Quentin Tarantino Offers Plot and Casting Details of The Movie Critic

By Patrick Cavanaugh

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has shared on multiple occasions that his upcoming tenth film, The Movie Critic, will be his last feature film as a director, with the announcement of the title understandably sparking speculation about what the film would explore, and now Tarantino himself has offered some insight into the experience. While speaking with Deadline, Tarantino confirmed that the project is based on a real-life figure, though one audiences likely won't know, and also expressed that, despite his successful collaborations with actors like Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, they are both too old to star as the lead figure.

The director confirmed to the outlet that the story is set in California in 1977 and is "based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag." He continued, "He wrote about mainstream movies and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle [from Taxi Driver] might be if he were a film critic ... Think about Travis's diary entries. But the porno rag critic was very, very funny. He was very rude, you know. He cursed. He used racial slurs. But his sh-t was really funny. He was as rude as hell."

Tarantino recalled that he discovered the critic when he was a teenager, stumbling across his work while working as a supplier for vending machines that dispensed pornographic magazines. He recalled, "All the other stuff was too skanky to read but then there was this porno rag that had a really interesting movie page."

With the character being in his mid-30s during the course of the film, Tarantino won't be looking to cast former collaborators, though he admitted that he does possibly have someone in mind for the role.

"He wrote like he was 55 but he was only in his early to mid-30s. He died in his late thirties. It wasn't clear for a while but now I've done some more research and I think it was it was complications due to alcoholism," the filmmaker expressed. "I haven't decided yet but it's going to be somebody in the 35-year-old ballpark. It'll definitely be a new leading man for me ... I do have an idea of somebody I can imagine doing it really well."

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Stay tuned for details on The Movie Critic.

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