Date Posted:17:55:28 08/04/19 Sun Author: SWC Subject: "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"
Just saw this movie and liked it until the ending, which I found weird, (sorry, no spoilers). The reason I'm posting about it here is that a lot of it is about 50's and 60's westerns. Leonardo DeCaprio plays a Steve McQueen wanna be who started in a series obviously based on "Wanted: Dead or Alive". Damian Lewis of "House" has one of a bunch of celerity cameos portraying Steve McQueen.
The DeCaprio character, after his show is cancelled, winds up playing bad guys on shows like "The FBI" and "Mannix". There's no Bonanza mention but you might remember of of the ranching shows that surfaced in Bonanza's wake, Lancer, and the pilot for that takes up a chunk of the film with DeCaprio's character playing the bad guy that Joe Don baker plays. That pilot is on You-Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvdV7HEb1lE&t=1s
The scenes depicted in the movie do not appear in the pilot but the general plot is the same, (a gang of bad guys is trying to force every rancher off his land and somebody's got to stand up to them). DeCaprio has similar make-up to Baker's, (the young Joe Don, in turn, looks like Marlon Brando in "One Eyed Jacks".
You may or may not like the film, (depending on what you think of the ending). But I found the depiction of the TV industry in the late 60's interesting and DeCaprio and Brad Pitt, (as his loyal stuntman/handyman and protector), have great chemistry together. Rick will find it interesting that Pitt's character challenges Bruce Lee, (in his Kato uniform) to a fight and winds up throwing him into an easily dented car before it's broken up.
Good to see a post from you. I try to remember to visit this forum a few times per year just to see if I recognize any of the frequent contributors from nearly 20 years ago. It is a shame that this forum has essentially been abandoned. We had some very interesting discussions here back in the day.
I have heard some fairly good reviews regarding "Once Upon A Time in Hollywood" and will probably choose to see it at some point.
