Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: The Red Apple Cut:

[MCP]

Opinion On Source Material: Strangely enough, I seem to be one of the only people that would actually consider Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to be one of their favorite films made by Quentin Tarantino. The characters are fantastic, the performances are impeccable (especially from Brad Pitt), and the screenplay is honestly one of my favorites of 2019. It has a great style and tone that carries itself all the way to the end of the film, which probably has the most stressful, hilarious, and bittersweet climax of any that I've seen from a Tarantino film. I love this film to death, and, with unbridled anticipation for a possible release of a 4 hour cut of this film, I was very excited to see an actual extended cut that featured some of the deleted scenes. Final Score: 9/10 Quality: The audio and video quality was basically perfect. There was nothing bad I noticed about it. Surprisingly, the deleted scenes, quality-wise, were pretty consistent with the normal footage. One very minor problem I had with the visual quality, was that the first shot of the "Manson's Visit" deleted scene wasn't the greatest, quality-wise. But I can easily get over that, because basically everything else was perfect. Final Score: 10/10 Editing: Honestly, some of the editing could do with some work, but for the most part it was pretty good. The visual editing had some very obvious cuts (and I'm not saying I found it obvious because I've seen this film enough times to know what footage is deleted and which isn't, it is just genuinely very obvious, which can ruin immersion a little bit.). Some cuts would flash right before playing a deleted scene. There's a single frame right before the "Manson's Visit" deleted scene that plays the next scene, right before playing the scene that it is meant to. Each transition varies widely in terms of quality. The ones for the extended "Hullabaloo" and "Bounty Law" scenes were just barely noticeable, and the one for "Rick and Sam Talk on Set" was pretty much seamless, for me. Now I don't think these issues would bother an average viewer too much, but they mildly bothered me so I'll mention it. That aside, the visual editing is still really good. In terms of audio editing, my only real issue here was that some of the audio volume seemed to be different depending on deleted or theatrical footage. Otherwise, it was pretty great. Final Score: 8.5/10 Narrative: In terms of Narrative, I really don't have too much to say. It's just the same version of the theatrical cut, but with a couple of extra scenes. Now, if I am going to criticize a few things, I'm not the biggest fan of every single bit of deleted footage that was added. I do really like the additional footage of Bounty Law and Hullabaloo, and the "Manson's Visit" and "Rick and Sam Talk on Set" deleted scenes, however I'm not really a big fan of the "Lancer" scene, especially when we actually see the director giving advice, before transitioning into a scene of Rick Dalton shooting his movie. I like these scenes in the theatrical cut because we are essentially watching the film that Dalton is filming through the lens of the camera as they're shooting takes, but it appears how the audience would watch it. I really like this, and so the inclusion of the "Lancer" scene (or at the very least, the end of this scene) completely shatters this immersion, at least for me. Aside from this one problem that I have, I do have a few other criticisms with this narrative, however they are all criticisms that I have for the theatrical cut as well (such as the portrayal of Bruce Lee, scenes going on a little long, etc.). Other than that, all of my praises for the theatrical cut still stand, and they haven't changed. Final Score: 9/10 Enjoyment: Considering this is basically an extended cut of a film that I absolutely love, I knew that I was going to thoroughly enjoy this, and, thankfully, I did end up really enjoying it. It is obviously difficult to describe why I enjoyed something because it is purely subjective, but I still enjoyed it. Final Score: 10/10 Conclusion: In conclusion, I've got to say that this is quite a great extended cut of the original film. I really liked most of the scenes included, and considering that it was made out of a film that I genuinely love, I instantly loved it. However, as I mentioned previously, there are some editing mistakes that I cannot ignore, but otherwise this is a great edit that shall have its praises sung by me. Final Score: 9.5/10

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