Once Upon In Hollywood - or is it?

Hold on to your hats,

Lugubrus Van der Thi tackles “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

California, land of the free. Renowned auteur and enfant terrible Quentin T. is shooting the definitive account of the End of the American Dream.

“Right right, and then he shoots down the gang of desperadoes from the barrio and he hotshots the 1957 Décapotable Cadillac to crash the Honolulu Atom (TM) Monokini Contest at the Hef' Mansion where he inadvertently butt-offs Steve mcQueen into the swimming pool where Mia Farrow, Anton LaVey, a teenage Fabio, Queen of the gossip column Louella Parsons and Henry Kissinger are partying surrounded by a bunch of nubiles just as the second (the first one actually quit before the start of the shoot) stunt man from “Plan Nine from Outer Space” suffers a cardiac arrest on top of the diving board”

Harvey Weinstein: “OK OK I get the picture.”

Quentin T: “We then cut to Route 67 Interstate B Cross-Section South where the drive-in is about to kickstart its All Nite Kim Hunter Extravaganza” (carries on for the next ten minutes)

Harvey Weinstein: “I'm afraid I will have to stop you here son (places to see, actresses to invite to my bathroom). You're the creative, you have white card*.”

“Just make sure you don't start your effin' film with another twenty-minute dialogue scene.”

Quentin T.: “No problemo, you 'my nigga Harv'.'”

Harvey Weinstein: “Hmpf.”

Fast-forward six months later.

Leonardo di Crapio is an overrrated, former fresh-faced actor in the midst of a mid-life crisis. Or at least his character is.

“Think, Leo, think! You're the Greatest Actor Of Your Generation (bar Daniel Day-Lewis, Joaquin Phoenix, Fabrice Luchini, Emma Watson and a dozen others), you need to dig deep and draw upon your untapped resources forged at the altar of your existence carved out of the School of Hard Knocks which made you the -Oh whass the point!”

Pours himself a Scotch. And another.

Enters Braaad.

Braaad, looking effortlessly hott and at one with himself: “Hi.”

Crapio: “Hi Brad, what have you got for me today?”

Braaad: “Well Leonardo my friend, Quentin wants us to shoot the scene where you knock out that Chinese kid, Bruce Li or something.”

Crapio, bitterly: “You're the muscles, Brad. You do it.”

Pours himself another Shandy.

“I'm just a washed-up TV actor and you're my stunt-man. So much for exposition.”

Braaad, genuinely pained: “Now then Leo, now then, don't say things like that, we make a good team you and me ...We complement each other.”

Crapio: “Hmpf.”

Braaad: “Yes we do, of course we do. Come 'ere ya big ball of fluff, give Your Number One Fan a big hug, it's gonna be al-right, I promise...”

Crapio: “'You sure?”

Braaad: “'Sure I'm sure. At first Quentin wanted “us” to sort out Muhammad Ali but I convinced him to come to his senses. That five-foot fellow stunt-man from Seattle will be less of a stretch.”

Crapio: “Alright then, but make him promise he won't spring Marion Cotillard on me in return.”

Braaad: “'ll make sure he won't.”

Off they go and Braaad kicks the shit out of Bruce Lee before beating single-handedly the Harlem Globe Trotters.

Quentin T.: “Cool! That's cool! I'm lovin' that! You sure bitch-slapped them something massive here! My fanbois will love that!”

Braaad: “Sure it wasn't a bit much?”

Quentin T.: “Not at all! Not at all! Look, on the 03-23^rd of 51-19 Howard Hughes stalwart Hugh Jarse (Jr), five foot eight, 70 Pounds, found himself cornered by” (goes on a thrilling anecdote while Braaad goes and personally apologises to every single one of his scene partners) “...and that's what I'm talking about! Bitching! Yo' my nigga Brad!”

Braaad stops in his tracks, advances upon Tarantino.

Tarantino's Head of Casting throws herself between them. She is an angel and her eyes are green. “Hold it there Mr. Pitt! Quentin didn't mean nothing by that! That's just his endearing way of speaking! 'Comes from the 'Hood, so he does! You'll just have to excuse him, after all he's a genius!”

Braaad: “Not sure about that... Not sure about that either...”

Meanwhile Crapio is stewing in his own juice.

“Concentrate Leo, concentrate! So your character is about to undergo a life-changing revelation -But how can I carry this off, oh Lord? How can I carry it off? How can I break free of the shackles of youth and soar like an eagle unburdened by intimations of mortality and the IRS's hanging off my arse!” (“Or ass, even.”)

“What shall I do? Oh how to convey my inner turmoil tinted with wistful regret?? ... Shall I compare to a rrrose, or an ingrown toenail? Shall I tear my heart asunder and leave it for the vultures to thrrrive on?”

Enters a ten-year old girlie that steals the scene and melts everyone's heart.

Crapio: “That's it! That's it Leonardo! You must be the scene! Don't inhabit it, be it!! Grab it with both hands and don't look no further! Tomorrow's another day and again and again – Nothing else matters than being in The Here and Now! Hic et nunc! Ipso facto! Moritori te salutant, Apolonialapiedra, sic mundus creatus est pizzicato!”

Friendly guy Braaad smiles at his friend.

This marks the end of the first two hours. Your man the “radio DeeJay” (sic) drops a shit-hot choon on the soundtrack, straight out of Quentin T.'s personal ten-thousand vinyls collection.

“...and this is why you are all invited to test DayGlo Brillo (TM) at the Rex – DayGlo Brillo, the brillo pad to atomic-shine your brand new Dodge! (DayGlo Brillo is a product of Allied Alloys Incorporated – Do not use at home).”

Commercial ends, Quentin T. starts up again.

“OK let's go, I wanna see some blood people! Gimme a boner everyone! Think Stella Stevens in “The Nutty Professor”! Think David Warner's bouncing head in “The Omen”! (the original eh, not the remake) Everyone on your marks? Ready-let's-go!”

The scene: a bunch of Mexicans are shooting the shit out of each other in a Disney theme park, scattering Bobby Soxers and college gym rats in assorted blazers. The weather-beaten detective one week away from retirement and his wisecrackin' sidekick are called to deal with the ethnic miscreants – but instead they get their heads blown off all over the milkshake counter. The gunfight then spills over to the casino next door. Uncredited Asian customer (Chow Yun-fat) hits the jackpot: “I tie my shoe laces you tie your shoe laces!” Gets a machine-gun round in the face for his troubles.

Quentin T.: “Cool! That's -like- cool! I -like- totally approve of the exploding testicles in the original (mint condition) Peppermint Frappé blender yes but … wait a minute. Wait a minute. ?? Where are the handlebar moustaches? Where are they? Hey, you, Mexicans, where are your handlebar moustaches?”

Mexican actor (Danny Trejo): “We don't all sport one, truth be told”

Quentin T.: “Nonsense! Nonsense! Back in '69 before the famous District of San Antonio vs. Alexis “la paloma fatal” Love gangbang case, all cartel members were obligated to sprout one! -Cos' that's how they recognised each other!!”

Danny Trejo: “I stand corrected. Still, my younger compadres might not be aware of this senior Quentin, not everyone is as old as”

Quentin T., interrupting him: “And what about the crucifixes? What about the crucifixes??? I wanna see some sacred here people! My films are a profound reflexion on the dialectical nature of redemption versus self-damnation in a desperately secular macrocosm awash with commercial distraction and cultural trivia - I can't be doing without religious shit yo! When John Woo shot the seminal “Killer” (1989, rated 18), where do you think he staged the final shoot-out? In his Momma's embroidery class? Huh?? In yo sister's squat flute quartet? Did he fuck! In a friggin' church that's where he did!! A freakin' church shit-stuffed with statues of angels exploding and a pirated version of Nena's second album on the soundtrack!!”

… “Don't you people know anything??”

Braaad and Crapio mouth silent apologies to the actors from behind Tarantino's back.

“Do it again! And this time I wanna see some motherfreakin' slowmo close-ups of gold chains and holy medals! Pronto!”

Tarantino storms off to his caravan. Phones Harvey Weinstein.

“Harvey Harvey, they are demeaning my artistic vision, they are snatching 'sploitation from the jaws of verisimilitude! I can't be working in these conditions, this is not right, this is not what Alan Fleischer had in mind when he embarked upon the shooting of “Zoo Zero” in 1978 (released in 1979, certificate “interdit aux moins de 16 ans”), your man would not have stood for such ineptitude!”

Harvey Weinstein: deep sigh.

“You're the artist here. Anything you say kiddo.”

“Give 'em another chance. Forgive them for they do not know. You must remain true to your vision: unleash the dogs of flick and don't spare on the tomato sauce, you're absolutely right: we wanna get us some escapist entertainment so we do, it's not like the US of A suffers from an abundance of personal weaponry enabled mania for hair-triggered brainless rough justice!”

Quentin T., sniffing: “Ahhh, 'feel so much better now. Thank you Harvey, thank you.”

Harvey Weinstein: “That's my boy. That's my meal ticket. Go 'n get 'em tiger!”

Tarantino storms out of his caravan to recapture the set.

“All right people, LET'S FUCK!! This time for real!! Don't Daddy-oh me you 'so witty like I don't know my Cheech from my Chong! You put a foot wrong one time in this scene, I bitch-slap you straight to your mother like Tex Avery's wolf's just spotted Vampirella in a bikini!! Who's the king of the midnite jungle here, huh? Who's the capo di capo of Category III remasterings??”

Second team assistant: “Oh you 'so cool Quentin. I wanna mass-produce bite-size -yet toddler friendly- replicas of you for Planet Hollywood.”

And so they reshoot the scene. Heads splatter on bakelite seats, vintage jukeboxes in working condition, wood panels, splayed white socks (??), extras' brillantined hairdoes, furry dices, Red Apple cigarette packs, Kurt Russell's eyepatch, your mother in a thong, psychedelic bongs, Bugs Bunny (TM) calendars.

Quentin T.: “And... cut! That was so cool, man! Like total cool, amaze balls and shit! The shotgun action straight into the peace sign bandanna: 100% cool! Eat your heart out, les frères Dardenne! Who else could have thought of that! What better metaphor to signify the post-ironic re-appropriation of ball-breaking boring idealistic Zeitgeist via the exploitative male gaze of late adolescents enamoured with phallic substitutes! Godammit, I am making a point here, I am making a point!”

Placating Braaad, placating him: “Yes you are, you certainly are, Quentin. And not an unwelcome one too, in these uncertain times...”

Quentin T.: “'You see? I'm onto something aren't I?”

Nice guy Braaad: “Yes you are chubby cheeks - in your own way you only want the best out of people”

Quentin T.: “Too right I do!”

Doubles down Crapio: “And it's all through the magic of fillum. For what are we, if not phantoms? Twenty-four flashes of light a minute and yet we matter... We deliver.”

Braaad: “We bear witness.”

Crapio: “Yesterday I was a self-doubting washed-up pretender, a jejeune pay-for-hire, an uncopacetic projection – And now I have regained my self-respect thanks to my buddy here” (modestly smiles Braaad) “and a bit of the old ultra-violence. ...Ain't that a kick.”

The spotlights get switched off, the stage hands roll up the backdrop, the Marilyn lookalike takes off his wig and sashays away to join his loved one.

Quentin T. is down to his last PowahSpeedDrink (TM). He is getting emotional: “Ah thank you guys, thank you. That's freakin' cool of you to be -yo- so understanding of my vision and shit. I meet journos, I want to shut off their asses! I shut them off, that's what I do, but with you two... Ah with you two it's like we're fifteen and crashing the Rialto fleapit to catch the “Bad Taste” (Peter Jackson, 1987) / “Meet the Feebles” (idem, 1989) double-feature together!”

