"Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood" is a film with two very different plots through most of the movie. Towards the end, the stories converge in an ultra-bloody ending which reminded me of "Inglorious Basterds". Without that nutty and VERY violent ending, I enjoyed the story quite a bit....but with it, it is a film I could just as soon have skipped.

The main story is about an actor, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), who used to star in a popular western but now is mostly getting by playing villains on various westerns. His best friend and associate is his stuntman, Cliff (Brad Pitt). Much of the film is about their lives and I found this really interesting for a variety of reasons. I loved Pitt and DiCaprio's acting and roles and I also really loved the look of 1969 Hollywood.

And then....came the parts I didn't love. At the same time, the story switches back and forth to Sharon Tate as well as members of the Mansion family before the massacre that killed Tate and several friends in late 1969. And, while you'd THINK this would end with this killing in the film, it IS a Tarentino film...and like in "Inglorious Basterds", it turns into a bloodbath that NEVER happened in real life...and Tate and her friends are NOT the targets. It totally rewrites history and is very strange....but the ferocity of the violence really, really turned me off.

So on balance, is it worth seeing? Perhaps...provided you have a high threshold for violence, gore and the like. And, you have to not mind how history is completely re-written at the end. Overall, an interesting film that left me a bit uneasy and unsatisfied. I REALLY wish they'd just focused on Rick and Cliff...they were incredibly interesting characters.

By the way, if you do watch the film, pay attention to the cans of dog food Cliff feeds his pooch. One is rat flavored, another raccoon...