Once Upon a Time in Hollywood....

I saw "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" last night. It was entertaining and had a couple of great moments. But overall it wasn't the Masterpiece that the press was hoping for.  The story centers on Rick Dalton ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) who was the star of a "Wanted: Dead or Alive" type western TV show whose career is fading, and Cliff Booth ( Brad Pitt ) his stunt double and best friend. It also focuses on Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate ( Margot Robbie ) and the Manson Family and how they all run into each other at the end. Tarantino nicely re-creates late '60's Los Angeles and the cars are cool. Pitt and Dicaprio tool around in a beautiful cream colored '66 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Pitt also has a Karmann Ghia convertible and Robbie tools around in a sinister Porsche 911 that belongs to ex-boyfriend Jay Sebring. Like Val Kilmer stole "Tombstone" Brad Pitt steals this movie. Don't get me wrong; DiCaprio is excellent at the both swaggering and insecure fading star. But Pitt steals the show. Two awesome scenes enable him to do this. One-he gives a hitchiking Manson girl a ride to the Spahn ranch where he used to shoot movies and refuses a blowjob because he knows she's under 18.  He argues with the Manson girls and "Tex" Watson and wants to make sure his old friend George Spahn is ok and not being abused by these deadbeats. After deciding that George may be being taken advantage of, but is not in mortal danger, he decides to leave. They've slashed a tire on the Caddy. Pitt beats the shit out of the guy that did it and forces him to change the tire in a hilarious and brutal scene.  The second one takes place on the set of the "Green Hornet" where Bruce Lee ( Mike Moh ) is boasting that he could beat Muhammed Ali in a fight. Since the real Bruce Lee was only 5'6" and 140 lbs-and so is the actor playing him-Pitt's character laughs and calls him on it saying Ali would squash him like a bug. Lee challenges him to a fight. "Okay, Kato, bring it" Both Pitt and Moh show athleticism as they trade punches and kicks, and Pitt eventually bounces him off a nearby car, putting a huge dent in the car. The stunt coordinator and her husband-Zoe Bell and Kurt Russel stop the fight. Zoe yells at Pitt telling him he's fired. Russel asks why. "He was beating the shit out of Bruce!" she shreiks. Moh protests-"Hey nobody beat the shit out of Bruce."  Pitt retorts "I think the dent in that car says otherwise" Bell shrieks again-"That's my car!!"  Pitt and Moh look like chagrined junior high boys-"Hey we were just fooling around" Russel fires Pitt. It's a hilarious scene.  Another great one is where DiCaprio, after flubbing his lines in a previous take on a western TV Pilot he's shooting absolutely nails the next scene, and is congratulated not only by the director, but also by his 8 year old co-star who says "That's the best acting she's ever seen in her whole life".  She's 8 years old!!  Where it kind of goes off the rails is Tarantino has to put his little preaching to the choir inside jokes in there. We know all about his foot fetish. Margot Robbie has pretty feet-but the scene in the movie theater where she props her dirty bare feet up on the seats in front of her, so he can park his camera there for an extreme close-up seems contrived. Mainly because in the scenes leading up to the theater scene she's wearing knee-high white boots which were popular in the late '60's. I would assume she'd be wearing socks under the boots to avoid getting blisters. I doubt that she'd take the boots and socks off in public. And if she did, why wouldn't her feet be clean? He should have had her wearing flip flops or sandals in the previous scenes or even spike-heeled pumps that she could take off and walk barefoot on the sidewalk up to the theater which would explain her very dirty feet. To me it fell flat. Okay-here's what the soles of Margot's feet look like from an inch away-isn't that cool? I guess-if your into feet. What hetero guy doesn't like seeing a sexy woman barefoot?  Why do you think "Charlie's Angels" had such high ratings in the '70's? All the bikini scenes with Cheryl Ladd and Jaclyn Smith!!  Duh.  And of course-Spoiler Alert here-if your going to see it you may want to stop reading. The Manson family attacks Dicaprio's house by mistake He's Sharon Tate's next door neighbor. Him and Pitt smite them in biblical fashion and then Leo has a drink with his grateful neighbors who live happily ever after instead of being murdered by the Manson gang. It's entertaining as long as you don't take it too seriously and you can't. Tarantino says he's going to retire after his next film. I hope it's better than this one, and returns to the innovation he showed with "Pulp Fiction" and "Jackie Brown".  It's worth seeing, it's just not the grand masterpiece that "Pulp Fiction" was. Mastermind