Since it’s late and no one is reading this anyway, I’ll confess to something:

I was dead wrong about the ending of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.

In 2019 I found a bombastic, male-heroic alt history fable a poor way to honor the woman at the center of one of Hollywood’s greatest tragedies.

In 2020, after all the flagrantly awful events that have transpired in our world, the yearning desire to at least figuratively spare innocence is an optimism that made me weep.

It’s like the reaction a child would have to a tragedy:

“If I were a superhero, I’d have saved that princess from the monsters!”

The bittersweet comfort of that naïveté that engenders hope that at least the next genration will learn from our mistakes.

This also reveals a vulnerability from QT regarding his feelings about Tate. He really loves her.

Plus, that storybook gallantry and comforting moral compass lends the movie its title.

Anyway, like I said, it’s late and no one cares what I think so it was safe to wax incoherent about coming around on a movie everyone else already liked. Goodnight!