Not a dry eye in the audience – and adds Tarantino: “Tell you what guys, you 'my niggas!”

Braaad and Di Caprio exchange a look, roll up their sleeves and pin Quentin T. up against the wall: “About that word, Quentin...”

The End,

“there'll always be a moon over Marin”.

*”Carte blanche” in English.

"Dark" -an alternative assessment.

He?/She?/They?'s on a roll:

Lugubrus Van der Thi tackles “Dark”.

It's springtime in Germany and the living is easy. Martta, Jonas and assorted Germanic side-kicks are messing about in the woods. They bounce on busted discarded sofas, cheerfully tie terrified girlies to tree trunks and generally shoot shit happy like Larry.

Jonas and Martta take to playing hide-and-seek in the caves (truth be told, Martta's got some serious hots for angel-face Jonas). Jonas, pure of heart and fresh of face, behaves like all sixteen-year old boys do. (=He's fucking clueless.)

Teasing Martta: 'Ich lieb' dich nicht...”

Fuckwit Jonas: “Du liebst mich nicht.”

Sighing, Martta suggests taking a train to enter a tunnel, draws his attention to the birds and the bees, sucks a golf ball through a straw. Nothing doing. Finally, Martta musters the courage to challenge him directly: “Here, loverboy, I'll show you mine if you show me yours...”

Sadly Jonas chooses this moment to fall backwards into a time travel tunnel thingie that takes him to the eighties.

End of the first scene.

Jonas-in-the-eighties spots his bitch of a mum: “Hallo Mum, it's me!”

His mum: “Get away from me ya perrverrt! Herr Policeman, Herr Policeman, here is the man's been chatting up all the eight-year olds in town!”

Otto the policeman gives chase. He slips on a banana skin, smashes through a fruit cart unexpectedly crossing the road, trips over street sprinter Lola, slides down a toboggan or two, and is just about to nab the perrverrt good and proper when he bangs his head against the doorframe of the bunker where Jonas has taken refuge. He wakes up 33 years later.

Otto the policeman: “Wait a second, what do you mean I can't smoke indoors? Call that a pair of trousers?? There's more holes in them than jeans you Jezebelled floozie!! And why does everyone keeps staring at me like I haven't got a hand phone?? -I don't even know what a hand phone is!!”

Meanwhile, Martta has swapped decades with Otto the policeman and gone in search of Jonas. Coming up empty-handed (and increasingly antsy in the panties department), she settles down to run the nucular plant where she gives birth, in the middle of a solar flare triggered reactor meltdown, to a beautiful angel faced boy. She names him... Jonah.

Fast-forward to the twenty-first century. A creepy priest -aren't they all?- is roaming the woods, kidnapping children to ask them whether they have heard The News. Naturally they haven't. He duly informs them that The End of Days is upon them and dispatches them back to the fifties for salvation or redemption (tick where applicable). The kids go forth and multiply, founding the town in the process. Miklausz begets Stronze who begets Solweig who begets Jonas's dad, Agnesz begets Florian who begets Ralph who begets Fritz who begets Agnesz. The priest doesn't age.

Back to Jonas. Stuck in limbo, our boy avails himself of the opportunity to peruse the town's library. Admirably keeping well clear of the jazz mags (“Health and Nature”, “Naturism for All”, “Healthy is Natural”), he scours the science manuals. Bish bosh like mcGiver never happened, he knocks up a time travelling machine.

Martta -who is now married to her son's future brother- steals back to the present in order to recover her incriminating diary. Sneaking in Jonas's musk stenched study (Don't go looking under the mattress Martta, don't!!), she chances upon mysteriously dated (1920, 1953, 1986, 2019, 2052) plans for a “t-t (??) machine”... Would you Adam-and-Eve-it, the wench swipes them.

