed in the sets, in the set dressings, in the costumes, in the dialog, in the automobiles, in the status symbols of the time, and in the feeling of a decade in transition. The 1960s are known for the hippies and the VietNam War and the free love and the cigarette smoking and the see and be seen attitude about life. Tarantino captures all of it in the main story, which is total Hollywood, but he adds a twist that makes the movie totally engaging and captivating.  It's a challenge to reveal just about enough of the plot twist to get a patron to see the movie without giving it away, but suffice it to say that the character of Sharon Tate plays a huge part in the storyline. She is the quintessential 60s woman, with her go-go boots and her really short short skirts, her flowing blonde hair, and her almost naïve approach to life.

Don't back away from this film because it's a Tarantino, nor because it's about the 1960s. It's a story about life and love and longing and the challenge of growing old in a society that prefers youth. I seldom hand out As as I believe that excellence is unusual, rather than common, but I whole-heartedly give Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood an A+.