By: Quentin Tarantino

About: Quentin Tarantino talking about movies he likes

https://www.amazon.com/Cinema-Speculation-Quentin-Tarantino/dp/0063112582/

Overall review: ⭐️

Review:

This is basically a survey of how Quentin feels about movies across genre, era, and scale. It’s also somewhat autobiographical, in that Quentin weaves in his own adolescence a backdrop for his understanding or obsession with a particular film.

As a fan of his work, this gives me a lot more color and context to many of the common themes/tropes that make a Tarantino movie unique. Beyond just a history of Hollywood movies, QT makes succinct critiques of films and their stars - what worked, what didn’t, what should change, and why. His thoughts on Steve McQueen’s stardom, Taxi Driver’s cultural impact, Clint Eastwood’s early collaborations, or what if ____ directed ____ instead of ____ (the titular notion of Cinema Speculation) helped me draw clear inspirational throughlines to his own films like Django, Kill Bill, and Once Upon a Time. More importantly, it gives you a great sense of why QT is such a distinct master of his craft - it’s because he’s an obsessed consumer of the craft as well.

We should all be so fortunate to have a passion about both creating and consuming something the way QT is about cinema.