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Greetings from Barstow, California. Since I’m traveling across the country, I couldn’t attend the screening of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at AFI and may not see the movie until it comes out. I’m not saying Netflix will invite me, just saying. Rumor has it that David Fincher’s follow-up The Furious Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth was supposed to be at AFI, but instead fans of Tarantino’s film were shown the first 17 minutes. This is a great way to introduce a movie that’s more of a fan thing than an Oscar winner (IMO).
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood should have won Best Picture in 2019. The great thing about this movie is that it’s not trying to be an “Oscar movie,” but rather trying to tell a great story with the first two installments of Tarantino’s revenge trilogy, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. It’s a magical, realistic re-enactment of something that didn’t happen but should have happened.
Cliff Booth doesn’t make plays for Oscars. I included this in my predictions because, aside from Quentin Tarantino, no one makes movies as good as David Fincher. Since their styles are so different, it will be interesting to see what results this collaboration will bring. If I could see it sooner, I wouldn’t have to hear the ‘discourse’, but I have to help my daughter move, so I’m heading back to Ohio (‘But My City Is Gone’). If anyone cares, probably not. But for the record.
Indiewire covered it:
When we left Cliff Booth at the end of “Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood,” he was in Italy doubling for his friend Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio). With the launch of the new film in June 1977, his main connection to the film industry was working as a projectionist at the New Beverly Cinema. (A funny joke that got a big laugh from the AFI Fest audience, most of whom were probably well aware that Tarantino now owns that theater.) Booth’s actual occupation appears to be that of some sort of shady bag man and repairman. But the 17 minutes we saw in China wasn’t enough to give us a strong sense of where the plot was headed.
