"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" (2019)

I used to think Tarantino was being a drama queen when he mused about quitting directing after ten feature films. After seeing "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", I'm wondering if the wunderkinder is running out of ideas. On the surface, the story is "Can't Miss" the adventures of a past-his-prime TV star and his grinning semi deadly favorite stuntman hetero life partner in the story-dense lead up to the famous 1969 Manson Family/Sharon Tate Murders. Play it right, and Tarantino has his own personal "Nashville" going on, but alas this got played wrong and instead we get a glorious disjointed mess that somehow manages to accidentally sully the good name of the Late Bruce Lee in the Bargain (a cringeworthy sequence that just tells me more than anything, that Tarantino is slipping...). A perceptive friend of mine spoke well of all the performances, DiCaprio & Pitt are at the height of their form and charisma, but at two hours and forty minutes, "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" is devoid of the memorable monologues and snappy dialogue that is a hallmark of all Tarantino's prior works. Instead we get meticulous recreations of the backlot of western TV productions, dense period detail, clever celebrity impersonations, clouds of cigarette smoke and after that...precious little. Oh and Margot Robbie's Feet, those filthy soles seem to have replaced Uma Thurman's toes as Q.T. "Shoeless Muse". Oh don't get me wrong, Margot Robbie's Sharon Tate impersonation is flawless, but that only because Robbie is skilled at projecting vacuity as well as authenticity. The climax is particularly graphic and sadistic, even for Tarantino, he can get away with it, because its pure grievance driven mayhem unleashed on the Manson Family, a generation spanning source of hate and fear in the Tinseltown Zeitgeist. Indeed it's Charles Manson's homicidal spree that told Hollywood that the relationship with it's audience had developed fatal consequences...fractured and fatal. Frankly, the film is glorious horse shit, with Tarantino symbolically destroying Hollywood's darkest fear with...a flamethrower. Dunno, Q.T. not sure how you or anyone can top that...