The beginning of Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood is intriguing, and very Tarantino. The atmosphere and music are dead-on. (For days now, Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show has been stuck in my head. It goes away sometimes, but then someone will mention babies or old ladies and it will come back.) But, a movie can only spend so long establishing the atmosphere before it becomes tedious.
That brings us to the middle, which … which is beyond tedious. Tedissimus. A great deal of Tarantino-like flashbacks and Pulp Fictiony side stories, and I felt all the cutting just served to undercut the plot. In the middle, I sat there and sighed and wished it was over.
The end, of course, is where it all comes together in a very grisly fashion, with a callback to another famous Tarantino movie. Does it make up for the middle? Well … at the time it was very satisfying, but now a few days later I can’t say it was worth it.