4/5
Once Upon A Time...Back In Hollywood.
400 Pages. Writer: Quentin Tarantino.
Liverpool, 2007. Home of The Beatles. Fans waiting in droves like Americans at airports hoping they have the stones. A now as defunct as the neon one in Times Square, Virgin Megastores is packed to the tip like they were giving out free condoms for your cherry popping. Lines circle round to the rails like the bathrooms of 'Pulp Fiction'. So much so you don't even need a needle to the heart for this shot of adrenaline the special guest in attendance is giving you. He's definitively draped in leather to the boots like a rockstar, but this is no Ed Sullivan show. More like a man who always gives you a shot through the heart (and we aren't talking about Bon Jovi) with extra blood splattered for effect. On the Q.T. we're talking about THE director of cult classics. This town may have been made famous by John, Paul, George and Ringo, but tonight it's Quentin Tarantino's. This is 2007, so his popularity is at epic heights. Camera phones flipped and turned on and in his direction before social media truly became a thing. MySpace can wait. People were doing this for their own posterity. Here he actually is, signing copies of his screenplay 'Death Proof' for the Grindhouse double-bill with friend and 'From Dusk Till Dawn' director Robert Rodriguez's 'Planet Terror'. Before the battle of the 'Basterds', 'Django', eight that hate and more westerns than you could shake a saloons batwing doors at. This is the guy that gave us 'Resevoir Dogs', 'Jackie Brown'. The man who felt still as much as a myth as he was a legend. Here, in the UK. Straight from the USA. Rewriting the American dream and starting from the end. Everyone in line like me is thinking of the perfect question to ask him. We all work at a local cinema in a small town trains throw away. We're all dreamers hoping to become screenwriters too (one has made it as an actor thanks to that hard work). I figure that's four in one company, imagine one town, one country. The world?! I got to step it up. The questions come thick and fast. "What's in the case?". "What's in the case?" "What's in the"...OK, they come thick. People are asking what's in the box like Brad Pitt wondering why Gwyneth Paltrow didn't make it home for dinner. But people want to know. "Whatever you want it to be" the misunderstood director who is actually Paul Rudd gregarious in real life and not aloof kindly replies. Then it's my turn. I stroll up, nervous as hell. This is an idol. An inspiration. A great. A God. Someone who legend have it would be picked up by a man in a van after stumbling onto the main road after a night on the town that day. Just another classic once upon a time story for his Hollywood history. "Quentin, I've just got one question I've been dying to ask you." He looks up. "What do Salma Hayek's toes taste like?"
Foot fetish fans, I know that to even you that sounds like filth, but like Christoph Waltz putting one in DiCarpio's Candie man with a prostitute gun, "I just couldn't resist." And have you seen 'Dusk Till Dawn?' There's a moment tequila really makes Tarantino happy as the 'Desperado' star Hayek drives her foot into the directors mouth and pours tequila down her knee, all the way down her leg and into the man's mouth. Hey, one half of it is at least sexy. I may not mind feet, but I know a fetish when I see one. 'Death' was proof. As was, well every other film in this man's outstanding 'ography. Even in this book, they are pressed against glass, draped over falling red cinema chairs and laced with the hippie dirt and grime of a smogy, Sixties Los Angeles. Because this is 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood', Quentin Tarantino's first and brand new novel based on his latest, and quite possibly greatest movie. Another love letter to the land of Hollywood and movie masterpieces like Miramax. A sign of the sixties time you can't help read in the narration of 'Proof' vehicle driver Kurt Russell. Who along with fellow cameo star Bruce Dern, the late great Burt Reynolds who was meant to be in the movie that also saw another we lost in the lovely Luke Perry, 'Bill' himself David Carradine, legends like Robert Blake, 'Vol. 2' highlight Michael Parks and the late, great Robert Forster (yeah 'Jackie') is "especially" thanked amongst these "old timers" with their "tremendous" Hollywood stories realer than Charlie Murphy. Holding this book in your hands, they are the reason we get to read this period piece now. Although it's 'The Hateful Eight' hostage Jennifer Jason Leigh in cahoots who moonlight like moonshine as the audiobook versions official storyteller. And what better an accent to punctuate this prose? "Hollywood 1969...You should been there!" The strapline tells us once again. Well, now we get another chance for the new novel based on the film whose dust jacket cutting room floor, behind the scenes photos shows these extra chapters we're based on scenes actually filmed for the movie that directors cut may still find their way to that promised four part TV serial Tarantino still may give us. With blurbs of each player in this script harking back to television of its time and even commercials in the back for fellow "new" novels like 'The Switch' by Elmore Leonard and the novel that was adapted into 'Hollywood' star Al Pacino's 'Serpico', wherever books are sold. This one is the perfect picture that fits the part. Answering more questions than my one about Tinsletown stars toes. Like what really happened with 'The Great Escape'? What's with this Bruce Lee s###? Is there more Manson? And did Cliff really kill his f###### wife?
