Quentin Tarantino's ‘The Movie Critic’

peteeeed

Quentin Tarantino has found the perfect goodbye to Hollywood.

The “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” auteur is rumored to be announcing his final film, titled “The Movie Critic,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. Tarantino is said to be directing the feature film in fall 2023, per THR sources, but is still shopping the script for a studio home.

IndieWire has reached out for comment.

While the logline is still under wraps, “The Movie Critic” is expected to be set in late 1970s Los Angeles with a female lead. THR reported that Tarantino may have used famed film critic Pauline Kael as inspiration for the film. Kael briefly worked as a consultant for Paramount in the late 1970s and closely collaborated with Warren Beatty — her support of “Bonnie & Clyde” when some older critics such as Bosley Crowther hated it helped kick off the whole idea of the New Hollywood.

https://www.indiewire.com/2023/03/quentin-tarantino-final-film-the-movie-critic-pauline-kael-1234819554/

Interesting subject matter indeed, seemingly very un-Tarantino like. I wonder what the angle is.

All I know about Pauline Kael is she savaged Oliver Stone and in his opinion really tried to hurt his career. She wrote a hit piece on him and platoon mocking him for his reasons for going to Vietnam and claiming him to be an awful writer- the guy who wrote Scarface, Midnight Express, Salvador, Conan, Wall Street etc etc, so she was pretty far off the mark.

Perhaps its about the industry back then and the influential ones in it and who was influencing their opinions.

pixelburp

Well, it can't be any worse than that stupid Star Trek script Tarantino had supposedly written, one that wouldn't escape the Media cycle the last few months whenever "whither Star Trek [reboot] 4" kept coming up.

Only watched True Romance for the first time a week or two back and honestly: I do wish Tarantino would just let someone else shoot his scripts for a change. Was a better experience for a punchy director like Tony Scott cutting to the nub, rather than Tarantino indulging himself for hours on end.

loyatemu

presumably it ends with a disgruntled movie director after one bad review too many, (basically QT but played by Brad Pitt) bursting into the Movie Critic's convention and laying them all to waste with various guns, knives and martial arts in an orgy of bloody violence.

MfMan

Why won't he take a shortcut and retire right now? Save us from having to be exposed to his self-indulgent tripe.

yourdeadwright

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120360724#Comment_120360724

You simply don't have to watch his movies,

I find your takes like this bizarre,

Plenty of things in the world i have no interest in but am quite happy to see continue so others who do like them can continue to enjoy themselves ,

I love Tarantino & hope he makes another 10 movies ,

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120360747#Comment_120360747

That take isn't any less bizarre: it's valid to consider Tarantino as a director whose work as increasingly got a little untethered from being lean, focused films. Wouldn't go so far as to call his later work "tripe", but while I've always checked on his films they're increasingly become meandering and ... yeah, kinda indulgent. He's a director who by all accounts is allowed to indulge, as many directors can become when they gain that coveted "blank cheque" status. Tarantino and a select few others probably receive almost zero studio-notes during filming.

You take films like True Romance, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown... and they're such different beasts - and I'd consider far superior to the later work. Once Upon a Time was quite an introspective and suspiciously autobiographical script about getting obsolete as Hollywood changes around you - but the execution was tedious and ... yeah, a bit indulgent. It was basically a mirror to something like Jackie Brown, itself a story about middle-age but one with a far better sense of pacing and direction.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120360617#Comment_120360617

I don't know about you but I'd sure as hell watch that 😁

Tarantino films were far better when the violence was implied. Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs were never really that violent. Sure there was violence, but the camera didn't explicitly show a lot of it.

At some point I think he just bought into the idea that the media saw his films as super violent and the end result is closeups of people carving swastikas into foreheads.

yourdeadwright

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120360775#Comment_120360775

Yes all the above are totally fair comments & not bizarre at all,

The bizarre part is to say "Save us from having to be exposed to his self-indulgent tripe" when all you have to so is simply not watch it if its not your thing ,

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120360227#Comment_120360227

She trashed loads of films that people consider great including Hiroshima Mon Amour, Days of Heaven and Once Upon a Time in America.

