Watched Once Upon A Time at the cinema a few evenings ago & whilst its a solid enjoyable film it is quite
forgettable (apart from the ending). Not his worst film but definitely not as good as Pulp, IB, Django & Kill Bill 1 which I class as his top 4 films.
Brad Pitts character was excellent & the best part of the film. Leo was equally great in parts especially the western scene with the young girl, great range showed by him.
I liked all the bits you liked but I didn't find it forgettable.
I think it's a film that's badly suffered from false expectations. Both the trailer and Tarantino's reputation for fast paced movies with snappy dialogue and gratuitous stylized violence worked against this film.
If you go in there with the expectation of a Kill Bill or a Django, you won't enjoy it.
There's almost nothing quite like it in Tarantino's oeuvre. Every other Tarantino film has been a genre piece. This has none of that - instead all of the genre elements are reference points for the time and place. All we have is two characters losing their relevance, a dream of a different time and place, and a palpable sense of loss.
The analysis that most rings true for me is that it's a movie about Tarantino reflecting on his mortality as a filmmaker. If it's true that he's got one more movie left in him, he's very much in the twilight of his career, and it's quite poignant to think about Rick Dalton as a representation of him. The interaction with the girl in particular supports this interpretation.
