At 77 years old, you know by now that filmmaker Paul Schrader (“Taxi Driver,” “First Reformed”) has long entered his DGAF era. His Facebook posts are always controversial (he still wants to hire the disgraced Kevin Spacey, for example), and you could essentially dedicate an entire blog to what he says on social media every day, including all the politically incorrect things he says.
Now, in a new interview with Le Monde in France, the filmmaker is arguably speaking out of turn and revealing once-secret elements of Quentin Tarantino’s next and supposed final movie, “The Movie Critic.” Tarantino has already created a lot of revisionist history in his films—killing Hitler in “Inglourious Basterds” and saving Sharon Tate from a grim fate in “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.” While it remains to be seen if he’ll do the same in “The Movie Critic,” it does look like he’ll at least reexamine cinematic movie history by reenacting moments from classic 1970s films he adores.
“Quentin will insert extracts from films from the 1970s. And he will also make his own versions of films from that era,” Schrader revealed. “He asked my permission to shoot the ending of [‘Rolling Thunder’], by John Flynn, as I had written it in the original screenplay—before it was completely rewritten and watered down.”
And well, that last bit, changing the ending as it was initially intended, is undoubtedly in keeping with Tarantino’s creative decision to rewrite history in many of his recent films. Now the question remains: for all the other 1970s films he includes and or reenacts, will he make the same and change history again?
In case you’re unaware, “Rolling Thunder” is a neo-noir psychological action revenge thriller directed by John Flynn, starring William Devane, and, of course, written by Paul Schrader. It is long been one of Tarantino’s favorite movies, and he named his short-lived 1990s distribution company, Rolling Thunder Pictures, after it. Moreover, “Rolling Thunder” came out in 1977, the year Tarantino said “The Movie Critic” takes place, so maybe the movie is more central to the plot than was previously known.
It is a super fascinating concept and arguably even more interesting than the historical revisions he’s done so far, given that “The Movie Critic” is apparently his last film and sounds like something of a valentine to movies (not unlike the way ‘OUATIH’ is).
What do we know about “The Movie Critic” thus far? Well, it’s not cast or shot, so it’s likely not arriving until 2025 for one. Once thought to be about the famous movie critic Pauline Kael, “The Movie Critic” is based on a movie reviewer who wrote for a pornographic magazine in the 1970s.
“All the other stuff was too skanky to read, but then there was this porno rag that had a really interesting movie page. He wrote about mainstream movies, and he was the second-string critic,” Tarantino said last year. “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 [Robert DeNiro’s character in “Taxi Driver”] might be if he were a film critic.”
It’s already presumed that “The Movie Critic” is based on little-known film critic and porn historian William Mangold, a writer that Tarantino mentioned on his Video Archives podcast almost at the very beginning of its inception.
Who’s in “The Movie Critic”? Tarantino has previously teased a white male American actor in his 30s, and Paul Walter Hauser was once rumored to play the part. Rumors have also surfaced about “Death Proof” star Kurt Russell having a role (he recently said, “I have no clue”), and Samuel L. Jackson declined to say if he would be in the movie. So far, we really don’t know a lot, but if Tarantino’s rewriting cinematic history, one has to wonder if this forgotten critic actually gets his national due in the film.
If “The Movie Critic” is Tarantino’s last movie, note that he has given himself a couple of outs and exceptions and that he could still direct TV beyond that, a medium he believes is vastly different. He does have any idea for a “Bounty Law” spin-off series from ‘OUATIH,’ but if you listed out all the potential spin-off projects Tarantino has named over the years (and we have), you’d note that not a one has come to pass. On top of TV, Tarantino has suggested he could still pen several novels and movie books, and he’s already written two, “Cinema Speculation” and the “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” novelization, so far.
