Currently, we can only speculate on who and what “The Movie Critic” is about. Given the title and the fact that the script features a female lead, The Hollywood Reporter thinks the film may complete Tarantino’s unofficial trilogy of revisionist history (following “Inglorious Basterds” and his most recent film, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”) by telling a story about Pauline Kael. Kael was one of New Hollywood’s most prominent and respected film critics in addition to being an essayist and novelist and happened to work for Paramount Pictures for a short time in the early ’70s. Certainly, that bit of historical trivia could be an attractive starting point for Tarantino to spin a wild tale.
Tarantino himself has become a bit of a “movie critic” on his own over the years, particularly very recently, as his 2022 book “Cinema Speculation” is a nonfiction collection of essays about a number of movies he saw in his youth, his varied thoughts on them, and so on. Tarantino also co-hosts the “Video Archives Podcast” along with Roger Avary, a fellow filmmaker and one-time employee of the now-defunct Manhattan Beach video store of the same name. In revisiting some of the duo’s favorite picks from their clerking days, Tarantino continues to dabble in as much discussion and analysis about movies as he does making them.
Even though Tarantino, with these side projects and other future endeavors he claims he’ll take on, is far from being retired completely, he’s made it clear that this film will be his last. Whether “The Movie Critic” is a wry put-on of a title that conceals something different altogether or a literal reference to a real-life figure (or perhaps even both), it’s going to be exciting to see what the filmmaker brings for what he claims is his grand finale.
