Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood (elipsis included), is swinging into cinemas this summer.
It premiered this week at the Cannes Film Festival, and already critics are hailing the movie as one of Tarantino’s best yet, even coming close to topping Pulp Fiction.
With a cast which includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino and Tim Roth, you’d be forgiven for thinking the film is a surefire hit, though it wouldn’t be the first time a stellar cast couldn’t save a bad film – just ask Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine about Now You See Me.
With OUATI…H though, the general consensus seems to be the star-studded cast is equalled, if not bettered, by Tarantino’s story of a failing actor and his stuntman – by way of the Charles Manson murders – in 1960s Los Angeles, Hollywood’s golden age.
You can watch the trailer for it here:
The new film is currently sitting with a critic’s rating of 93 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, just one point more than Pulp Fiction, which has consistently been at the top of Tarantino’s films when it comes to ratings since its release in 1994.
Peter Bradshaw, giving the film five stars for The Guardian, called the film:
Shocking, gripping, dazzlingly shot in the celluloid-primary colours of sky blue and sunset gold: colours with the warmth that Mama Cass sang about. The Los Angeles of 1969 is recovered with all Tarantino’s habitual intensity and delirious, hysterical connoisseurship of pop culture detail.
While Brian Viner, who also gave the film five stars in the MailOnline, describes Tarantino’s 9th film as a ‘wildly enjoyable black comedy… with Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt both on thumpingly fine form’.
Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney praised the film’s aesthetic and ‘bold storytelling’.
He wrote:
With richly detailed input from production designer Barbara Ling and beyond-cool retro fashions from costumer Arianne Phillips, Tarantino folds the low-key buddy comedy into a lovingly recreated, almost fetishistic celebration of late ‘60s Hollywood, infused with color and vitality by cinematographer Robbie Richardson.
While Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson described the ‘beguiling chemistry’ between DiCaprio and Pitt.
He said:
One’s allegiance to the film is consistently won back by DiCaprio and Pitt, who make easy, and disarmingly humble, platonic poetry out of this curious dynamic… Tarantino knows just what to do with their particular bearing, how to tease out the thing that made them icons and then send it bouncing around his movie.
Looks like Tarantino is back on fine form. Can’t wait for this.
Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood is due for release on July 26 in the US, and August 14 in the UK.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.