‘Once Upon a Time In… Hollywood’ or — The Solipsistic Streaming Service?

I’ll admit it — I’m not a huge Quentin Taratino fan. It’s not that I don’t think he’s a good filmmaker; I’m just not crazy over his movies. So it was a pleasant surprise that I thought ‘Once Upon a Time In… Hollywood’ (2019) was okay. But that was also it’s problem for me - it was just okay. It didn’t actively annoy me and Tarantino’s Tarantinoisms didn’t grate on my nerves like they can, yet I also never felt truly caught up in any of the events or transported beyond the level of “Hey, this is okay.”.

Tarantino has recreated a gorgeous and accurately realised time and place, that of L.A. in 1969. In this world we cruise around in cars, the radio kindly providing us with the perfect musical accompaniment or crackle of an appropriate news report. And that’s when it struck me — watching this film is like playing GTA 5. It’s a meticulous environment you drive through to get from one incident to the next.

Those incidents are fine although few actually stand out in the memory apart from the fun of hearing Sergio Corbucci’ name being mentioned or seeing the poster for his film ‘The Mercenary’ (1968) in the background. This sense of narrative drift gives the feeling, despite Tarantino’s adoration for film, of binge watching a TV series. Not a bad one but one that does just burble along without the panic or fear of needing to stop.

I think that’s the over-all feeling of the movie for me though — that Tarantino has created a film for himself that he can watch on repeat and lose himself inside this dreamlike masturbation fantasy of oneiric onanism. I don’t think of Margo Robbie as Sharon Tate sitting back in the cinema and watching herself on screen but Tarantino doing this with his own film.

Yet why not? He’s made a pretty, enjoyable, quite funny movie with serviceable dialogue and rammed with all his favourite references so of course he’s going to love it. I liked it. I didn’t love it and I guess, personally, I would’ve preferred to be watching the Italian films Rick Dalton was starring in instead.

Oh and one last point — why did Damien Lewis’ Steve McQueen look more like Carry On’s Sid James?