‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ – I Enjoyed It But On Second Thought It’s Kind Of Bullshit
August is a tough month. My apartment is hot. Pumpkin spice is just around the corner. I am not a big movie theater go-er, but enough people recommended ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ to convince me that it might be worth $15, A/C and the opportunity to escape reality.
As a feminist, being a movie fan puts me in a quandary. Once I realized that 90%-ish of movies and TV shows are created by men, many of whom have little interest in women’s lives, I realized that I had to filter out the offensive stuff or go live in a cave. I like non-girly genres, like, zombie apocalypse, crime, and thriller, so I have gotten into the habit of suspending my value system in order to be entertained. So at this point, I can appreciate a great scene or shot, even if the substance originates from the fantasy life of a male who felt rejected by girls in high school. Enter Quentin Tarantino.
I am not generally a fan of QT, for all the reasons cited, too much violence, obsession with the n-word, and prioritizing “cool” over substance. But his stock did rise for me with Jackie Brown, a film led by a middle-aged black woman, the amazing Pam Grier, who almost seemed like a real life human! I hated the scene where Robert DeNiro shoots Bridget Fonda because she’s “annoying,” but my expectations for the depictions of women by QT are so low I have to bend over.
So, it was with this attitude that I went to see “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.”
For the first hour, I thoroughly enjoyed Leonardo DiCaprio’s depiction of insecure movie star Rick Dalton (was it really a stretch?), and who doesn’t love bro-y Brad Pitt (also not a stretch). I knew right away that Brad Pitt was Tarantino’s fantasy self. He’s hot and can kick anyone’s ass. He lives by himself in a trailer with his lethal pit bull, and eats mac n’ cheese out of the pot. He doesn’t give a shit. The fact that he may have killed his wife (minor detail not expected to impact our sympathies at all) is the cherry on top of the Dream Alter Ego. We learn nothing about his marriage or his late wife’s death, but based on a short scene we can assume that, like Bridget Fonda in ‘Jackie Brown,’ she probably talked too much, so fuck that bitch…
Sure, whatever…I tried to stay focused on my goal: Must. Be. Entertained. I still like Brad Pitt at 55 or 60 or 70, or whatever age he is. However, then comes the infamous Bruce Lee scene where Brad Pitt mocks this Asian American icon, portrayed as an arrogant idiot who claims he can beat Mohammad Ali like a 10-year-old on the playground. “Insulting” hardly captures the portrayal of Bruce Lee. It also cheapens the whole movie and makes QT look like he’s been living in an editing bay for the past five years. What is the opposite of woke? He’s not just tone-deaf, or asleep, but in a full anesthetized coma. It’s like Quentin Tarantino hit his head on a boom in 2014 and stopped watching the news. Does he even know that Trump is president?
Despite this scene, I am still enjoying the “homage” to Old Hollywood. I still love Dumb Brad Pitt and Insecure Leonardo DiCaprio, I still dig the cool shots, the music. Quentin Tarantino may be in a White Man’s Coma but nobody does “cool” better. He’s like an overpriced pair of sunglasses worn with a Member’s Only jacket. I’m now in my own movie coma.
I truly enjoy the scene where Brad Pitt visits the Spahn Ranch, home of the creepy Manson family. I might add that I had not read reviews and do not know enough about the Manson family to know that they didn’t randomly murder stray hot men who wandered in. So for me that scene carried Hitchcock levels of suspense. I forgot about my hot apartment, or how we’re all going to die in the climate change apocalypse. This is why we go to movies, to be pulled in by creative people into another reality. So what if we forego our souls, values, and humanity, in the process. It’s the same consciousness that allows me to drink out of a paper cup and throw it away. Consume, numb the fuck out, anything to not feel!
Fast forward to the end. The Manson family members drive to Leonardo’s hood to famously murder his neighbor, Sharon Tate who has spent the movie looking like a Vogue model in a deodorant commercial. We watch her blissfully happy and unaware of her fate, smiling, going to a theater to watch her own movie, and living the Hollywood dream. I don’t know anything about Sharon Tate except that she was murdered while pregnant—does a more horrifying end to a life exist? To imagine her last days as living in a yogurt commercial seems odd. She looks like the fantasy girl of an incel. Not a woman married to a high profile, unfaithful, and probably volatile director. Women who marry Roman Polanski-types don’t strike me as dreamy, smiley types, but again, this movie is mind-numbingly engaging. Also, I cancelled Netflix. So, sure Sharon Tate lives in a Colgate world.
Ok, so let’s cut to the end. The Sharon Tate of this film is spared her horrible fate by the grace of Tripping On Acid Brad Pitt. In the final scene, Brad Pitt murders Manson girl Linda Kasabian by smashing her head repeatedly into a wall. (I say a prayer for all the women married to domestic abusers for whom this scene gave inspiration). And then Leonardo DiCaprio fries the character Susan Atkins with his flame thrower(?!), more masturbatory fodder for incels. Never mind that Brad Pitt may have killed his wife. Unlike hot white bros, young women who commit crimes must suffer violent cartoonish deaths. Everyone creepily laughs because violence against women…oh, so hilarious. One in four women will experience domestic abuse…but flame throwers, omg.
After it ended, I told my friend, “I really enjoyed it. So glad we came.” And then I drove home to my hot apartment.