Film Review: Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

A tarnished Golden State, and overripe fruit

Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) in Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood
Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) are cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

Let’s face it, we all want another Pulp Fiction. We all remember, either on opening night (me!), a bit later, or maybe way later through a TV the way we felt during, and right after, living through that unique moment in American cinema. How did Quentin Tarantino get away with gangsters talking about the Royale with cheese? Is that really John Travolta? Can we like him again? Did we just see Christopher Walken pop off a two-minute monologue about hiding family heirlooms in anal cavities? And wait, how could the middle of the story happen at the end of the film? Yep, we all remember, and let’s also face it that we’ve been waiting, WANTING another Pulp Fiction ever since. We should just stop with all that, because Tarantino’s ninth film, the excellent Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood proves, finally and triumphantly, that all the peculiar elements of his films can come together gracefully to create a dissimilar but still profoundly satisfying cinematic experience.

Continue reading “Film Review: Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood