'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' may be Tarantino's best

For the longest time I've been waiting for Quentin Tarantino to make a movie like this -- and I'm saying this as someone who loved his big popcorn movies Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds, and even came around to loving his more polarizing western The Hateful Eight. But this film, his most grounded since Jackie Brown might be hist most personal yet, which why it may age into being viewed as his best.

It's probably too early to make that definitive judgment, but if nothing else the movie is a culmination of all the skills he's honed since he first became a filmmaking superstar over 25 years ago. This film, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, comes at a point where his off-screen image has taken a lot of hits, but rather than go the safe route he's made one of his most ambitious and provocative movies to date.

Make no mistake this film will have a lot of detractors. With one notable exception (and it's not Margot Robbie's Sharon Tate) the female characters are nor as well developed, the foot fetish thing -- omnipresent in his other films is the most egregiously indulgent here -- and the film is for and about people who have a little wistful nostalgia for an era of Hollywood that was undeniably cool but problematic by modern standards to say the least.

And yet, despite any caveats about its excess, I loved it. It almost felt like Tarantino's attempt at an Altman-esque character study. His heroes are rich, three-dimensional and meaty movie star roles for Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, both of whom give some of the best performances of their career.

DiCaprio has perhaps never had a chance to be funnier on screen as Rick Dalton, a washed up, insecure actor who is struggling to figure out where he fits in the new Hollywood landscape. This fictional character lives next to the very real Sharon Tate (who serves as more of a symbol of purity and innocence here than a fully realized person) and dreams of gaining access to her hip ascending crowd (which includes wunderkind director Roman Polanski).

And Pitt, who slyly steals this movie, is DiCaprio's right hand man, shoulder to cry on, driver, repair man and stunt guy -- Cliff Booth -- who's the epitome of cool under pressure.

Every Pitt line delivery feels note perfect, he somehow has never looked more handsome, and in his older age he's discovering so many new notes to play as an actor I'm excited to see where his career goes from here.

Much of the movie is an episodic day(s) in the life of these two characters as they navigate a stunningly realized 1969 L.A. Clearly, one of Tarantino's great strengths is evoking a world, he's made a credible WWII film, a slavery era epic, a kung fu thriller -- and this is his most immersive film yet. You can practically smell the mountain air, and while some may quibble with the length of his driving sequences here, I think they effectively transport you to the dream-like atmosphere of historical fiction you're having wash over you.

With the exception of the copious feet placement, this is Tarantino's smoothest, least pushy screenplay to date.There's less arch posturing and more honest discovery. As much as I love the florid monologues he gives Christoph Waltz in bis movies, he gets just as much mileage out of two leads who are pretty inarticulate and internal.

Hovering like a shadow over everything is the specter of the Manson family, which is well-rendered and scary in this film without being overplayed. And the movie does an incredible job of creating tense eerie scenes paired alongside some big laughs, mostly at DiCaprio's expense.

I can see the film not playing well with people who aren't as enamored with this era of Hollywood (with its influx of spaghetti westerns) as I am and Tarantino is. For audiences expecting a faster paced romp, they may start to feel the film's running time, but I felt like this was one of his most assured features yet, and it when it reveals what it really is -- which is a third part of what could be called  Tarantino's romantic historically revisionist period -- it's somehow elegant and poignant despite some heinously gory violence.

I appreciate that Tarantino makes films for adults, that he shoots on film, that he appreciates all cinema not just what's considered classy or cool. I always get my money's worth at one of his films -- from the music to the cinematography to the performances (there are so many good ones here I almost forgot about Al Pacino!) -- that I can just sit back and have a ball.

Of course, there will be plenty of people turned off by Tarantino's obsessions -- this is yet another film that features a lot of unapologetic violence inflicted on women -- but I am someone who is admittedly on board with them. This is now the third movie (following Us and Booksmart) that will likely be in my top 10, possibly top 5 this year.

It's a movie I Iike more and more as I think about it, and boy am I glad not to have had any of it spoiled for me. It just may be my new number one.