Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

In 1969, Hollywood legend Judy Garland died of an accidental barbiturate overdose. With her death and with Midnight Cowboy soon becoming the first X-rated film to win Best Picture, it was the end of the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood and the birth of a new, less innocent era. A new, edgier actor named Al Pacino, who appears in this film as a Hollywood agent, made his debut that same year. And Sharon Tate, the actress and model who was married to Roman Polanski, was murdered (along with her unborn baby and guests) in her home by the Charles Manson gang.

This is the setting for the newest film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It is quite unlike his previous films. Controversial and a little goofy, sure, but fantastically acted and more or less engaging.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are the two main stars here, and they are the best part. DiCaprio is Rick Dalton, a fictitious actor going through a bit of a midlife crisis as he realizes he might have peaked and his acting talent might actually be minimal. He's got a slick leather jacket and a cool necklace, but he's a mess, constantly drinking, smoking, and married to the idea that he's a has-been. Pitt is Cliff Booth, his stunt double who these days essentially makes his living by driving Dalton around and taking care of his other errands. While they live in different economic worlds, they rely on each other and have tremendous loyalty. Their stories essentially split into two as Dalton goes to film a guest appearance on a pilot as the heavy opposite real-life James Stacey, who is played here by Timothy Olyphant. In this sequence, which some might find superfluous, DiCaprio screams, weeps, and seems to be having as much fun as he ever has had as an actor.

While Rick is busy filming, his old buddy Cliff is roaming around the streets of Hollywood, where he runs across a young cohort of followers of the real-lie Charles Manson, who appears briefly here stumbling on Polanski's property. (Manson is played by Australian actor Damon Herriman.) This real-life event--the murders at the hands of the Manson Gang--looms large over the entire story, though the film itself is essentially Tarantino's love letter to the movie business.

One undeniably positive aspect of Once Upon A Time in Hollywood is the cast. DiCaprio and Pitt are fantastic together. They both essentially came of cinematic age around the same time, and it's nice that they work so well together. Accents are not DiCaprio's strong suit, but it doesn't matter. His work here is among his finest. Robbie hits all the right notes as Tate, although there has been considerable criticism about her lack of screen time and how much she is given to do. The appearances of veterans like Pacino, Bruce Dern, and Kurt Russell are also enjoyable. But the breakout star is Mike Moh, who portrays Bruce Lee. Lee is rather braggadocios on set, and Cliff, who finally gets some work as a stunt man on the set, is not impressed in the slightest. A fight breaks out between the two, and it's one of the best parts of the film. (It should be noted, however, that Lee's daughter has strongly objected to the way her father was portrayed.)

Other conflicts appear throughout, particularly in what is likely its most notable (and perhaps controversial) scene. It shoots out of nowhere and feels like Tarantino being Tarantino but for all the wrong reasons. But it is Tanatino, and it's also a fairy tale, one that drags on too long. It's his first post-Weinstein film, and part of the deal he negotiated with Sony was to have final cut over the finished product. That was unfortunate, because a lot of what's included has no place being there. We've seen a lot of this stuff before from this director; do we really need to see it all again?

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Suicide Squad

Let's cut to the chase: The good news is that Suicide Squad, the third entry in the D.C. Extended Universe, is not nearly as bad as this spring's Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. The bad news is that it is still bad. What could have been a fun movie about antiheroes being truly heroic, an antithesis to the overly moody previous D.C. films, is instead a fairly formulaic, rather dull flick that tries to play it safe and yet results in another miss.

Viola Davis plays Amanda Weller, a government official who concocts a bizarre plan to form a task force containing the worst of the worst super villains ever known. These malefactors, she believes, might just be able to do some good for once. In return, the villains get some time deducted from their sentences. If they disobey or try to escape, they die. Fortunately for Weller, if something goes wrong, they are, as Deadshot says, the patsies.

Deadshot could be described as the Suicide Squad's leader, if they needed one. He's a hired assassin who's never missed, and who first appeared in D.C.'s comics in 1950. Here, he's played by Will Smith, who is just as charismatic as ever but who has not been the lead in a blockbuster since Men in Black 3 from 2012. The other two big stars in the film are Margot Robbie, Smith's co-star from Focus, and Oscar-winning "method actor" Jared Leto as cinema's most notorious clown, the Joker. Leto has some big shoes to fill, as fans have argued for years whether the best on-screen portrayal of the Joker has been from Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, or Heath Ledger (or, I suppose, Cesar Romero). Leto does not come close to them. It's not a bad performance, per se, but during the best moments it feels like it's simply a repeat of all the stuff we've previously seen. Leto's method acting doesn't save the performance; I'm not sure what sending rats and used condoms to his co-stars during filming did to enhance his acting. And yet it's not nearly as disappointing as how Robbie as Harley Quinn, the Joker's lover, is squandered; despite a pretty good performance by the always good Robbie, this is a role that, as Alison Wilmore of BuzzFeed describes, is "made into damaged dolly jerk-off material."

It would be hard to argue that this movie isn't anti-women. At one point, one of the villains (good guy villains, I mean) punches a woman and then says, "She had a mouth." And it's a comic relief moment. It is 2016, right?

On a better note, considering how devoid of diversity Hollywood is these days (#OscarsSoWhite), this might be one of the most diverse movies around: Smith, Davis, and Adewale Skinnuoye-Agbaje, covered in makeup as Killer Croc, are black; Jay Hernandez as El Diablo, who throws fire from his fists, is Latino; Karen Fukuhara plays a swordswoman bodyguard and is Asian-American; and Adam Beach as Slipknot is Canadian First Nations.    

But most of this movie is a mess, and most of the blame for this could fall on David Ayer, its writer and director. I'm not too surprised. Training Day, which he wrote, is very overrated, and Fury, which he wrote and directed, borders on trash. End of Watch is barely tolerable. There are some positive aspects of his direction, though. With an eclectic soundtrack that includes "Without Me," "You Don't Know Me," "Bohemian Rhapsody," and "Fortunate Son," he at least shows us that he has good taste in music. And the visual effects and color palate are mostly spectacular.

Suicide Squad is not as bad as I was expecting, but it's still bad, and considering that Suicide Squad is essentially strike three for Warner Bros. in their efforts to try and match the powerhouse that has been Marvel Studios, I'd say it's time to call it quits. No Justice League, no Wonder Woman, perhaps not even a stand-alone Batman film directed by and staring Ben Affleck. It's time to retire the costumes.

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