Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

I'm a huge Tarantino fan but I think OUATIH is his worst film by a country mile. The plot (?) meanders around in circles going nowhere for two hours and then there's 15 minutes of cool, violent, vintage QT.

My worst fear was that this was going to be a straight novelisation of the movie, but it's so much more and SO much better. We get more backstory on Cliff - I would gladly watch a whole movie about him now! - and unlike the movie, Rick's character actually has an arc and is different at the end. Without spoilers,… show more.

Woody made fun of movie novelizations in Manhattan, but they have a special charm, especially when written by the director.* Tarantino’s gripping novel captures the changing of the guard in Hollywood ’69 as only a native son could, with special attention paid to Manson’s floppo music career.

The book also features some intense scenes that aren’t in the flick. For instance, in one chapter, Manson Family acolyte “Pussycat” creepy crawls into an elderly couple’s home at midnight and strips naked in their bedroom while they sleep and then…yeah, well, try not turning the pages, I dare ya. 

*(Another fine example… show more.

I saw the film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood before reading the book. And I loved the film, one of Tarantino’s best, where – as in Inglourious Basterds – he uses fictional characters to create a world in which factual characters might exist, to the extent that the reality of the script and the reality of real life become inevitably intertwined, in ways in which reality can be distorted to a better end. This playing of fantasy and reality and the myths (the Once Upon A Time…) that storytelling can distort, is ably rendered by this book which I… show more.

I was obsessed with the 2019 movie, and now even more so with the book. Sure, it helps that my other obsession is late-1960s Hollywood, but Tarantino just colors the world so beautifully with his own inventions like Rick Dalton and his TV show Bounty Law and blends them seamlessly with Hollywood staples like Roman Polanski and Steve McQueen. Harkening back to the days of paperback novelized versions of popular films, Tarantino captures his own movie but adds extra scenes, more conversation between real yet obscure Hollywood movers and shakers, and evidently has a blast while doing it. His glee… show more.