Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood -- What I Thunk

I saw Tarantino's latest, Once Upon A Time. . . In Hollywood last weekend and did some Very Serious Tweets about it.  I think it's his best film so far, and would recommend it to anybody with a specific caveat -- the ending will make or break it for you.  Without saying too much, I think your reaction will be similar to whatever you thought of the ending of Inglorious Basterds.

The performances were excellent.  (I think Leo is actually becoming a better actor as he ages.)  The music was amazing.  (It's difficult to fault QT when it comes to any of his soundtracks.)  And it was just quirky enough in the right places to move the story along without winking at you too much.  (Lena Dunham is fine and unassuming, the Bruce Lee stuff goes by pretty fast but yeah, QT thinks he was an arrogant asshole.)

I might have more to say about it later.  I think there's a ton of symbolism going on in the last three minutes of the film, and not so much through the rest of it.  It's smart, at many times laugh-out-loud funny, and very much a love letter to old Hollywood, both as a place and an industry, both of which are long gone by now.

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