In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino wants the audience to know right from the get-go just how dire the prospects of Leonardo DiCaprio’s TV heavy, Rick Dalton, have become in the topsy-turvy Tinseltown landscape of 1969. How does he signal that exactly?

An agent (played by Al Pacino with lip-smacking, scenery-chewing relish) tells him that he can give his career a shot in the arm by going to Italy and starring in quickie spaghetti Westerns like Nebraska Jim and macaroni spy knockoffs such as Operazione Dyn-O-Mite!