It was only a matter of time. Quentin Tarantino is not only a prolific filmmaker in his own right (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)—he has also always been a scholar of cinema. If you took a shot for every film historical reference in one of his given works, you’d be drunk, like, three seconds into the movie.
Now he’s taking advantage of the prolonged isolation period we’re all in due to coronavirus—during which the film industry is shut down—to write movie reviews on New Beverly Cinema’s website. He hasn’t publicized that he is doing this, but he is doing it.
The New Beverly is a historic ’20s LA theater the director bought in 2007. It’s closed temporarily under the orders of LA mayor Eric Garcetti, but its website is still alive and now publishing reviews with bylines from Q himself, mostly write-ups of obscure films from the ’70s like Peter Bogdanovich’s adaptation of Daisy Miller, the Gary Busey carnival drama Carny, and John Frankenheimer horror flick Prophecy. Many of these run two thousand words long, and he’s written eight since March began.
Upon purchasing the venue, Tarantino told The Hollywood Reporter, “As long as I’m alive, and as long as I’m rich, the New Beverly will be there, showing double features in 35mm.” Well the New Beverly is still there, biding its time until it can reopen and we can all step into the sunlight and watch movies together again.
In the meantime, read Tarantino’s reviews here.