Pray, we will never tell, but there's definitely something in the water and you're going to need a bigger break to get through this addictive page turner that shows Tarantino is as nuanced a novelist as he is a compelling, cinematic storyteller. In fact that brutal moment is in some ways beautiful, such is the juxtaposition of Quentin's ever controversy courting cinematic work. Although the Bruce Lee story, true or not, doesn't sit so well with us as much as the much-maligned movie moment here (the film hinted that it thought this guy was all mouth. The book has more than a few foul choice words for the martial arts legend that we know will sit in even worse standing with his family), you can't deny the gun sticking conviction of Quentin, even in the face of criticism. Especially in these times. Rejecting hypotheses of those claiming he's sexist (Margot Robbie's Sharon Tate gets an even more respectful and deeper delve into character here, although her history rewriting end (which is now a Tarantino hallmark is omitted) or racist. Besides with what some of the characters say here about a certain 'Rio Bravo' star, you're going to think the dynamic director hates Dino. And let's not get started on Glen Campbell. All in all with legendary chapter names (from the Kurt Russell Ego as an actual planet, let alone as big, 'Brandy You're A Fine Girl' nod, to literally 'The Last Chapter') to one's actually written in the western first-person real-time of the Hollywood film they're shooting in this movie, to an alternative ending that's so subtle we won't spoil, but still as compelling as this cinematic classic (it features a different type of car pulling up and a phone, but no ones heads getting bashed into it...sadly for some), this nuanced novel is more than a companion piece. It's its own stand-alone classic. Showing this screenwriter can go as by the book well as you thought...and hoped. Whether going against type. How about the different location were DiCaprio and Pitt's characters meet Pacino's Agent Marvin and all that leads to? Or sticking to the script. The description of dinnertime with the dog evokes those traditional Tarantino indulging cherished moments like chow slop that writers have tried to put in descriptive words for years. More than making up for the fact that arguably the greatest long take in Tarantino history of Pitt driving down the Hollywood highway and past the contrasting bright lights of a big-screen, drive-in movie that his trailer...park home hides behind is merely a footnote. Some things are better seen than said...even for this man. Fun fact, Hollywood hearthrobs Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt were once up for the Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger roles in Ang Lee's 'Brokeback Mountain'. With all due respect to those two legends of their own, how monumental and game changing would that of been at the time, during their collective prime? Well, almost as big as two of the world's leading men starring in the same classic 'Hollywood' picture that is Oscar winning no longer a once upon a time or wish on a star dream. This book that's full of tidbit stories like that we won't spil just documents this definitive moment in movie lore for the record. This L.A confidential is no longer, hush, hush. This work of fiction pulp from the 'Pulp Fiction' director actually chicken after the egg was written following the filming and due to Q.T.'s love for movie novelizations. It doesn't get more sleepy, quiet backstreets to the all eyes on me, he, or she, whoevers the talk of the town, big city of stars than this in a true behind the scenes cut. Moviegoers and aspiring writers alike will want to take a page out of this book, answering more asks then seeing what lies beneath the clasps of that gold light. Now with the man himself even hinting at a 'Reservoir Dogs' novel that he considered first, we can't wait to leave the local bookstore with more in our little green bags. Oh and to conclude the story. As for Quentin's reply to my question about what lies beneath Hayek's heels, "pretty good, pretty good. If you ever get the chance I recommend it". You're move Salma. Only in Hollywood. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
