https://www.harpercollins.com/products/cinema-speculation-quentin-tarantino?variant=40461820756002
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 29 May 2022 00:15 (one year ago) link
Quentin needs to make another 90 minute movie.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, 29 May 2022 00:40 (one year ago) link
Finished Cinema Speculation. I've posted about many of the book's strengths (the films) and weaknesses (a lot of the writing) across other threads, but the last chapter, about his friendship with his mother's friend Floyd, is really something. It's technically a 20-page footnote; when Floyd is mentioned earlier in the book, there's an asterisk beside his name but no accompanying footnote at the bottom of the page.
A lot there. Tarantino lands on one side of a topic, based on Floyd's comedic heroes, that is so out of sync with the moment we live in, I'm surprised I haven't encountered push-back. (Maybe it's out there, or maybe no one's bothering with the book enough to care.) Between that, a platform for Tarantino to say some stuff he wants to say, and the perfect sentimental ending to the book--which I did find moving--a small part of me wonders if Floyd isn't a fictional creation. Just a passing thought; I'm sure he was a real guy.
― clemenza, Sunday, 15 January 2023 16:40 (one year ago) link
Didn't realize that Richard Brody had reviewed the book; I was able to read it going incognito.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/quentin-tarantinos-cinema-speculation-is-an-obsessive-insiders-view-of-hollywood
He liked the book a lot, more than I did.
― clemenza, Sunday, 15 January 2023 17:53 (one year ago) link
Marcus has an entry on the book in Real Life this month:
Quentin Tarantino, Cinema Speculation (Harper). On how lots of 1970s movies (Bullitt, The Getaway) could have turned out differently--so and so wanted a different director, a different actor, but this accident and that rights dispute got in the way but what if? At first it’s kind of interesting, in a They-wanted-Ronald-Reagan-for-the-lead-in-Casablanca way. And then it’s a big so what and you wonder why you read right up to the chapter on Hardcore.
Except for the what-if-De Palma-had-directed-Taxi-Driver chapter, I really didn't find the book all that speculative. And the interest level, for me, was pretty steady throughout.
― clemenza, Monday, 13 February 2023 17:21 (one year ago) link
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/quentin-tarantino-sets-the-movie-critic-final-movie-1235351260/
Logline details are being kept in a suitcase but sources describe the story as being set in late 1970s Los Angeles with a female lead at its centerIt is possible the story focuses on Pauline Kael, one of the most influential movie critics of all time. Kael, who died in 2001, was not just a critic but also an essayist and novelist. She was known for her pugnacious fights with editors as well as filmmakers. In the late 1970s, Kael had a very brief tenure working as a consultant for Paramount, a position she accepted at the behest of actor Warren Beatty. The timing of that Paramount job seems to coincide with the setting of the script — and the filmmaker is known to have a deep respect for Kael, making the odds of her being the subject of the film more likely.
It is possible the story focuses on Pauline Kael, one of the most influential movie critics of all time. Kael, who died in 2001, was not just a critic but also an essayist and novelist. She was known for her pugnacious fights with editors as well as filmmakers. In the late 1970s, Kael had a very brief tenure working as a consultant for Paramount, a position she accepted at the behest of actor Warren Beatty. The timing of that Paramount job seems to coincide with the setting of the script — and the filmmaker is known to have a deep respect for Kael, making the odds of her being the subject of the film more likely.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 22:41 (one year ago) link
Just watched Pulp Fiction again last week with my 19 year old son. It's an immaculately scripted film and a shitload of fun.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 22:42 (one year ago) link
no Star Trek film?
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 22:45 (one year ago) link
Ha! I've been saying here and elsewhere for the past few years that Kael's life could make a great fictionalized film. Hopefully it's not about this one guy he ridicules three or four times in his book--really nasty stuff--and towards whom he obviously still bears a major grudge.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 22:50 (one year ago) link
Kael's gonna kill that guy on-screen, I guarantee it.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 23:09 (one year ago) link
https://tenor.com/view/trump-shrug-smile-idk-i-dont-know-gif-16515321
really nasty stuff
― young sussy (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 23:10 (one year ago) link
Imagine thats a gif of trump shrugging
I've always thought KB 2 was far better than KB 1.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 23:13 (one year ago) link
Kael wrote a novel?
― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 23:22 (one year ago) link
Oh, I like this idea a lot.
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 23:27 (one year ago) link
A rep theatre here has a Friday night series running based on his book: Taxi Driver, Sisters, Deliverance, Escape from Alcatraz, and Dirty Harry. Planned on seeing this first--Friday night, packed theatre probably--but a terrible storm quashed that. (The manager said they still drew 80 people.) Skipped Sisters, may see one or two or all three of the others, although I wish I hadn't just watched them while reading the book.
I'll say it again: if the above is true, Meryl Streep has to play Kael. I actually think she'd keep some well deserved payback out of it and create something memorable.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 03:53 (one year ago) link
Mary Charlotte Wilcox has retired from acting to become a minister, otherwise she'd be in the running:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVpPsATDyy0
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 16:54 (one year ago) link
"I don't languish in that kind of naïveté"--love that whole bit! So that's what her name was...maybe the only thing she ever did on the show? She definitely caught some of Kael's manner of speaking.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:02 (one year ago) link
My post above doesn't make sense--should read "Planned on seeing Taxi Driver..."