I prefer that reviewing style to Roger Ebert where he would review say ten movies and eight or nine would get positive reviews.

Fysh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120360781#Comment_120360781

For my money it was the death of Sally Menke as his editor that really changed things - he was already on the way to being self-indulgent (Inglorious Basterds was the last of his films she worked on) but the later efforts have positively ballooned, and not to particularly good effect IMO.

My main objection to Tarantino is similar to pix's above - I wish he'd direct something he hadn't written, or write for another director. (Well, I also think he sucks up a lot of media oxygen that could be going to other, frankly more interesting directors, but that's more subjective...)

FortuneChip

I think Tarantino's faults are evident enough on screen. As said, his over-indulgence is definitely a big thing.

He's definitely not for everyone, but to say his work is tripe is a bit disingenuous.

What Pix says "Tarantino and a select few others probably receive almost zero studio-notes during filming." is an important note, when you go to see a Tarantino movie, you know it's the movie he intended to make, and you can't say that for many other directors. You'd struggle to guess the director of many recent blockbusters these days, so QT can be a breath of air, sometimes fresh.

In my experience, you're guaranteed some great scenes, fun dialogue, and a sharp descend into violence at intervals.

brokenbad

Tarantino's last great movie was Inglourious Basterds

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120361428#Comment_120361428

It was good, particularly the opening, but did feel like it could do with a lot more editing to make it a bit punchier.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120360924#Comment_120360924

Well from a filmmakers perspective it's a pretty unpleasant style. It's akin to the old food critics who could destroy a restaurant with one bad review.

Power corrupts, and these kinds of people had a lot of power back the day and wielded it to the expense of others which can destroy a persons livelihood in almost an instant. With great power comes great responsibility 😁

pixelburp

Even the whole thing about Tarantino only doing 10 movies then he's retiring smells just too much of indulgence and hubris; certainly of a creative a little too in love with his own status and image. Not that I believe it mind you; all it'll take will be some producer fluffing Tarantino's ego over brunch, maybe a blank cheque from Netflix then cue the headlines: Tarantino makes 11th Movie!

Especially ludicrous when one considers Tarantino only being 59 and deciding he's done, while Scorcese or Ridley Scott are still working like demons in their 80s. As The Fabelmans pointed at, filmmaking is a bug and pathological compulsion not easily shaken off by other interests.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120361428#Comment_120361428

That was for me, the movie where Tarantino's ticks and idiosyncrasies were finally unrestrained and untrammelled by collaborators saying "uhm, maybe not". By all accounts it had a couple of pretty iconic scenes (such as the Farmhouse at the start, or the stand-off in the cellar), but around it total fluff that'd only get more and more distracting. It's hard to look past his first three films as basically, perfect movies and easy contenders for Best of the 1990s; after that? Ooof.

johnny_ultimate

I remain a firm defender of The Hateful Eight, where Tarantino's indulgences were IMO entirely beneficial to the story being told. I fondly remember just snuggling into a comfortable cinema seat (twice, thanks to the opportunity to attend a 70mm screening) and watching the expertly wound-up tension unspool over the course of an extended running time. I mean, it's a film that opens with a Morricone-scored overture and slow zoom that immediately sets the pace and tone, and the simple atmosphere of this drama unfolding in a cosy but claustrophobic cabin while a blizzard roars outside is perfect fodder for a night in the cinema. Not a film without its problems, and it's certainly divisive, but it's easily the best thing he's made since Jackie Brown IMO.

The problem I have with several of his other recent films is they're often the same basic film in different genre guises. Inglorious Basterds, Django and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood basically have the same 'pulpy historical revisionism' ending, even if the contexts are slightly different - it's just hard to be particularly excited about seeing the same trick for a second or third time, as entertaining as some of the staging may be. And even the big, mid-film, tense setpiece that unfolds slowly is a trick he's relied on too heavily in recent times - the reason I think The Hateful Eight works where the others struggle is that basically he turned that scene into a whole feature-length film as opposed to a singular setpiece. At the same time, I do appreciate that Tarantino remains one of the few Hollywood directors out there making the films he wants to at that budget level, seemingly unencumbered by studio notes or commercial considerations (that his brash style is widely appealing to audiences anyway doesn't hurt).

