Quentin Tarantino has launched a fresh attack on post-Covid Hollywood, describing the filmmaking industry as a “flavourless sausage factory” rife with “miscast performers”, “audience pandering” and “just plain stupid s***”.
In an article for Sight and Sound magazine, the Pulp Fiction director said it had become “almost impossible” for him to watch new films without feeling the need to “pick to death”.
“Flaws, implausibilities, audience pandering, miscast performers, or just plain stupid s*** usually torpedoes every new movie coming out of the flavourless sausage factory that used to call itself Hollywood,” the filmmaker wrote. “These days, the entire concept of what is a movie is more inclined to inspire contempt in me than generosity. Which is fair enough, because by comparison the movies of the last six years make the 80s seem like the 30s.”
“But nothing that really held me in its grip and swept me away to the magical land of enjoyment that I used to visit regularly and was the reason I loved movies above all other artforms,” he continued.
“These days I’d rather read a book.”
In spite of his criticism, Tarantino said he had enjoyed Steven Spielberg’s 2021 adaptation of West Side Story and Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, both released in 2024.
He also praised The Rip, a Netflix crime thriller directed by Joe Carnahan and starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
“A suspenseful new movie has come out that did grab me and held me for its entire duration,” Tarantino wrote of the movie. “The film is an exciting cop thriller with a novel premise that manages to deliver the goods in really clever ways.”
The Rip stars Damon and Affleck as members of a Miami police unit whose trust begins to unravel after officers discover millions of dollars hidden inside a derelict stash house.
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“The whole package worked for me,” Tarantino continued. “Carnahan’s direction, the splendid cast, the look of the film courtesy of cinematographer Juan Miguel Azpiroz, but the real powerhouse component of this splendid collection is the sensational screenplay by Carnahan and Michael McGrale.”
The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey doesn’t quite agree with Tarantino, writing in a two-star review that Damon and Affleck are wasted “in a movie seemingly made for people who are busy scrolling on their phones”.
Tarantino’s latest remarks follow a series of controversial comments about actors and contemporary cinema.
In December, the Kill Bill director described as Paul Dano the “weakest f***ing actor” in Paul Thomas Anderson’s acclaimed 2007 movie There Will Be Blood. “He is such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy,” Tarantino said. “The weakest f***ing actor in SAG.”
He also named Wedding Crashers star Owen Wilson and Matthew Lillard of Scooby-Doo as actors he didn’t enjoy watching.
Tarantino’s next project is The Popinjay Cavalier, a play described as a “sweeping celebration of theatre and its heightened romance, told with Tarantino’s signature style and unmistakable wit”. It’s set to open in London’s West End in 2027.
His next major screen project is The Adventures of Cliff Booth, a sequel to 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood directed by David Fincher.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio as television actor Rick Dalton and Brad Pitt as his stunt double Cliff Booth who struggle to adapt to a changing film industry in 1969 Los Angeles as the Manson family murders loom in the background.
The sequel, which sees Pitt reprise his Oscar-winning role, is slated for a two-week theatrical run from 25 November before arriving on Netflix on 23 December.