Quentin Tarantino carries out his work as a film critic through writing, conversation, and exhibition. Each form makes it possible to do something different with a movie. An essay can connect the memory of a first viewing with a later assessment; a review focuses on the strengths and problems of a work; a conversation brings in the questions or disagreements of other viewers. Programming a screening adds the possibility of sharing films on a screen and in a specific order.
The projects also have different participants and responsibilities. A byline identifies the author of a text. A podcast can bring together several speakers and have its own production. A theater needs to choose films and have the prints and equipment needed to screen them. Recognizing these differences makes it possible to understand what Tarantino contributes in each activity and what work belongs to other people.
The interest of this side of his work lies in the reasons he develops for appreciating cinema: how he argues for a preference, what he makes visible when comparing films, and how he turns a personal hobby into an experience that others can read, hear, or share.
Written criticism and theater programming start from different decisions. One develops an argument about images and sounds; the other organizes the conditions for encountering them again. In Tarantino’s projects, both activities coexist with the spoken exchange that characterizes a podcast.
The essay and the review make it possible to pause over a film
Hachette dates the publication of Cinema Speculation to November 1, 2022, and describes its journey through 1970s American films that Tarantino saw during his youth. In the essay Cinema Speculation personal memory and film criticism intersect. That framework explains its selective nature: the films are part of a viewer’s experience from which an interpretation of an era is built.
Memory and argument serve different functions in an essay like this. Remembering the impact of a film situates one’s personal relationship to it; examining a scene makes it possible to discuss how that effect is achieved. The reader may be interested in the memory and disagree with the evaluation. Critical intervention becomes productive when it offers reasons that another person can compare with what happens on the screen.
Tarantino’s written reviews allow for a more focused scale. In his text about The Dynamite Brothers, published by New Beverly on April 1, 2020, he expresses general reservations about Al Adamson’s films while at the same time defending this one. The evaluation grows out of that exception: the specific work forces a prior expectation about its director to be revised. It is an example of a nuanced judgment within an enthusiastic critical tone.
Video Archives: films discussed among several voices
Gala Avary explained the format of The Video Archives Podcast in a public presentation on December 14, 2024. Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary talk about films watched on the tapes from the former Video Archives; she takes part as producer and reporter, alongside producer Josh Richmond. In that post, she also described the move of the second season to Patreon, tied to greater independence in choosing films and to the relationship with listeners.
Starting from specific tapes gives the exchange a shared object. The participants can remember their impressions and discuss what they have just rewatched. The conversation also preserves the difference between voices: a statement by Avary or an observation by Gala does not become Tarantino’s opinion simply because it is part of the same program. Disagreement can point to a scene or an interpretation that an individual contribution had overlooked.
In a podcast, the selection of films and the time devoted to discussing them help define the episode. That distinguishes it from a promotional interview, which is shaped by the questions and by the reason for the appearance. Tarantino’s film conversations and interviews can expand an explanation when someone asks him to make a comparison more specific, recall a sequence, or clarify why an interpretation seems convincing to him.
New Beverly and Vista: exhibition as film-culture activity
The official history of the New Beverly Cinema places the theater’s transformation into a repertory cinema under Sherman Torgan in 1978. It also records Tarantino’s first programming in October 2014 with a double feature devoted to Paul Mazursky: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Blume in Love. Pairing two titles suggests a comparison that the audience can make during a single visit while preserving each film’s identity.
The Vista Theatre expands his exhibition activity. Discover Los Angeles, in its August 21, 2026 information, documents Tarantino’s purchase of the theater in 2021 and its reopening in 2023. The theater’s official website, consulted on October 18, 2026, announces screenings in 35 mm or 70 mm. Those formats describe a presentation condition; a film appearing on the bill does not in itself amount to a personal review by its owner.
The history of the New Beverly attributes to Tarantino the decision to screen only photochemical prints. It is a concrete application of his defense of film. The projection medium, the preservation of a print, and the conditions of a screening are related but different matters. Choosing films for a theater expresses an exhibition preference; judging the result also requires attention to the image and sound the audience receives at that screening.
Guest participation offers another way to share film culture. On April 1, 2020, the New Beverly announced an appearance by Tarantino on Pure Cinema Podcast, alongside Elric Kane, Brian Saur, Julie McLean, and Phil Blankenship. The conversation was devoted to film, criticism, and the series of reviews he had written for the theater’s website. The episode made it possible to bring a previously written activity into conversation and open it up to questions from other participants.
This move between media allows an argument to meet objections or new connections. In a review, the author decides the full order of the presentation; in front of interlocutors, a question may stop him at a detail he had taken for granted. For the listener, the learning happens in that development: an initial idea becomes more precise when explaining what an actor does, how a scene is structured, or why the comparison with another film is relevant. The interest lies in following that explanation and assessing its reasons.