In or Outside His Element?

Rating: 8/10 (27 July 2019)

Those who know and respect the Tarantino canon might wonder what stories he has to tell about Hollywood at the end of the 1960s. Are movie actors twisted and maniacal enough to give him something to work with?
Five years older than he is, I also get prickly when such stories don't jive with my own memories. This movie gets much of it correct, so there is much to admire, but still has plenty of room for dispute.
QT was six years old when the Tate/LaBianca murders took place, but precocious enough to be as addicted to TV of that era as I was. On my first screening of Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood, I counted only one mention of Vietnam, and no footage of Ronald Reagan as Governor of California, even though in at least the early 1960s he and Nancy were still just as much a part of the same swinging Hollywood scene depicted here.
Call it a fine line between swaggering tough guys and Hollywood types who actually had to straddle the old glitzy era of Hollywood into that new era of sex, graphic violence, and swearing. Even Bruce Lee is depicted as a braggadocio, a far cry from his humble counterpart on the Kung Fu television series.
On the other hand, it is Tarantino fantasyland, where you can still buy Red Apple cigarettes (what Bruce Willis asks the bartender for in Pulp Fiction). Add to the mix much that is historically accurate about the Manson Family and Sharon Tate, with much that is deliberately inaccurate.
I can't tell if an iconic filmmaker has left his element, redefined his element, expanded his element, or stayed the same. Other than that, he's learned a lot about making films since Reservoir Dogs.