Alas! On her way back to the cave, Martta gets knocked down by her aunt's grand-son (her first son and future brother-in-law, then) practising a three-point turn while inebriated on Schnapps and Fanta. Technically dead, she can't have given birth to who will become the nucular plant Safety Officer! Meaning: them damn lurking uranium thieves will have a field day, thereby compromising the safety of the town, thereby scuppering the sale of the Grand Northern Hotel, thereby preventing Agnesz from revealing her secret to the amateur clockmaker undertaker! All is lost and Ben Frost unleashes some shit-hot deep bass hi-NRJ electro-drone like it's nobody's business, Derrick goes fetch the car himself, and Blixa Bargeld appears in a bubble floating over the town to intone lines off “Macbeth” and “Unnerkannt durchs Märchenland”. Mid-season break.

Mid-season break.

We're back in Winden and night-time is ominously creeping as only German night-time can (ominously, that is). Shadows gather, luminosity declines and sinister figures in the background make sure not to switch on the effing light (that would be too easy!) when entering collapsing old chapels. Benni, the town tranny prozzie, turns tricks in the Aldi car-park.

Recovering from his amnesia, the copper not unreasonably sets about explaining to all and sundry that he's been the unfortunate victim of a time travel glitch. To his surprise, nobody gives credence to his protestations and he ends up in the loony bin. (A-ha, but could it be that the other inmates are in the same proverbial soup... could it be that they too have fallen down the rabbit hole with no paddle... - The show's crafty creators sow a few clues to that effect and leave it at that.) Otto -that many consider to be the one tragic figure in the show, never mind the beheaded dolls and electrocuted doves- righfully loses it. Doctor M. decides to try some hypnosis on him...

Intermission. Fade to black.

Jonas's bitch of a mother Martha (not to be confused with Martta) has not been idle. Inbetween sleeping with the sexually confused carrot top research scientist and flogging his notes to the shadowy characters hanging around the central bar recycling bins, she has managed to sow division within the Habsburg-K0rnstein household. The problem is... the Habsburg-K0rnstein spontaneously sprouted dynasty are in charge of the nucular plant, the very heart of the community!?!

Hapless bachelor librarian Fritz, who never managed to reach local hero Florian's level as an amateur bicyclist, sinks his sorrows in bottles of bitter every night. The word soon spreads.

Snigger his curtain twitching neighbours:

“H'a! Why don't you go and console him!”

“Men don't need consoling, they can manage perfectly well on their own!”

But his neighbours are lying to themselves. Men need consoling just as much as women. Benni moves in with Fritz.

Meanwhile the local Chief of Police (Agnesz) has a problem: all over town, suspiciously familiar looking eighty-year olds have taken to riding their pushbikes on the kerb and are refusing to disclose their identity when questioned. She can't possibly spare the time to run background checks on them as her deputies have gone missing one by one. Two more to go and the police department will simply comprise of her and a sybillic parrot given to definitive prophecies (“We are governed by the very unspoken wishes that we can never wish to be spoken of”, “If God is time and not the other way round, why do you miss me?”, “I've got a dick-ah, you've got a pussey, so what's the problem?”). Would you believe it, her last two deputies disappear just as two suspiciously familiar looking eighty-year old newcomers are caught shoplifting batteries and soda. Agnesz is vexed, she is nonplussed. Puzzled, quizzical and perplexed, she wonders, lonely as a cloud. Baffled, she goes out walking and falls into a hole. This is how she discovers the trench dug by the priest whipped prisoners of war glimpsed earlier during the dream of the blue turtle.

