The Hateful Eight

[+ Billsboy4]

This is Quentin Tarantino's new movie. Let me say at the outset that I'm a big fan and really enjoy his wacky look at things. HOWEVER, the movie is 3 hours long, with an overature and a 12 minute intermission like the old roadshow movies. Here's the set up....Kurt Russell is a bounty hunter taking Jennifer Jason Leigh to Red Rock, Wy to be hung for murder. He comes upon Samuel L Jackson, also a bounty hunter with 3 dead criminals (also with a bounty) and gives him a ride on his stagecoach. They stop at a roadhouse as a blizzard is coming and spend the rest of the time within the roadhouse. It's really Tarantino's version of Bus Stop....more of a play than a movie. Unknown to Russell and Jackson is that the other guests at the roadhouse are there to free Jason Leigh and so the movie plays out. Act one is not very violent (except for Russell beating the shit out of Leigh.) Act 2 has the crazy, bloody, violence we expect from Tarantino (it's the accident you don't want to look at, but you can't help yourself and want to look.) The movie could have been much shorter and still told the same story and would have been terrific....instead it very slow, which is a shame.

[+ quoththeraven]

His Inglorious Basterds is a terrific movie, but it could easily have been trimmed by half an hour. He gets enamored of ideas and doesn't bother streamlining his movies.

[MrMiniver]

Other than Pulp Fiction, I have never cared for his work. It seems an exercise in seeing how overblown he can get and how much he can shock you. There seems little point otherwise. The last one, I felt like I was being assaulted. Sitting for 2.5 hours and have someone yell f*** and n***** at me all that time is not my cup of tea. Oh, and I find Christoph Waltz unbearable.

[Rod Hagen]

Other than Pulp Fiction, I have never cared for his work..

Give Inglorious Basterds another try. No matter what you think of the middle stuff, the bookends are absolutely remarkable and try to remember that this was probably the first you saw of Waltz. I agree, now I feel he has zero range.

[Battle]

Death Proof was quirky,flawed,derivative and wonderfully giddy ride by QT.

Christoph Waltz single handedly sucked the life out of Inglorious Bastards...having to sit through his Sceptre arch-enemy performance was much worse.

The H8tful Eight.....loved it.

[+ quoththeraven]

I agree, now I feel he has zero range.

 

Waltz has a shtick and he is great at it. But he did not deserve a second Oscar for the same shtick in a more heroic role in Django Unchained as a similar but non-heroic role in Inglorious Basterds.

Just to stir things up, I thought Django Unchained was a more effective movie than Twelve Years a Slave, which felt more like a history lesson than an engaging narrative. Having someone who is mostly passive and not in control of his own narrative as the POV character was deadening. I disagree with awarding it Best Adapted Screenplay. Lupita N'yongo's acting deserved Best Supporting Actress and I would have awarded Fassbender Best Supporting Actor. He deserved a Best Actor nomination for Shame as well.

[Reluctant Daddy]

Big fan of Tarantino's work and can't wait to see this. Of all of his films, I seem to like Jackie Brown the most.

[+ quoththeraven]

Big fan of Tarantino's work and can't wait to see this. Of all of his films, I seem to like Jackie Brown the most.

 

A friend recommended it, but I have yet to see it. *makes note to put on Netflix queue*

[MrMiniver]

Give Inglorious Basterds another try. No matter what you think of the middle stuff, the bookends are absolutely remarkable and try to remember that this was probably the first you saw of Waltz. I agree, now I feel he has zero range.

 

I just don't care for the subject matter and satires/parodies of Nazis are just not for me. It's all too noisy and well, to quote David Denby "sound and fury signifying nothing" (from you know who). Waltz has zero range. He was absolutely awful with an American accent -- of sorts -- in that Polanski adaptation of a play I liked but now can't remember the name. Two Oscars? Unbelievable.

[MrMiniver]

Waltz has a shtick and he is great at it. But he did not deserve a second Oscar for the same shtick in a more heroic role in Django Unchained as a similar but non-heroic role in Inglorious Basterds.

Just to stir things up, I thought Django Unchained was a more effective movie than Twelve Years a Slave, which felt more like a history lesson than an engaging narrative. Having someone who is mostly passive and not in control of his own narrative as the POV character was deadening. I disagree with awarding it Best Adapted Screenplay. Lupita N'yongo's acting deserved Best Supporting Actress and I would have awarded Fassbender Best Supporting Actor. He deserved a Best Actor nomination for Shame as well.

 

I hated Django with a passion that I have almost never felt before. I saw Twelve Years a Slave with two black friends and it made me very uncomfortable. I thought -- and wouldn't blame them -- they might kill me. As it turned out, I wanted to talk all about it. And then were fairly uninterested. White guilt, I guess. Even though my ancestors didn't come to this country until after slavery ended. It was a powerful film. Lupita takes your breath away. Fassbaender was superb. Shame was too unpleasant a film for the Academy to embrace methinks. I asked a couple members and they looked me like "couldn't get through that one." I though Fassbaender was superb.

[mmk123]

Big fan of Tarantino's work and can't wait to see this. Of all of his films, I seem to like Jackie Brown the most.

 

That is my favorite Quentin Tarantino movie. An excellent cast-Pam Grier's big comeback film- and has one of the absolute best final scenes EVER in a movie.

[Kevin Slater]

Other than Pulp Fiction, I have never cared for his work. It seems an exercise in seeing how overblown he can get and how much he can shock you. There seems little point otherwise. The last one, I felt like I was being assaulted. Sitting for 2.5 hours and have someone yell f*** and n***** at me all that time is not my cup of tea. Oh, and I find Christoph Waltz unbearable.

 

Kevin Slater

[Rod Hagen]

 

Kevin Slater

Holy fucking hell, look at Reservoir Dogs. I've seen it a couple time, don't remember THAT much swearing. Guess I'm immune/oblivious.

[Kenny]

I hated Django with a passion that I have almost never felt before. I saw Twelve Years a Slave with two black friends and it made me very uncomfortable. I thought -- and wouldn't blame them -- they might kill me. As it turned out, I wanted to talk all about it. And then were fairly uninterested. White guilt, I guess. Even though my ancestors didn't come to this country until after slavery ended. It was a powerful film. Lupita takes your breath away. Fassbaender was superb. Shame was too unpleasant a film for the Academy to embrace methinks. I asked a couple members and they looked me like "couldn't get through that one." I though Fassbaender was superb.

Your ancestors came to this country after World War II? The book "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II," by Douglas Blackmon, received a 2009 Pulitzer Prize, the 2009 American Book Award, the 2009 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Non-fiction Book Prize, and the 2008 Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Book Award. It's worth a look.