Cinema Speculation

Why it is worth your time

Cinema Speculation is Quentin Tarantino's 2022 book of essays on the American films of the 1970s he saw as a child in Los Angeles, when his mother took him along to adult movies from the age of 7. The chapters cover Bullitt, Dirty Harry, Deliverance, The Getaway, Taxi Driver, Rolling Thunder and others, mixed with memoir and with digressions on critics. It was his first non-fiction book. Jason said on the December 2022 episode that he was halfway through and enjoying it a great deal. Film is a side interest on his list, alongside Kurosawa and Brian Cox. It suits readers who grew up on the same films and want to argue with a director about them. The caveat is range. WBUR's Sean Burns found it covers the 1970s almost exclusively through violent genre films and called the midsection flabby and repetitive.