Once upon a time in a cult film class in Alfred University, they watched Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood and it was the final film the class would watch. It was one of the newest films the class had watched this semester and was nominated for ten academy awards and was able to win the Oscar for best supporting actor. The film received wide critical praise and was considered one of the best films of 2019.

This was the fourth time I have watched Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood and each time I watch the fim, I love it even more than the previous time. I just love that it is a love letter to Hollywood and that it is what makes it great to me. I have always loved any movie that comes out of Hollywood, whether that be a big blockbuster or a little indie film. This film reminds me how much I love Hollywood as a whole. I was sad at first when this or 1917 didn’t win best picture, but after seeing Parasite in theaters, I could understand why that beat all the other films. I was really happy that it at least won for best supporting actor and this is one of my favorite roles that I have seen Brad Pitt in.

I first saw this film with my mom and I knew about the Manson murders and thought that is what I was going to see with the end of the film, but I was thoroughly wrong and glad that I was wrong. When I first saw the film with my mom, she really loved the film and thought it was great. That is the same way I felt as well and we both loved the end film. In the theater I laughed so much during the murder spree. What made me laugh the most was when Rick Dalton brought out the flame thrower and just torched the one girl. I was glad that we did not see the murder of Sharon Tate and I had to explain to my mom how it was really suppose to happen at the end of the film.

I really enjoyed the reading this week “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood: The Final Rodeo” by Priscilla Page and that is because I like her analysis of the film and I just really liked the article in general. There was one little paragraph that I really enjoyed from the reading and that was the paragraph where both Rick and Cliff play the hero and the villain and I never noticed that until I read this article. I also like the part that this is Tarantino’s most layered film and I would have to definitely agree with that. There is so much to this film that I am always finding new things in the film that I never knew about before. I also like that the characters are also layered as well and that just adds to the whole film. Some of my favorite movies are when there is a lot of detail put into the film and also that the characters are extremely complex as well. Both Rick and Cliff are  complex characters because we know certain things about their lives, but we don’t know all the details, like if Cliff murdered his wife. 

Now to talk about the semester as a whole. I really enjoyed this class and I finally got to watch some films that I have always wanted to watch. My issue with movies is I try to find the positive in any, sometimes that is very difficult with some films, and that is also the case for a few of the films this semester. I tried to like every screening and find the positive in them, but there are a few films that I did not like as much as the rest of the films. 

I already knew my favorite film of the semester was going to be Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood and that is still the case. But there were a few films that came close to taking that title for me, one even more so than the rest of them. I liked the film The Warriors because it was basically one big chase and with the comic book transitions, it was like watching a comic book.

I liked the films Dazed and Confused and Detroit Rock City because it had songs in it that I loved and Dazed had a few iconic memes that I have been trying to figure out where the origin was.

But, there was one film that came close to beating Once for me and that film was Suspiria. I loved the new Suspiria when I watched it and was always trying to figure out a way to watch the original. I never could and when I saw the original was on the syllabus, I got very excited to watch it and I loved that film. That is one film I think should not be removed from the syllabus because it is an iconic horror film, and the style of the film is very unique as well.

Now for the films that I really didn’t like. There were really only two films that I didn’t like and that was Maniac and also Pink Flamingos. I didn’t like Maniac because there was no plot to follow and it was just a bad film to watch. I didn’t like Pink Flamingos because it just was weird to me. I liked some parts of it, but overall, I didn’t really much like it. I would keep these two films part of the syllabus because they definitely have a cult following and are two films that can prove that any film can gain a cult following.

Overall I really liked this class and I didn’t want it to end. Even though we went with the only format, I still enjoyed this class. I am glad that I took this class as part of my final semester at Alfred University. I only wish that I could have taken more film classes during my four years here. I will leave with one video that best sums up Quentin Tarantino in a funny way. Also I can’t wait for his tenth and final film, whatever that might be, and I do like the rumors as to what it might be.