Veteran film director Quentin Tarantino has mocked the modern-day movie-making experience and says he has opted out of watching new films. The Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction director is yet to follow up with his tenth and supposed final film, but has found the time to criticise those still working. Tarantino says that making a movie following the Coronavirus pandemic has simply become implausible and that Hollywood has become a “flavourless sausage factory”.
This, he says, is the reason he is no longer engaging with new movies and is instead reading books. Tarantino has published works of his own too, with an adaptation of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and a non-fiction work, Cinema Speculation. It appears he enjoys writing as much as he does reading, with Tarantino sharing his thoughts on the movie industry in a column for Sight and Sound Magazine.
He wrote: “Since the pandemic … it seems almost impossible for a new movie to come out that I don’t pick to death. Flaws, implausibilities, audience pandering, miscast performers or just plain stupid shit usually torpedoes every new movie coming out of the flavourless sausage factory that used to call itself Hollywood.
“These days, the entire concept of what is a movie is more inclined to inspire contempt in me than generosity. Which is fair enough, because by comparison the movies of the last six years make the ’80s seem like the ’30s.
“I’ve seen movies I’ve liked since then — West Side Story, Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1 & 2, a few others, but nothing that really held me in its grip and swept me away to the magical land of enjoyment that I used to visit and was the reason why I loved movies above all artforms. These days I’d rather read a book.”
The most recent film Tarantino has recommended his fans watch is The Rip, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The duo behind Good Will Hunting received plenty of praise from the Django Unchained filmmaker, who called the film an “exciting cop thriller with a novel premise that manages to deliver the goods in really clever ways.”
He added: “The whole package worked for me. [Joe] Carnahan’s direction, the splendid cast, the look of the film (courtesy of cinematographer Juan Miguel Azpiroz) — but the real powerhouse component of this splendid collection is the sensational screenplay by Carnahan and Michael McGrale.”
In the time between Tarantino’s last film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and now, he has been tied to several film projects. A spaghetti western comedy titled Snake Belly, a spiritual successor to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood following a film critic, and an adaptation of the novel First Blood have all been suggested but scrapped.
The closest Tarantino has come to returning to filmmaking is in writing the script for a Once Upon a Time in Hollywood spin-off which is set to star Brad Pitt. Netflix will release The Adventures of Cliff Booth in December 2026.
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