The expletive-dotted narration in Tarantino’s book feels different from most of what passes for expertise or analysis in 2025. He doesn’t speak with the abstractions of academics or pundits. His musings are not the polished talking points of politicos or the make-it-up-as-you-go rambling of podcasters. And he seems incapable of the inch-deep posturing of influencers and hot-take artists. What Tarantino offers is something more grounded, deeply versed in history and context.
Tarantino’s knowledge of genres, movies, actors, scripts, and studio machinations is staggering. Writing of director Don Siegel, Tarantino explains that “the rogue law enforcement officer” is the “quintessential Siegel protagonist” and proceeds nonchalantly to list:
Not only Dirty Harry, Madigan, and The Verdict’s Grodman, but Eastwood’s Coogan in Coogan’s Bluff, Michael Parks’s Vinny McKay in Stranger on the Run, as well as David Niven’s comical Scotland Yard Inspector in Rough Cut (even in Siegel’s two espionage films, The Black Windmill and Telefon, his protagonists, secret agents working for MI6, the KGB, and the CIA, all end up going rogue inside their own agencies).
He talks about a half-century-old film I’d never even heard of, and which was made before he could drive, with the uncanny accuracy of a veteran insider: “The supporting cast of The Outfit is filled with one terrific actor’s face after another (Timothy Carey, Richard Jaeckel, Sheree North, Marie Windsor, Jane Greer, Henry Jones, Bill McKinney).” He adds, “The Outfit was one of the last films made under the tenure of MGM studio head James Aubrey . . . [who] was pissed off at the way the New York and Los Angeles critics had treated his slate of MGM films. So he began opening new MGM movies regionally first.”
Tarantino shows the same effortless fluency when talking about an array of cinema-adjacent topics. He observes, “In the eighties, inside the pages of Fangoria magazine, it was horror film movie directors that were its readers’ heroes, along with special effect makeup artists (Tom Savini, Rick Baker, and Rob Bottin). That was a drastic difference when compared to Forrest Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, the leading horror movie mag of adolescents ten years before.”
I can’t think of many education experts who can discuss the broad sweep of contemporary education research or practice with that kind of cool familiarity, much less the ins-and-outs of pedagogy and curriculum circa 1970.
Yet, at no point did I feel the urge to tell Tarantino, “Hey, go touch the grass.” He’s certainly a weird dude, but he comes across as remarkably down to earth. His love of cinema bloomed early, when he was dragged (as a five- or six-year-old) to a dizzying array of grown-up films. It’s clear that love is rooted in those memorable L.A. nights and his knowledge is deeply personal. There’s no distinction here between engagement and expertise. They’re two sides of a single coin.
Tarantino’s narrative reminded me of the vibe I used to get when I’d listen to Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, discuss screenwriting, photography, editing, camera equipment, production design, and casting on the show’s official podcast. Gilligan would start riffing on all the details involved in some elaborate crane shot that I’d never even noticed, and he’d do it with such lucidity and enthusiasm that I’d emerge with an urgent desire to go rewatch it so I could figure out what he was talking about.
