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It’s too early to tell if Quentin Tarantino’s claims of his imminent retirement are real (possibly) or bullshit (probably). But either way, fans can see him in person at the Hollywood Theatre this November, as he promotes his new book, Cinema Speculation.
On Nov. 9, Tarantino will be featured in conversation with the Hollywood’s head programmer, Dan Halsted. Previously, they’ve discussed kung fu movies on the Pure Cinema podcast. (Tarantino even made a surprise appearance at a screening of The Hateful Eight at the Hollywood in 2015.)
Then, on Nov. 10, Tarantino will appear at a 35 mm screening of John Flynn’s 1977 revenge film Rolling Thunder (die-hards will note that the film shares its name with Tarantino’s short-lived production company). Also, the director will be reading an excerpt from Cinema Speculation each night.
Tickets, which are $99.50 for each night, go on sale for Hollywood Theatre and Movie Madness members at 10 am Thursday, Oct. 6 (and go on sale to the general public at 10 am Friday, Oct. 7). The price of admission includes a copy of Cinema Speculation (further information is available on the Hollywood’s website).
Cinema Speculation, which will be released Nov. 1, focuses on American films of the 1970s that Tarantino first saw as a young moviegoer. According to a press release, the book is “film criticism, film theory, a feat of reporting, and wonderful personal history.”
The last decade has been turbulent for Tarantino. While he earned critical acclaim and commercial success for his Tinseltown fantasia Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019), he has endured a series of controversies. Most damning was his confession that he had known about some of the abuses of Harvey Weinstein, the now-jailed movie producer whose sex crimes ignited the #MeToo Movement (and with whom Tarantino collaborated on eight of the nine films he has directed).
“I knew enough to do more than I did,” Tarantino told The New York Times in 2017. “There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.” He added: “I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard. If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him.”
In 2018, Tarantino found himself apologizing again, this time for a car crash that injured the knees and neck of his Kill Bill star, Uma Thurman, during filming. The same year, he had to answer for defending Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski (who pleaded guilty in 1977 to statutory rape) in a 2003 interview with Howard Stern.
Apologizing for saying that Polanski’s assault on then-13-year-old Samantha Geimer was “not rape” and that Geimer “wanted to have it,” Tarantino stated that he “incorrectly played devil’s advocate in the debate for the sake of being provocative” and that he “was ignorant and insensitive and, above all, incorrect.”
The most recent Tarantino controversy was his unflattering portrayal of Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, which presents the legendary Hong Kong action star (played by Mike Moh) as an arrogant asshole who gets cruelly humiliated by Brad Pitt’s character. However, Tarantino has held firm on his portrayal of Lee.
Responding to pushback from Lee’s daughter, Shannon, Tarantino told Joe Rogan (while promoting his Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood novel), “Where I’m coming from is…I can understand his daughter having a problem with it, it’s her fucking father! I get that.” But addressing anyone else who took issue with Lee’s portrayal, he said, “Go suck a dick.”
As for Shannon Lee, she wrote, “I’m really fucking tired of white men in Hollywood trying to tell me who Bruce Lee was” (in a Hollywood Reporter article titled “Does Quentin Tarantino Hate Bruce Lee? Or Does It Just Help Sell Books?”).