Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has hit $100 million in three weeks. Tarantino has released three other movies that hit $100 million. Django Unchained hit $100 million in its second week. Inglourious Basterds got there in four. Pulp Fiction got there at 27 weeks! Once Upon a Time took three weeks to get there and now it is Tarantino’s fourth hundred million dollar baby. Django topped out at $162 million, while Inglourious Basterds ended its final at $120. Hollywood might round out as the highest grossing film of his career.
It is yet another example of how social media is loud but insular. True of politics, true of Hollywood. People seem to not realize it’s, you know, a movie? Rather than get bogged down in that, let’s read Kim Morgan’s excellent piece on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood:
A moment can sneak up on you… and break your heart. And in Quentin Tarantino’s elegiac Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, there are obvious reasons to feel such things – you know history, something tragic and terrifying is going to happen, or could happen, but throughout the film you also feel something mysterious that you can’t quite place, and that feeling seems both universal and personal – regional, too – this vibe, both dark and light – that pours over Los Angeles like a promise or a threat. A light that can be both warm or blinding. And when it’s dark here – a dark night in Los Angeles – especially up in the silent canyons – often gorgeous – but winding and a little scary and enigmatic. It can feel like something Raymond Chandler wrote, “The streets were dark with something more than night.”
There are some things that movies and music can pull out of you. Things deeply embedded – what you grew up with – songs you listened to and fell for after digging through your parent’s LPs. Stories you heard, movies and TV you loved or were baffled by or haunted by, whether you lived with them at the time or found them later: they are imprinted in your brain, and flow out of you at unexpected moments – making you reflective or happy or freaked out or yearning. And it’s not just nostalgia – it’s something else. It’s wistful, at times, but also not something you’d necessarily want to return to. It’s too complicated and thorny. I don’t know what the word is – or even if a word in English exists for it…
