Quentin Tarantino is at Cannes presently; he did an appearance in the Directors’ Fortnight on Thursday, with a special screening of Rolling Thunder (1977). He also had an interview in Deadline published, in which he indicated that his upcoming film The Movie Critic “is based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag… He wrote like he was 55 but he was only in his early to mid-30s. He died in his late thirties. It wasn’t clear for a while but now I’ve done some more research and I think it was it was complications due to alcoholism.”

The folks at World of Reel are sure that this is William Margold (1943-2017), who was a skankerific porn performer and director who once floated the idea of doing hardcore with one of his daughters when she turned 18. He was the right age in the late 70s, but he died at age 73. So either Quentin is trying to throw us off the scent (which wouldn’t be too surprising), or his subject is actually someone else, perhaps with elements of Margold folded in. But I don’t know who the candidates would be. So I put the question to a fellow I know, a published writer, who is REALLY up on such stuff.

My friend responded within two hours. He got in touch with an acquaintance in the porn / exploitation community who had already been in touch with other acquaintances in the porn / exploitation community (!), and they are all convinced that this Margold guy IS Tarantino’s subject, and that QT is obfuscating when he says that the critic “died in his late thirties”, maybe indicating the direction his fictionalization will take.