Los Angeles, 1969. TV star Rick Dalton, a struggling actor specializing in westerns, and stuntman Cliff Booth, his best friend, try to survive in a constantly changing movie industry. Dalton is the...
Birds Of Prey doesn’t really look that great,and to put it before Hollywood was such a weird choice… Anyway! SPOILER WARNING FOR THE WHOLE REVIEW.
Time for a GHOST STORY (not really,sounded cool tho). As I had the pleasure of watching Tarantino’s latest,Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,in IMAX,every second was slowly graduating to the monster of Tarantino’s Feet Obsession crawling up our sleeves to ensure we had the creepiest time of our lives...In IMAX with a movie aiming for 1969 craze.
But all jokes aside,this may be the most insane movie of 2019 for a myriad of reasons,mainly for the fact that this weekend I’ve seen movies with such unexpected endings.
This one checking every box it set in its 1st and 2nd Act,and still ending it with a huge smile on my face. Tarantino’s look of 1969 Los Angeles is stylish,on-beat and breathes of such campiness and dirt-ass-ery...whatever it is.
What’s even greater is that this can also be interpreted as a love letter to Western Movies,since several sequences we see Rick Dalton (played by DiCaprio) acting in a scene the crew’s filming and still feeling like we’re in a Western,even if we know it’s a scene they’re filming.
And so much more - the Soundtrack rocks,the Villains work...for the brief seconds they’re in (even if it’s unrealistic to see a group of hippies plan a murder for 6 Months,right after Cliff Booth,played by Pitt,kicked that guy’s ass),the acting rocks,the Bruce Lee cameo kicks so many asses and the fact that they reference Italian Cinema as a terrible,really bad genre (even if it’s mentioned for just Westerns) speaks so many volumes with the garbage quality movies thrown into our cineplexes every second (rarely we get a La Vita è Bella or Lucio Fulci in here) and I don’t know why,but I love that Sony,of all things,is also part of the story (it’s mentioned with Screen Gems,and we see Rick outside Columbia Pictures at one scene).
It also helped that I saw some Swinging Sixties this week,as you can smell some of that inspiration in here (or,at least,in checkbox mode) - Having Fun seeing a guy go somewhere with an unexpected ending (Easy Rider),a nice little day in Los Angeles without a big saving the world plot and,instead,a small plot about a guy still trying to achieve the impossible (Model Shop) - You know where I’m going with this. Never for a single second did I get bored or laugh twice,since the movie was that enthralling…..Whenever it was Rick Dalton trying to get his fame back together or Cliff Booth doing crazy shit to the hippies,or any shot that featured bare feet.
I didn’t have any problem with Sharon Tate’s (played by Robbie) arc,but I still felt like you could’ve easily removed it,since the rest still feels glued together (but oh no,we have to connect it to the last seconds,when she and Rick finally meet),and again,the hippies as the villain feel outlandish and out-of-place. Yea,even if it means seeing Harley Quinn Smith (alongside other hippies) screaming shit at Brad Pitt for kicking that guy’s ass.
But yo. That’s literally what’s wrong with it. So,I finally saw it,and I feel like I’m the last reviewer of the Instagram Movie Community to see it. Kinda like a quest,where everyone already did it,but you’re still thriving to achieve it. I really wanted this to end my Summer,and with the style and substances (and he amount of feet) it carried,I feel like this could’ve ended my summer in style. I’m so glad that the great movie from Sony this year is this one,and I can’t wait to see Tarantino’s next (and,sadly,final) outing as a Director. Even if you saw 2 movies like these,you can still tell dude’s got some talent in his pockets!