― clemenza, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:04 (one year ago) link
Holly Hunter is a little older than Kael was in 1979, but she'd be fun.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:34 (one year ago) link
I always kind hoped he would do Kill Bill 3 with Vivica Fox's daughter going after Uma, but this will hopefully be a much better movie to go out on.
― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:36 (one year ago) link
I liked the Kellow bio well enough, but I worry about a Kael "biopic." So much of a writer's life is writing. Once she settled into Shawn's New Yorker her life was watching movies, with her daughter as faithful amanuensis. If Tarantino (or anybody) created a work of fiction about a formidably intelligent female writer in the 1950s experimenting with fiction and theater who marries a gay man, this would be worth watching.
― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:36 (one year ago) link
To be clear: a chapter of her life which a director would fictionalize.
― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:37 (one year ago) link
Given his previous film, he'll set it up so she ends up going out to Kalispell, forcing Cimino to focus and saving New Hollywood (with guns).
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:43 (one year ago) link
I could imagine a great movie more in the “hang out” style of most of once upon a time in hollywood.
― omar little, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:44 (one year ago) link
The movie will end with her watching Reservoir dogs
― omar little, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:46 (one year ago) link
I thought of guns too--an alternate ending where she just blows away Renata Adler. (Still alive...sorry, that's in bad taste.)
I could see that, yeah--Kael liked Hunter. Maybe a couple of other actresses she really liked too: Joan Cusack or Sigourney Weaver. (Not Debra Winger, though, I don't think.)
― clemenza, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:47 (one year ago) link
Tagline: "You won't see it a second time."
― jmm, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:52 (one year ago) link
Nice!
― clemenza, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:52 (one year ago) link
LOL
― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:53 (one year ago) link
― omar little,
she won't let you finish lunch until you agree to knock Shoah off your top ten.
― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:54 (one year ago) link
Forgive me, since I'm knee deep in Biskind's New Hollywood book right now, so I wouldn't mind a revisionist take where Kael just blows all of the misogynist fucks away. Though that would end up wiping out half of the decades best movies.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:55 (one year ago) link
So that's what her name was...maybe the only thing she ever did on the show?
She was a featured player in the last seasons of SCTV, usually playing a woman several decades her senior (as she did in that clip).
her life was watching movies
In homage to Kiarostami, the Tarantino film is going to be one reel of her in close-up watching Bonnie and Clyde, then a reel of her watching Last Tango, then Nashville...
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 20:16 (one year ago) link
Then The Fury ...
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 20:49 (one year ago) link
Then Batman...
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 20:50 (one year ago) link
Calling her a novelist puzzles me as well. Maybe they're thinking of Renata Adler, who wrote two.
― Josefa, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 20:55 (one year ago) link
Kael did write (or attempted to write) plays iirc
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 20:57 (one year ago) link
yep
― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 21:01 (one year ago) link
This Peter Bradshaw piece has a couple of good lines:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/mar/16/quentin-tarantino-next-film-critic-pauline-kael?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Pauline Kael isn’t going to be putting her bare feet up on the car dashboard in this film. At least I don’t think so.
― clemenza, Thursday, 16 March 2023 23:46 (one year ago) link
I like this suggestion from a friend (as to who might play Kael): Laura Linney.
― clemenza, Friday, 17 March 2023 16:04 (one year ago) link
That's kinda brilliant. Not sure who else I'd even suggest.
― niall horanburger (cryptosicko), Friday, 17 March 2023 16:13 (one year ago) link
Christian Bale?
― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 March 2023 16:21 (one year ago) link
Random thought: I like Tarantino a lot, but nothing makes me more certain that a film is going to be embarassing bullshit than the words "influenced by Quentin Tarantino".
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 17 March 2023 16:26 (one year ago) link
Oh, definitely.
― niall horanburger (cryptosicko), Friday, 17 March 2023 16:27 (one year ago) link
Pretty much ... the gap between him and his imitators is about as vast as any I can imagine.
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Friday, 17 March 2023 16:27 (one year ago) link
Tho, to be fair, the only movies I think we're talking about when it comes to "Tarantino imitators" are Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, no?
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Friday, 17 March 2023 16:28 (one year ago) link
That
― satori enabler (Noodle Vague), Friday, 17 March 2023 16:29 (one year ago) link
xp, Tarantino ruined dickwit testosterone film school kids
― satori enabler (Noodle Vague), Friday, 17 March 2023 16:31 (one year ago) link
Pauline Kael isn’t going to be putting her bare feet up on the car dashboard in this film. At least I don’t think so.🥱🥱🥱
― least said, sergio mendes (sic), Friday, 17 March 2023 16:36 (one year ago) link
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.),
It's a good question. Are there Jackie Brown heirs running around?
― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 March 2023 16:39 (one year ago) link