They're Creepy and They're Kooky - The Manson Family!

Around New Year's, I said I wouldn't be doing a 2019 round-up review, because we still haven't seen a ;ot of them - Netflix is holding out on us. But they did let us watch Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), which was nice.

It is set in 1969. Leonardo DiCaprio is the star of a (made-up) TV western series, now cancelled. His career is a little precarious, taking roles in other shows, mostly as the heavy. His stunt man, buddy and go-fer, Brad Pitt, is even more precarious. He has trouble getting work because he maybe killed his wife. Tarantino shows him on a boat, getting yelled at by his wife, with a speargun in his hand...

Most of the movie is DiCaprio freaking out about his career, and Pitt cruising around, being cool. DiCaprio lives next door to Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, which is cool. Pitt keeps running into these cute hippy chicks, and eventually follows one out to the Spahn Ranch, where he once worked on westerns. Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) walks around town or bops around her house. It's sort of aimless, but also creepy, because we know what's coming.

But, and I don't think it's a spoiler anymore, it doesn't happen. The Manson kids decide to kill DiCaprio instead of Polanski, which was a bad idea. They get killed most conclusively. Which is a very good feeling, although just a fantasy.

The real joys of this are soaking up old 1960s LA - Musso and Frank Grill, the Strip,  the cars, the canyon. Tarantino dressed real LA locations to match 1969, with no CGI. We get a lot of real people showing up, not just the Mansons and Sharon Tate. Damian Lewis does a great Steve McQueen. We get Mama Cass and Michelle Philips. Real-life director Sam Wanamaker directs an episode of Lancer, a real TV show with (not real) DiCaprio. And we meet Bruce Lee.

This is kind of problematic, since he is made out to be a big jerk who couldn't really fight. That is not period accurate. But it sort of feeds into the fantasy: These All-American actors with their rough-and-ready stunt men are what's great about the country. Not those foreigners and the damned dirty hippies. As a member of the hippie community, I should take offense. But, hell, it's all in fun.

Not sure what to think about Sharon Tate watching and apparantly enjoying her last movie, the Dean Martin as super-spy Matt Helm trainwreck, The Wrecking Crew. I never managed to get through more than one of those stinkers.