DRUGGY DRAMA
Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood
This should've been Quentin Tartantino’s Oscar winner. Set in 1969 Los Angles, it’s a buddy movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio as fading cowboy actor Rick Dalton and Brad Pitt (he won the Oscar for Supporting Actor) as his stuntman sidekick Cliff Booth. Rick lives next door to director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate, who would be killed by Charles Manson devotees on August 9 of that year. Manson makes a brief appearance in the film, but it’s his “girls” who play major roles, especially Pussycat (Margaret Qualley), who lures Cliff to the Spahn Ranch where they’re all hanging out. Along the way, Rebecca Rittenhouse as Michelle Phillips smokes a joint at a party with Mama Cass and Cliff hits an LSD-laced cigarette, which figures into the bloody denouement. Was it all an acid dream? Starz, Prime, YouTube
DRUGGY DRAMA
Charlie Says
A companion movie to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Mary Harron’s take on Charles Manson (based on Ed Sanders’ book, The Family) focuses on the trio of women who were part of his death cult in Los Angeles in the late ’60s. While Manson makes a brief appearance in Quentin Tarantino’s flick (see review above), he’s front and center in Harron's. Matt Smith’s Manson portrayal is right on and chilling. Hannah Murray as Leslie Van Houten captures the gullibility of the girls who got caught up in Manson’s strange trip. He doses them all on acid at one point. Sadly, Leslie turned down a rescue offer that would have altered her life. On Demand, Prime, YouTube
