Quentin Tarantino Reveals ‘Movie Critic’ Plot Details: He’s a ‘Porno Rag’ Reporter
Quentin Tarantino is finally confirming his supposed final film.
Director he told Deadline that “The Movie Critic” will begin “pre-production” this June, with Tarantino seeking an actor around 35 to play the lead. “The Movie Critic” is based on a “porn rag” reporter Tarantino read while working as a vending machine stocker. The film is set in 1977 Southern California, with a character arc similar to that of Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.”
“All the other stuff was too kinky to read, but then there was this porn rag that had a really cool movie page,” Tarantino recalled reading the magazine as a teenager. “He wrote about mainstream films and was the critic of the second series. I think he was a very good critic. He was cynical as hell. His reviews of him were a cross between the early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle might be if he were a film critic. He thinks of Travis’ journal entries.
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The “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” director added: “But the porn critic was very, very funny. He was very rude, you know. He swore. He used racial slurs. But the shit about him was really funny. He was rude as hell. He wrote as if he were 55, but he was only in his mid-30s. He died in the late 1930s. It wasn’t clear for a while, but now I’ve done some more research and I think it was complications from alcoholism.”
Per “The Movie Critic,” the magazine will be fictionalized as “The Popstar Pages.” As Tarantino summarized, the feature film is “based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and was writing movie reviews for some dirty rag.”
As for casting, Tarantino noted that he’s looking for a male American star in his 30s, noting it will be a new collaboration and not a longtime collaborator.
“I haven’t decided yet, but it’s going to be someone in the ballpark of 35. He’s definitely going to be a new lead for me,” Tarantino said. “I have an idea of someone that I can imagine him doing really well…”
The “Pulp Fiction” icon will be moving to Los Angeles in June to “start seeing who else is out there” for casting.
“I would say Americans for the most part have given up their turf,” Tarantino added, citing the influx of British and Australian stars putting on American accents. “I think it’s just a coincidence that one group of Brits just became more famous than the others. The Americans have given up their land. When I look at 70s cinema, I want to see Robert De Niro, I want to see Al Pacino, I want to see Stacy Keach, you know, I want to see people like that who reflect my culture.”
“The Movie Critic” will be set the same year that “Rolling Thunder” premiered. Tarantino presents “Rolling Thunder” in Cannes this year. The film’s writer Paul Schrader previously told IndieWire that Tarantino asked him to redo the final scene of “Rolling Thunder.”