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120361728#Comment_120361728

I’d love to know the directors he has in mind with that comment. Scott and Scorcese haven’t produced their best work but it hasnt been garbage either its been pretty decent.

Stones last few movies have not been great but his Untold History of the United States documentary is peerless in quality. Michael Mann has had one blip with Blackhat. Kubrick, Leone you couldn’t apply it to either.

I give him some leeway with the ego, anyone who hits the heights Tarantino hits with some of his work I have no problem exhibiting a bit of that such is human nature. And he has a special place in my heart giving Ennio the opportunity by providing that beautiful landscape to win his Oscar for the hateful 8 score.

Its good to embrace characters like Tarantino, someone with guts and a really strong vision and style of work. Not always likeable - i thought nothing of Kill Bill or the grindhouse stuff. But he has left an indelible mark on the industry and merits great respect I believe. We need more directors like him in film.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120361880#Comment_120361880

Scott is a machine and I respect the fact he's 85 and has shown no interest in slowing down. He'll definitely be one who drops dead with about 6 active projects, and twice as many script treatments in the mix. I think Scorcese has kept the standard in his twilight years; The Irishman was a weird outlier that was possibly more informed by an open chequebook at Netflix, and a chance to work "one last time" with old friends. But I don't think something like Wolf of Wall Street could be put at the feet of an octogenarian out of ideas - it had all the anger and vibrancy of a young man's movie. While I will absolutely go to bat for Shutter Island as an utterly fabulous thriller. Interesting how both Tarantino and Scorcese have adopted Leonardo DiCaprio as their go-to guy.

Tarantino dropped a grenade into mainstream cinema in the 1990s, but there's a reasonable debate about what he has contributed since then. Kill Bill onwards has just been this further descent into meandering, muddled genre love-ins and shaggy-dog stories; films whose stature seemed more about them being "Quentin Tarantino Movies" than actually good films in their own right. I'll grant Hateful Eight as a slight exception here and possibly the most straight-forward narrative; TBH I forgot I watched that film until @johnny_ultimate mentioned it now.

He has always been such a huge comic and film nerd; it's a hugely glaring idiosyncrasy with his writing, especially prior to this Cinematic Golden Age of Superheroes, that he would ram in a clumsy reference or monologue about (say) Superman. So it's almost kinda insane he has never actually made a comicbook movie. Why not? Sure the studio system might collide with his ego, but at this stage what's to lose? As his career has gone on he has dipped further and further into tonal registers more akin to comicbooks anyway. If a hack like Todd Phillips could make a Scorcese knock-off film with Joker, why couldn't Tarantino? And we know he writes geek material given his infamous Trek 4 script exists "somewhere".

GLaDOS

Some trepidation about this given his last release. I accept the criticism above about his later work, but I loved Inglorious Basterds and The Hateful eight in spite of their flaws. OUATIH just bored the pants off me though.

bucketybuck

I find it hard to reconcile reports of Tarantino becoming indulgent and boring with the fact that I think his last two films (OUATIH and the Hateful Eight) were just fantastic.

No they weren't punchy, fast paced, tight arsed movies but who said they were supposed to be? Once Upon A Time In Hollywood wouldn't work at all if it was filmed like Reservoir Dogs or True Romance, its just a different beast. Make that film "tighter" and it wouldn't even be the same movie.

Greyfox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120361728#Comment_120361728

Its hard to imagine someone with his talent and passion for film stopping but he does seem very interested in writing novels now. I've really enjoyed most of his films so I'll always be very interested in a new "Tarantino film"

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120362855#Comment_120362855

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood perhaps just shouldn't have been a film at all. It's kind of more of an anthology than a movie anyway, and with the vast amount of footage he left on the cutting room floor there was scope there for something even more patient that could've been enjoyed in episodes.