CITY OF STARS
The residence resides on a hushed, leafy street in Central Los Angeles. South is the New Beverly movie theatre, which tonight is playing a bloody double bill of Near Dark and Jennifer’s Body. North is the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, where two days earlier Lucy Liu planted her fingers in cement. Both are exciting places to be. Neither, however, compares to what’s going on inside this house. It’s fair to say, in fact, that of all the many, many cool locations in the sprawling mass of LA, this very ordinary-looking domicile is, in early May 2019, the absolute coolest.
There are clues. Like the small group of people beavering away at complicated-looking equipment, mellow music playing softly in the background. Or the whiteboard crammed with technical codes (“LFOP”, “KEM CHECK”, “DV40”) relating to nine reels. Or the antique movie posters on the wall, including a lurid one-sheet for a 1960s movie called Dark Of The Sun, boasting Rod Taylor wielding a chainsaw and running towards a shirtless opponent, plus multiple explosions and the understated tagline: “A STRIKE FORCE OF CRACK MERCENARIES FIGHT THE HOTTEST BATTLES IN ALL THE BLAZING FURY OF TODAY’S STRIFE-TORN CONGO!”
The biggest clue, though, is the man who suddenly slides in through the rented house’s back door, a big grin on his face, and shakes Empire by the hand. “Hey, a victim!” Quentin Tarantino exclaims, loudly, breaking into a hearty cackle. “We haven’t had anyone here to show what we’re up to that wasn’t involved up to their ass in the movie. We’ve been looking forward to today.”
Yes, this is Fortress Tarantino. QT HQ. The place where the iconic writer-director — who happens to own the New Beverly, and who directed Lucy Liu in — is baking his ninth and penultimate film. He leads up a set of stairs,, a Terminator, a Snake Plissken, a bunch of funkos), there is a stand on which is placed a screenplay so enormous it looks like a Bible, or a Complete Works Of Shakespeare. Fittingly, the front page bears the legend, “MAGNUM OPUS”. This is the original manuscript of , the epic that in this room has been whittled down from four-and-a-half hours to a little shy of three.
