As a summer of so-so movies draws to a close, Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time In Hollywood" arrives to remind us what we've been missing. Remember when movies had style, star-power, an original vision, a sense of excitement? Tarantino, one of the last true cinephiles, certainly does. His latest release reaches into the past _ 1969, to be exact _ to pull some of that energy into the present.
The movie features two of today's biggest stars playing minor celebrities. Leonardo DiCaprio is Rick Dalton, an actor trying to parlay his Western television series "Bounty Law" into a movie career. Brad Pitt is Cliff Booth, Dalton's longtime stunt-double and gofer. While Rick goes on auditions, Booth runs errands or does minor repairs on Dalton's manse in the Hollywood Hills. Dalton's neighbors are the recently wed director Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha) and the actress Sharon Tate (a brief but enchanting Margot Robbie), who will soon cross paths with Charles Manson.
DiCaprio's Dalton is a treat _ a total ham but, as we intimate from his slight stammer, a dedicated one. The movie's heart, however, belongs to Pitt's weather-beaten Booth. Though a man of few words and even fewer ambitions, he's the guy you'd want in a pinch; in one terrific scene, Booth gets into an on-set fistfight with Bruce Lee (played as a preening poser by Mike Moh). Pitt's quiet, confident Cliff isn't too far from his brusque lieutenant in Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds."
