On this occasion, it is definitely the film.
A week on, and we still have no idea what to make of Tarantino's latest outburst.
It's not that it's terrible — far from it, he's made worse — or that it's weird.
It's just... well...
Well, for a start it's long. Like arse-numbingly, eye-meltingly long. You'd be seen quicker in A&E on a wet Tuesday.
But let's not start off on a negative footing - Tarantino is one of those directors who commands respect thanks to his body of work.
Which is just as well, looking back at Once Upon A Time...
For the uninitiated, this is the story of fading 50s TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt man/buddy/gopher Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).
So it's a a buddy western. Very in keeping with his recent output.
Only it's also about Charles Manson, The Family and Sharon Tate (played brilliantly by Margot Robbie).
So it's actually a thriller.
Only it's about the Hollywood machine, film making, life through a lens, life behind the lens, life in miniature, life in a mirror.
So it's Tarantino indulging himself and pontificating on his first love.
Only...
It's all of these things. With some added scenes thrown in just so we can all see how he imagines it would have been if he had got to direct some of his heroes.
Genuinely, at one point it struck us that if Steve McQueen hadn't died back in 1980 this film would not need to exist because Tarantino would have cast him in something and got it out of his system.
As you can probably tell already, this is an epic film. Tarantino has basically taken everything he loves and thrown it at the screen. With some added bits for... well... reasons...
But we'll come back to that. (Don't you hate it when they do that in books?)
While the story is epic, so is the whole feel of the film. This is another monster Western from the maker of The Hateful Eight and Django Unchained — and this is actually a huge positive.
This film looks stunning. It's beautiful. We'd almost go as far as to call it a visual masterpiece.
It's just so huge. And not just from some of the panoramic shots. Even the close-up scenes feel larger than life. On this front, Tarantino has nailed it.
And the performances of the central three are great. Robbie is stunning, weaving silk purses from the various sow's ears she gets handed, while Pitt and Leo are clearly having a blast just hanging out together.
It's just a shame there is no functioning narrative.
Even the most shonky of films (let's take 47 Meters Down as an example here) tends to know what the destination is, where the story is heading — and that feeling is captured and transmitted despite the appalling acting, horrendous special effects and plot holes you could swim a shark through.
But Once Upon A Time? Not so much...
Now, the fact it doesn't take you where you think it is going is fine. That's a delight in a movie.
It's just not quite as delightful when you can't shake the feeling that the director doesn't have a clue either.
As we've already said, Robbie is superb here — but a week down the line we still have no idea why that story line was included.
It is genuinely baffling.
That's not to say there aren't clues. And here, we have to deal with a couple of the trickier areas of the movie.
Obviously, if you have Sharon Tate in your film set in 1969 then you 'have' to have Roman Polanski.
And this is where things get awkward.
The suggestion that Tate liked her men young leaps off the screen like a pre-emptive defence, while the mixed #MeToo messages after Cliff picks up a hitchhiker are enough to make your head spin (yes, good men ask for ID - but it's also, at the same time, not their fault because the woman are such teases...)
In other news, Harvey Weinstein used to produce Tarantino's films. Just, you know, FYI.
And all this is before we get to the final scenes, which is where the film earns its 18 certificate (here in the UK) and the audience loses a little more respect for Tarantino and the treatment of women in movies.
Once Upon A Time should have been the epic pinnacle of Tarantino's Western Trilogy.
Instead, it feels like he threw his whole notebook in the blender just to clear the decks ahead of Star Trek.
As a result, we're left with a mess of a film with questionable sexual politics but one that looks fantastic and has three great central performances.
But man is it long.
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