‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ Reactions: Tarantino’s Latest Is A Brilliant, Baggy & Self-Indulgent Ode To Hollywood

Update: our own review of “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” is here…

Happy Quentin Tarantino/”Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” Day. The filmmaker’s latest has premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and on the eve of its debut a new trailer arrived, Tarantino doing some press and the collective worry that Tarantino was going to fuck with history and have Bruce Lee save Sharon Tate from the Manson clan or something. Tarantino’s revisionist history has been troublesome or fascinating in the past, but with the sensitivity surrounding Sharon Tate and her grizzly death at the hands of the Manson cult, many were generally worried.

READ MORE: ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ Trailer: Old Hollywood Lives Again In Quentin Tarantino’s New Vision

But the earlier reactions are in, and the general word is super positive. The consensus seems to be that “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” does mess with history, but not in a way that’s too offensive, that the film is mainly brilliant and yes, a little baggy and self-indulgent in the way that we’ve expected Tarantino films to be in recent years (or all the time).

READ MORE: 2019 Cannes Film Festival: The 21 Most Anticipated Movies

It appears that Tarantino’s claims that ‘Hollywood’ would be most similar to “Pulp Fiction” is valid and he creates an intricate, mosaic and tapestry of characters (the cast does after all feature dozens and dozens of stars).

READ MORE: the 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2019

It also sounds like, which you might have guessed from the premise and setting, late 1960s Hollywood, a goodbye to the end of that era of filmmaking and how the Manson murders and Nixon would usher in a new, cynical era of moviemaking much different from the previous decade. In the film, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a fading actor known for Spaghetti Westerns and B-movies. Brad Pitt plays his stuntman, and best friend and actors like Al Pacino, Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern, Damian Lewis (playing Steve McQueen), Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Kurt Russell, Timothy Olyphant and more are along for the ride (Margot Robbie co-stars as Sharon Tate).

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Anyhow, the reactions are mostly positive, some of them even ecstatic, with a few, but small reservations. Our review will be here momentarily, so keep an eye out. “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” will be released by Sony Pictures on July 26. Twitter reactions from various critics, including Playlister Gregory Ellwood and contributors like Charles Bramesco, Jordan Ruimy, and Guy Lodge, who wrote our review, below.

https://twitter.com/GuyLodge/status/1130945087981182977

https://twitter.com/TheGregoryE/status/1130896893096136711

https://twitter.com/intothecrevasse/status/1130884171541278721

https://twitter.com/jon_frosch/status/1130928557180375040

https://twitter.com/PeterBradshaw1/status/1130888585694109701?

https://twitter.com/yo_damo/status/1130890860239962114?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1130890860239962114&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thewrap.com%2Fonce-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-cannes-quentin-tarantino-first-reactions%2F

https://twitter.com/ChrisKnightfilm/status/1130889653601677315?

https://twitter.com/Waanzinema/status/1130888770172149760

https://twitter.com/lou_kicks/status/1130892081482862592

https://twitter.com/davidehrlich/status/1130918408755863552

https://twitter.com/akstanwyck/status/1130910774988234752

https://twitter.com/robbiereviews/status/1130887494092959746

https://twitter.com/joeutichi/status/1130888682049814528

https://twitter.com/filmfest_ca/status/1130886725297889280

https://twitter.com/stefabsky/status/1130887110834003968

https://twitter.com/mrRuimy/status/1130886805711142914

https://twitter.com/firstshowing/status/1130891705987870720