“Bang!” goes the series back to 1920. A mummy-like burgher in a fetching bottle-green uniform is holding forth on his struggles against God to an audience of children, prisoners of war and indentured labourers. He is very ugly and not a little scary, his eyes are like piss holes in the snow. He does not appear to be capable of perspiration. “Gasp!” if one of the children does not have pointed ears like Florian's father (ie Solweigh's uncle and Miklausz's son) and -”Look!”- if the shifty looking third prisoner from the right is not a dead ringer for the priest! But the mummy-like burgher does not notice, he's on a roll. He hints at a fantastical revelation owed to his captive (in more ways than one) audience. But first, they will each have to buy him a pint of bitter (Do we detect a troubling reference to an aforementioned character here?) and build him a chapel -on the very grounds that will host the nucular plant sixty-six years from now!!

The moment is tense. Your man clears his throat. And he whips out a gold watch to announce:

“Thirteen more minutes and He will arrive to reveal it all!”

The dogs scamper away, whimpering.

Back to angel-face Jonas and your man has broken free of the chains of servitude, only to find himself transported to 2052 where -as chance would have it (but at this stage who is still keeping count eh)- he crashes onto his son's pat-i-o just as his son is about to light the baaarbie -and one naturally wonders: yes yes, but who mothered his son? Who? Could it be.................... Martta?? The show's sadistic creators are keeping us in suspenders.

By now forty-something Jonas apologises profusely, all the more embarrassed as he can't possibly disclose his identity to his son.

'Scene goes something like this:

“Look here old chap, I do believe you've broken my concentration, what!”

“I'm so sorry, I don't know what to say”

“Not to mention my darling cup of Viennese china, dowry of my dear old Mum”

“Your mum??”

“Quite so. But how come you've chosen to teleport in the middle of my pat-i-o, how most extremely queer...”

“Never mind your pat-i-o, you was saying something about your mother?”

“Most unusual indeed, what! Since when do people appear out of nowhere? I say, this is most uncivil of you, I've got a good mind to”

Follow twelve more minutes of will-he won't-he back-and-forth that will leave everyone in stiches in a welcome break from the usual doom and gloom of the general shebangs and assorted crazy japes that we have come to know and expect from this rip-roaring topsy-turvy white-knuckled ride of a no-holes barred fireworks. Eventually, Jonas excuses himself back to whenever with his tail between his legs.

No matter how many life-cycles you cheat, you're always a ten-year old in front of your dad.*

Things get a little bit heated at this stage, what with the heart-of-gold accidentally overhearing what the bitch-of-a-mother confides in the-creepy-Bible-basher right after Tim-nice-but-dim opens the door on ants-in-her-pants (er, nice-but-dim from the eighties eh, not nice-but-dim from the 21^st century, otherwise that wouldn't make sense!) engaged in Ugandan politics with the tragic figure who has finally caught on, at the fifth time of asking, the fact that the troubled Chief of Police may happen to be his mother thirty years down the line -and that's before the shock arrival of Frosty the Snowman, wafted up on the wrong kind of cloud with Mr Catastrophe, still looking for his keyfob, in hot pursuit. Could it be it's all related?? Huh?? I've got a monkey on it 'says they will all turn out to be the same person.

That yoke jumps to 1920 and your favourite living mummy is getting seriously cheesed off. Sweats he in his tunic: “I don't understand, He should have been here twelve minutes ago precisely, what could have possibly held Him? That doesn't make sense!”

Back to 2019 and Otto has been plugged in. The tubes out of his temples will convey his memories into electric signals. A white coat is counting down seconds and Otto breaks into a beatific smile. “5, 8, 666”

David Hasselhoff has had a few. Caught short before the curfew, he undoes his fly and leans on The Wall...

It's 1953, OK all over the Federal Republic. “A-ha!” triumphs the nosy journalist “So you were having an affair with the local drug dealer!” just as the nucular plant Safety Chief Officer dangles his keyfob above the recycling reservoir.

Frank Rijkaard is miffed yeah. He glares at Rudi Voller and subrepticiously creeps up behind him...

1986 (the year of “Atomizer” -Geddit???). Martta is up a tree, in a shed. She is cranking up a dynamo and you won't believe what happens next (three dentists out of five hate her).

End of “Dark”'s first season.

*It has become increasingly clear that his son is in fact his dad.