{"id":3944,"date":"2022-11-23T14:28:16","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T12:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tarantino.info\/?p=3944"},"modified":"2022-11-23T14:28:17","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T12:28:17","slug":"book-review-cinema-speculation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarantino.info\/2022\/11\/book-review-cinema-speculation\/","title":{"rendered":"Book review: Cinema Speculation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Many years ago, when I first got to meet Quentin Tarantino<\/em>, my preconception of him as a world renowned film connoisseur was reinforced, and then some. However (and I will get to Cinema Speculation<\/a><\/strong> in a minute, bear with me), he is widely known as a film geek, both within professional cineaste circles as well as in the mainstream pop culture (among the latter, with a slight air of condescension). Tarantino however is not a mere film geek. At least not the way most of today\u2019s film \u201cgeeks\u201d (I actually despise the term) are. Yes, there may be folks out there who have seen as many movies or more than Quentin has (comment below if you accept that challenge), yes some folks may have huge film collections, know their trivia, and so on. They may even be on message boards and brag about their Letterboxd stats (hey I do that, you can bet your ass I do). Yet Quentin is pre-internet, and he\u2019s also \u2013 and this is the most important distinction \u2013 not a film nerd as a simple pasttime, or some dude with an obsessive hobby, a loner with too much time spent in the basement, which is more along the lines of most peoples\u2019 idea of what constitutes a \u201cgeek\u201d. Tarantino grew up on movies and then ended up making them himself, but his affinity with movies probably stopped being merely just a hobby before he dropped out of school. He would first go on to work as a porn theater usher, then as a video store clerk, later as a writer and director! His is not a leisurely obsession \u2013 his life is cinema, and he\u2019s not just some nerd geeking out on trivia, he\u2019s extremely well read and educated and lives his cineaste life to its fullest and in the most professional way. he\u2019s, by all means, probably the world\u2019s first professional cineaste that isn\u2019t a normal paid film critic (of the Roger Ebert<\/em> mold) or historian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having said all that, to those like me who\u2019ve followed and understood Quentin for quite a while (a lot of people unfortunately fundamentally misunderstand Mr. Tarantino, but that\u2019s not the focus of this review) and also learned to appreciate his writing beyond the amazing movie scripts (his movie reviews published on a section of thenewbev.com<\/a> are just one example, you could also by some extension call his dramatic increase in podcast appearances over the last few years a form of writing), Cinema Speculation<\/strong> comes with no surprise (it was announced years ago), and let me restate that the way it reads, how it is written and how enjoyable it is, comes at no (big) surprise either. Those who do think this is somewhat out of the ordinary, see above, haven\u2019t cracked the Q nut.<\/p>\n\n\n