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PORTSIDE CULTURE

THE REAL REASON WE’RE ALL ANNOYED WITH QUENTIN TARANTINO  
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Eileen Jones
December 28, 2025
Jacobin
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_ With nothing but a new cut of Kill Bill to offer, Quentin Tarantino
has gone into semiretirement right as American cinema is fighting for
its very life. And to make matters worse, he won’t stop talking
smack. _

The American movie is in a fight for its life. Quentin Tarantino’s
peers have all taken up arms, while he’s opted to sit back, heckling
from the sidelines. , (Miguel Medina / AFP via Getty Images)

 

Al the glowing reviews for the four-hour-and-forty-one minute version
of Quentin Tarantino’s _Kill Bill_ — originally released as two
separate films in 2003 and 2004 — are a sickening read if you
actually go and see the damn thing, now titled _Kill Bill: The Whole
Bloody Affair_. So little is changed, it’s shocking. It’s
essentially the first two installments stuck together with a
fifteen-minute intermission in between, an effect you could achieve at
home by simply watching both films with a long bathroom break in
between.

In case you need a reminder, _Kill Bill_ is the saga of a top assassin
named Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman) who emerges from a four-year coma
and seeks protracted, gory revenge on her former mentor-lover Bill
(David Carradine) and the hit squad who nearly killed her.

When Beatrix finally awakens, it seems she’s also lost the baby she
had been carrying. This is yet another vital reason that, in the list
of revenge killings she plans to do, written down neatly in a
notebook, she puts the death of the baby’s actual father last after
the planned murders of hit squad members Vernita Green (Vivica A.
Fox), O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), and Bill’s
brother Budd (Michael Madsen). Then finally, she declares, “I am
going to kill Bill.”

There are really only four primary changes in this new cut. First,
Tarantino has doubled the length of the anime sequence, laying out the
backstory of formidable yakuza boss O-Ren Ishii. Second, the
black-and-white gore in the extraordinarily bloody Tokyo nightclub
sequence has been restored to full, crimson color. Third, some
“segue” material from the opening of _Kill Bill: Vol. 2_, shot in
black-and-white in imitation of certain French New Wave films, now
plays behind the end credits. Fourth, the brief coda at the end of
_Kill Bill: Vol. 1_, which featured Bill’s voice-over revealing that
Beatrix’s baby did not die in the wedding party massacre after all,
is now gone.

In the glowing reviews, you’ll read about how _Kill Bill: The Whole
Bloody Affair_ can only now be fully appreciated as the masterpiece it
is. This is the familiar auteur-worshipping take that sells every
“director’s cut” as revelatory, once it’s freed from the vile
influences of interfering, money-grubbing producers and studio
executives. And sometimes, director’s cuts _are_ revelatory. But
sometimes, they’re overlong and clotted with unnecessary material
that obscures the impact of the films you already love. Or, as in this
case, they make very little difference.

The original decision to split _Kill Bill_ into two separate releases,
over Tarantino’s objections, was made by producer Harvey Weinstein
of the then-thriving studio Miramax Films. And given what’s happened
in the years since, with Weinstein convicted of rape and sexual
assault and serving a sixteen-year prison sentence, nobody wants to
side with Weinstein about anything. But it must be acknowledged that
almost any producer would’ve opted for exactly the same two-part
release, purely for practical reasons. More standard-length screenings
mean more audience members and greater profits. Even for a “special
event” film like _Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair_, it’s tough
to get people who aren’t ardent cinephiles to commit to an almost
five-hour running time.

Tarantino’s own legacy has been considerably tainted since his _Kill
Bill_ heyday — and it’s worth noting that even then he was an
obnoxious personality who just happened to have undeniable filmmaking
skills. But since the original release of _Kill Bill_, more unsavory
aspects of Tarantino’s career have come to light. In his long
association with Harvey Weinstein, he admitted he “knew enough to do
more than I did” about Weinstein’s vile predatory habits. This is
especially striking considering his intense creative friendship with
Uma Thurman during the making of _Kill Bill_. She was one of the many
women in Hollywood struggling to fend off Weinstein’s aggressive
sexual advances.

The shine is off Quentin Tarantino among many film fans who admire his
undeniable cinematic talents but are fed up with his tiresome,
would-be macho acting out in his public conduct.

Thurman went public with her charges against Weinstein in 2018, and in
the same interviews, she also had serious complaints to make about
Tarantino’s behavior during the making of _Kill Bill_. Though
Tarantino included a credit on _Kill Bill_ indicating their creative
“Q and U” collaboration, he also indulged in sadistic acts aimed
at Thurman that were designed to make it into the film. During the
Crazy 88s fight sequence, for example, when teen assassin Gogo (Chiaki
Kuriyama) is strangling Beatrix with a chain, causing her face to
redden and her eyes to protrude, it was actually Tarantino pulling on
the chain just out of camera frame. When Budd appears to spit tobacco
juice in Beatrix’s face, it was Tarantino doing the spitting off
camera. And most seriously, Tarantino insisted that Thurman drive a
rickety car
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herself, ignoring her request that a stuntwoman do it:

“Quentin came in my trailer and didn’t like to hear no, like any
director,” she says. “He was furious because I’d cost them a lot
of time. But I was scared. He said: ‘I promise you the car is fine.
It’s a straight piece of road.’” He persuaded her to do it, and
instructed: “ ‘Hit forty miles per hour or your hair won’t blow
the right way and I’ll make you do it again.’ But that was a
deathbox that I was in. The seat wasn’t screwed down properly. It
was a sand road and it was not a straight road.”

