Yeah, I know that director / screenwriter Quentin Tarantino meant "Hollywood" to be seen as satire, but that stated intent presupposes that the film is funny. It wasn't. Rather, I found "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood" to be often offensive and purposely mean-spirited, and ultimately pathetic.

Tarantino slurred Hispanic Americans with the cringe-worthy line "Don't cry in front of the Mexicans," which he obviously meant for laughs. Instead, it made my wife noticeably squirm in her seat and received very few chuckles from the majority non-white audience at the showing we attended in Hilo, HI.

He also openly mocked the memory of the late Chinese-American actor Bruce Lee by playing to racist stereotyping. Again, the majority non-white audience sat in near-total silence during that particular sequence. It clearly made most of them uncomfortable.

Finally, in so cavalierly dispensing with the historical facts about the Manson Family murders of Aug. 1969, and further mischaracterizing its perpetrators as drug-addled buffoons who could -- SPOILER ALERT -- be easily dispatched by his white male action heroes in a particularly vicious orgy of Tarantino-esque violence (Leonardo DiCaprio's incineration of Manson cult member Susan Atkins with a flamethrower was a really nice touch), the director reduced the harsh reality of the actual atrocities to a light and frothy level of Hollywood cliché. The memory of the late Sharon Tate and her fellow murder victims deserved far better respect, as did their surviving kin.

And so, I'll conclude by paraphrasing L.A. Times culture critic Mary McNamara's remarks from last July about "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood." We deserve better than MAGA-inspired nostalgia p0rn which openly pines for a non-existent era in America when men were truly men, women were frivolous eye candy (or b*tchy nags), Asians were suspicious and inscrutable, and the only people who spoke Spanish were the busboys, gardeners and housekeepers.

Several times while watching it thought, wait a sec did it really happen that way.  Of interest to me was that Tarantino reached out to Roman and Sharon's sister and after them viewing the script got their blessing.  

Also had contact with the Lee camp and maybe/kinda/sorta changed the script so the fight was a draw rather than a clear win for Pitt.  Hard for me to watch lee get thrown into the side of a car hard enough to bash the door in and think it was a draw.  As a senior in high school I snuck into the Miami Beach Convention Center after the Clay/Liston fight started and managed to get an autograph from Clay.  I still remember the name change to Ali and always liked and respected Ali; so when Lee boasted about being able to beat Ali I thought he was a jerk.  While I never thought Lee was a dancer like some martial arts guy Ali was bigger, stronger, had a longer reach, and mimicked the way martial artists punched.  I view Ali as one of the all time great boxers who would have easily beaten the smaller and weaker Lee in the ring.

I first started paying attention to Taratino after seeing Pulp Fiction.  Even with all his other work my favorite effort from him was From Dusk Til Dawn.  He did write the screen play and did a decent job of acting in a major role; even if it was directed by Rodriguez.  Due to massive delays, Taratino started working on From Dusk Til Dawn before Reservoir Dogs, only was released in 1996.  But to me From Dusk Til Dawn was classic Taratino.  Over the top fantasy (vampires who can shape shift at will to human form fighting bank robbers and a pastor in crisis and his family in a very strange bar built on the top of an old Aztec temple).  Not to mention plenty of blood and gore and in the end a basically happy ending with all the vampires being killed in the sun light.

Truth be told Once Upon A Time In Hollywood's ending paled compared to what happened in the "happy ending" of From Dusk Til Dawn.

It is gorgeous.  

When director Robert Eggers set out to make his mind-bending 19th century drama "The Lighthouse," starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as a pair of lighthouse keepers descending into madness, he chose to shoot the film in black-and-white using an aspect ratio dating to the days of silent movies. Eggers knew that format, known in cinematography circles as 1.3:1 or 4:3, yields a square image that would give the film a distinct look and would help transport audiences back in time.