ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

once upon a time in hollywood (2019) movie

Genre              |   Action Drama

Classification   |   MA  15+

Running time   |   150 minutes

Released         |   25 July  2019

cast

Leonardo DiCaprio ... Rick Dalton
Brad Pitt ... Cliff Booth
Margot Robbie ... Sharon Tate
Luke Perry ... Scott Lancer
Dakota Fanning ... Squeaky Fromme
Al Pacino ... Marvin Schwarzs
Damian Lewis ... Steve McQueen
Emile Hirsch ... Jay Sebring
Damon Herriman ... Charles Manson
Lena Dunham ... Gypsy
Bruce Dern ... George Spahn
Clifton Collins Jr. ... Ernesto The Mexican Vaquero
Tim Roth
Kurt Russell
​James Marsden

director

Quentin Tarantino

writer

​Quentin Tarantino ... (written by)

cinematographer

​Robert Richardson

soundtrack producer

​Holly Adams

film editor

Fred Raskin

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box office result

Worldwide               $? million

Australia                 $? million

North America        $? million

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movie minutiae

Its title is an homage to Sergio Leone, who has directed ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968) as well as ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (1984). Tarantino has cited the director as a favorite of his and an influence throughout his career.

Quentin Tarantino stated that the story consists of multiple parallel stories and will be the closest thing to his earlier film PULP FICTION (1994).

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ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019) MOVIE IMAGES

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Posters

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Posters

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD visits 1969 Los Angeles, where everything is changing, as TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) make their way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. The ninth film from the writer-director features a large ensemble cast and multiple storylines in a tribute to the final moments of Hollywood’s golden age.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 15  August 2019

Pop ​Movee Rating

Quentin Tarantino films don’t really need reviews… The filmmaker’s name recognition and its association with what he does draws attention, no matter what the project…

ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD is no exception.

The presence of Tarantino as the creative force behind the film guarantees an in-built audience of cinephiles who flock to see Q’s latest movie, irrespective of the subject matter or what the film reviewing fraternity might otherwise have to say about its artistic merit.

In this instance, the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Tarantino’s regular ensemble (referred to as “The Gang”) provides a much greater incentive for a broad church of moviegoers to savour the Writer/Director/Producer’s most mainstream film since JACKIE BROWN was released back in 1997.

In spite of the film’s well-advertised connection to the Manson Family murders, ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD isn’t that interested in what happened on the night of August 8, 1969. Sure, it pays plenty of attention to Manson Family members and does indeed spend the last part of its story presenting events that took place on that night, but the film is not a documentary; it’s a fairy tale…

The fairy tale, as the title suggests, is about Hollywood. It’s about what the idea of “Hollywood” once represented. Not just the place itself, but the idea of what was created among the vast studio soundstages and backlots. Tarantino’s version of “Hollywood” delves into the dichotomy between the pretend, scripted heroism presented in fictional, filmed entertainment and the men (and women) who work behind-the-scenes to help create that  pretend heroism for consumption by the adoring masses.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton is the centrepiece of Tarantino’s exploration…

Dalton is an almost has-been whose career was trending while he was the series lead of the TV show “Bounty Law”, but a series of questionable role choices after leaping from TV to movies saw the would-be star become a second choice, taking lesser roles in an effort to keep his name up in lights.

Not too far into the film, Al Pacino’s Talent Agent Marvin Schwarz tells Dalton that he needs to be far more careful about which roles he chooses otherwise his will really be over. A great part of the film’s story is based upon Dalton’s struggle to prolong the memory of his name in the popular consciousness. 

While Dalton may be the hero on the screen, the real tough guy of the film is Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth.

At face value, Cliff seems to be riding along in Dalton’s wake, but Tarantino slowly reveals Booth to be the true hero of his story. 

Brad Pitt is more than up for the challenge… 

Booth is Dalton’s stunt double, personal assistant and just about the only real friend the actor has in his artificial construct of a life. Dalton has kept Cliff around because, deep down, he knows that he’s the only one who is looking out for his best interests. 

Tarantino gives Cliff an ambiguous back-story that may or may not have had him murder his wife, creating an air of mystery that creates an air of danger around him. The audience is left to contemplate the skeletons in Cliff’s closet, but as events unfold, it becomes clear that he is more than capable of handling himself in a fight and isn’t afraid to wade into uncomfortable encounters when called to. He’s not quite a “devil-may-care” character, however, he’s more worldly-wise than Dalton and Pitt becomes the film’s driving force as events get closer and closer to the night of August 8…

It’s hard to understand how, during the film’s Cannes premiere press gatherings, anyone could have asked Tarantino why wasn’t Margot Robbie in the film more?

DiCaprio and Pitt are the film’s stars, but Robbie, as Sharon Tate, is the story’s connective tissue. As portrayed in ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD, Tate was an actress on the rise who had all the talent and potential to become a truly great star. Perhaps the saddest aspect of how the film unfolds is that no amount of Hollywood schmaltz can change the fact that Tate and three of her friends were murdered by a bunch of self-entitled “Hippies” who were collectively too weak to stand up to the psychopathic ramblings of Charles Manson.

That’s why the film itself is called what it is…

Hollywood has, on many occasions, been referred to as a “Dream Factory”, but, not even the bubble of success and stardom stop the outside world from intruding in the most terrible way imaginable and what happened on that hot August night in 1969 is the worst of its kind to impact Tinseltown. Not even the place that produces the “fairy tales” was (or is) immune to the worst kind of humanity.

But, what of Rick and Cliff?

Caught against the backdrop of cultural transformation, these two buddies represent the “Old Hollywood”... 

A couple of relatively straight forward, contemporary cowboys whose time has almost passed them by. In Tarantino’s universe, these types of characters aren’t quite out-of-date just yet. Despite their reliance upon the cinema of dreams to help fill the gaps in their own machiso, both Rick and Cliff understand that, when the time demands it, a man has to get his shit together to get the job done.

It may not be agreeable to everyone’s perspective, but, if Tarantino had his way, extreme, undesirable behaviour would be negated by an equally extreme response that is somehow a more palatable solution for the masses than the threat of allowing the lunatics overrun the asylum….

It’s interesting that in DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton, Tarantino has created a character that mirrors the early career trajectory of Clint Eastwood. Unlike Eastwood, Tarantino doesn’t answer the question as to where Rick Dalton’s career went after the night of Sharon Tate’s murder. If Dalton is indeed based on Eastwood, then next stop would have been DIRTY HARRY. 

Eastwood’s Harry Callaghan’s no-shit, shoot first approach is replicated by Tarantino, always the proponent of self-referential cinema, to bring the film to its conclusion. 

It’s a case of art imitating art because, as we learn through the film, real heroes are hard to find especially in the fairytale world of Hollywood.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD MOVIE (2019) USEFUL LINKS

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) - IMDb
​Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - Wikipedia
​Once Upon a Time In Hollywood (2019) - Rotten Tomatoes

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