The resultant car crash gave Thurman a serious concussion as well as
neck and knee injuries. Tarantino refused to allow Thurman access to
the footage of the car crash until fifteen years later, in what he
considered an act of atonement for an incident he regretted. Noted
Thurman, “Not that it matters now, with my permanently damaged neck
and my screwed-up knees.”

Recently, during the theatrical rerelease _Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody
Affair_, Tarantino has been back in the news with a sudden burst of
unsolicited commentary
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attacking actors he dislikes. In a widely quoted interview, Tarantino
claimed that Paul Thomas Anderson’s _There Will Be Blood_ would be
even better if it weren’t for Paul Dano, who was “the weakest
actor in SAG,” not strong enough to play opposite Daniel Day-Lewis
and make the film the “two-hander” it should have been: “He is
weak sauce, man. He’s a weak sister.”

Tarantino added to the list of actors he scorns Owen Wilson and
Matthew Lillard. Lillard cogently pointed out
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that Tarantino was singling out actors lacking power in the current
star rankings: “You wouldn’t say that to Tom Cruise. You
wouldn’t say that to somebody who’s a top-line actor in
Hollywood.”

But Tarantino seems to court controversy recently as he evinces less
and less interest in actually making movies. His strong support for
Israel since marrying his Israeli wife Daniella Pick and moving to Tel
Aviv with their two children, has reportedly included touring
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a military base “to boost IDF morale,” supporting the troops
currently waging war and committing genocide in Palestine.

Pick has proudly declared in a recent interview that Tarantino never
considered leaving Israel for safety as bombs fell. He’s even quoted
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as saying, “Well, whatever. Like if something happens, I’ll die as
a Zionist.”

Meanwhile, he’s aborted
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his tenth and possibly last film because of a realization he had after
writing the script that he had no particular interest in actually
filming it. “Every Tarantino title promises so much, except _The
Movie Critic_,” he explained. “Who wants to see a movie called
_The Movie Critic_?” There are still rumors that Tarantino will make
a different and perhaps final film, just not immediately. Instead,
Tarantino claims to be “really juiced about live theater now.”

Increasingly, the shine is off Quentin Tarantino among many film fans
who admire his undeniable cinematic talents but are fed up with his
tiresome, would-be macho acting out in his public conduct. But he
maintains his reliable following among the dudebro contingent who
worship his geeky loudmouth aggressivity and defend him against all
social media backlash.

And Tarantino’s legacy of high-octane hits makes him bulletproof in
Hollywood, where it’s clear he’d always be welcome to make a
splashy comeback, no matter how long he stays away. But now
semiretired from the film industry, Tarantino’s got nothing good
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to say about its current state of operations, which is fair enough. As
he argues in a recent interview, talking about why he’s deserted
filmmaking for the stage:

That’s a big f—ing deal, pulling [a play] off. . . . But making
movies? Well, what the f— is a movie now? . . . What? Something that
plays in theaters for a token release for four f—ing weeks? All
right, and by the second week you can watch it on television. I
didn’t get into all this for diminishing returns.

He’s right about the state of Hollywood. But it’s a further
irritant that such an aggressive bigmouth is talking smack from the
sidelines when what we really need from our top directors —
especially the ones, like Tarantino, with the most leverage — is to
join the front lines in the existential battle for American cinema.

It’s time Tarantino joins the front lines and makes a last-ditch
effort to save this medium we all love. Do that, Quentin, and you can
talk all the smack you want, I promise.

Steven Spielberg, who is nearly twenty years older than Tarantino, is
jumping right back into the fray with a big original sci-fi film,
_Disclosure Day_. Martin Scorsese, at age eighty-three, is about to
start filming _What Happens at Night_. Earlier this year,
Tarantino’s friend Paul Thomas Anderson made a huge push to revive
big non-IP theatrical movies for adults with _One Battle After
Another_. Christopher Nolan not only just wrapped principal
photography on the enormously ambitious _The Odyssey_, but — as the
newly elected president of the Directors Guild — was the genesis
behind the DGA’s unprecedented but very welcome public statement
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of “concerns” about the prospective Netflix purchase of Warner
Bros.:

We believe that a vibrant, competitive industry — one that fosters
creativity and encourages genuine competition for talent — is
essential to safeguarding the careers and creative rights of directors
and their teams. We will be meeting with Netflix to outline our
concerns. . . .

And then there’s Tarantino — one of the last filmmakers in
Hollywood who can snap his fingers and mobilize talent and financing
for non-IP projects — reclining in the back row and shooting
spit-wads, refusing to get back to work. Instead, he’s recycling his
twenty-plus year-old movie with minimal additions or edits and calling
it something new. If I had to guess, I’d say this is perhaps the
overarching reason that Tarantino is vastly more grating than usual
these days.

Because right now, the American movie is in a fight for its life.
Tarantino’s peers have all taken up arms — challenging themselves
like never before with hugely ambitious projects specifically for the
big screen (and, hopefully, big audiences).

It’s time Tarantino once again joins the front lines and makes a
last-ditch effort to save this medium we all love. Do that, Quentin,
and you can talk all the smack you want, I promise.

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Contributors

Eileen Jones is a film critic at Jacobin, host of the Filmsuck
podcast, and author of Filmsuck, USA.

 

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* quentin tarantino
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* american cinema
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