Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Quick Thoughts

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

I’ve just barely started ingesting Tarantino flicks, and I’m loving it. I’ve seen Kill Bill 1, Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Bastards, and Django Unchained so far. (Django’s my favorite.) All of those movies are amazing, so I had pretty high expectations for his newest picture: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And for the most part, it lives up to his incredible legacy. The characters are tasty, the script is excellent, and the violence is glorious. Most Tarantinos have a tight story that feels perfectly crafted, but Once Upon a Time feels more like Tarantino showing you all of his favorite things in 1969 Hollywood through the eyes of three great characters and with amazing cinematography. That wasn’t a problem for me! I could watch a ten-hour cut of this movie.

But it sure isn’t perfect. There are a couple of choices that QT made in this movie that he must have knew would ruffle some feathers. I’m okay with that. People are always going to get offended, so if you have to make those choices to aid the movies story and ideas, then go right ahead. But these choices don’t seem to have any reason for existing. Sharon Tate is a movie star. She was living a privileged and wealthy life. So why, when she takes her shoes off and puts her feet up in the movie theater, are her feet nasty? Why does she even take her shoes off? Why is there a prolonged shot of her nasty feet? There are a lot of these little things that seem very degrading for no apparent reason. They also add a really strange and out-of-character backstory for Brad Pitt’s character, and I have no idea why it was included.

Those negatives were pretty easy to forget about while watching the movie, but it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth afterwards. Overall, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a blast. It has my favorite characters in any Tarantino movie, and the whole thing is so beautiful and well crafted.



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