The Hatefull Eight

[VegaLA]

While I'm no fan of Westerns I am impressed with the cast.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/07/first-look-at-tarantinos-the-hateful-eight

Tim Roth hasn't worked with Quentin in ages so that should prove interesting and I do like some Kurt Russell. Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern are cast too.

[DrunkCountry]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/07/first-look-at-tarantinos-the-hateful-eight

Fuck me, that Daemon Hatfield's a bit much.

[popcorn]

Tarantino is one of only two directors (the other being Edgar Wright) I can rely on to make films I will find dazzlingly entertaining. The kind of film that makes me clap like a clown seal.

Death Proof rules, everyone's a moron.

[Hollow]

I didn't really want to see another Western out of him, but I'm in...hope it's not a cartoon like the last two.

[Leo2112]

Death Proof rules, everyone's a moron.

Tarantino ain't too keen on it himself..

"I'm really well versed on a lot of directors' careers, you know, and when you look at those last five films when they were past it, when they were too old, and they're really out of touch with the times, whether it be William Wyler and The Liberation of L.B. Jones or Billy Wilder with Fedora and then Buddy Buddy or whatever the hell. To me, it's all about my filmography, and I want to go out with a terrific filmography. Death Proof has got to be the worst movie I ever make. And for a left-handed movie, that wasn't so bad, all right? — so if that's the worst I ever get, I'm good. But I do think one of those out-of-touch, old, limp, flaccid-dick movies costs you three good movies as far as your rating is concerned."

[newbridge]

Tarantino dissing any Billy Wilder film is fairly outrageous. Tarantino is the biggest hack director in the business. Fuck you, Quentin!

[non capisco]

Yes, Walton Goggins! Be interested to see how he works with Channing Tatum too, an actor I've had a lot of time for for a while now. Didn't really rate Django Unchained at all but the 'Reservoir Dogs in the wild west' synopsis of this sounds right up my street and to be honest I've got such a soft spot for Westerns I'll watch just about any old shite in that setting at least once.

Can't wait for the bit where a psychotic person makes a long, slow wordy speech before an eruption of violence and all the bare feet.

[popcorn]

I really want Tarantino to make a screwball comedy. I really want it.

[Blinder Data]

I really want him to make a film, not a 'Quentin Tarantino film'.

[mothman]

He tried that, once, but his fanbase reacted so negatively to Jackie Brown NOT being Pulp Fiction 2, he scuttled hurriedly back into his comfort zone and has stayed there ever since.

[popcorn]

You can count me in as part of that problem. (Though I didn't discover Tarantino until just before Kill Bill came out, so it wasn't quite the same situation of shattered expectations.) I like Jackie Brown a lot, but every time I watch it, by the end I've completely lost the plot. I find it impossible to follow.

I'm just too much of a thicko. Give me swordfights and car chases instead, I suppose.

[Viero_Berlotti]

I'd be interested in seeing this at the cinema purely because it is apparently the first film to use Panavision's ultra wide aspect ratio 2.76:1 since the mid 1960's.

http://wiki.tarantino.info/index.php/The_Hateful_Eight/Trivia

[Old Nehamkin]

Really brilliant choice by Tarantino to give Walton Goggins a lead role in this. He's a fantastic actor with an effortlessly charismatic screen presence and it's nice that he's landed such a big part so soon after the end of Justified. He couldn't deserve it more.

Anyway, yeah, looking forward to this. I know Django had its critics, but it really worked for me on a very visceral level; I thought it was the most purely entertaining thing he's done since the 90s. Will be very surprised if I don't get a kick out of this one, and at the very least it should produce an ace soundtrack album.

[kngen]

If Django had finished half an hour earlier, and avoided the horror of QT pretending to being Australian and all that horse-dancing bollocks, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. However, I had no idea Walton Goggins was in Justified, so, after swithering about whether I should delve in, that pretty much seals it for me. Cheers!

[greenman]

If Django had finished half an hour earlier, and avoided the horror of QT pretending to being Australian and all that horse-dancing bollocks, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. However, I had no idea Walton Goggins was in Justified, so, after swithering about whether I should delve in, that pretty much seals it for me. Cheers!

Those were fairly minor issues, I could see the reason for extending it beyond the first shootout to cast Sam Jackson as the real villain, the disappointing thing for me was that Samuels character didn't really have anything interesting to say in that final showdown, some kind of self justification that Django could shoot down rather than just killing him.

[Ignatius_S]

Really brilliant choice by Tarantino to give Walton Goggins a lead role in this. He's a fantastic actor with an effortlessly charismatic screen presence and it's nice that he's landed such a big part so soon after the end of Justified. He couldn't deserve it more...

Not surprising though. Since The Shield, he's been in increasingly in demand and it was telling that for Cowboys and Aliens, the producers pushed his name far more than someone who had essentially a cameo role and the amount of publicity he did for that film. Tarantino is very good at casting and this will, no doubt be something that Googins would sleepwalk his way through. There's another western that he'll be starring in and my gut feeling is he'll be showing his acting chops in.

Personally, I suspect the new HBO comedy series that he will be co-starring in is likely better for Goggins, in terms of career.

If Django had finished half an hour earlier, and avoided the horror of QT pretending to being Australian and all that horse-dancing bollocks, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. However, I had no idea Walton Goggins was in Justified, so, after swithering about whether I should delve in, that pretty much seals it for me. Cheers!

I would say that the biggest issue was that it was marketed as a western, heavily influenced by spaghetti westerns, whereas it was an exploitation flick with western tropes.

Prior to seeing the film, I was concerned by one Guardian article where Tarantino discussed his favourite spaghetti westerns and it was so superficial. Admittedly, it might have been something he was phoning in but I did raise my eyebrows. IIRC, what he said about The Big Silence (which supposedly is the main influence for this film) didn't get to the film's heart at all.

Those were fairly minor issues, I could see the reason for extending it beyond the first shootout to cast Sam Jackson as the real villain, the disappointing thing for me was that Samuels character didn't really have anything interesting to say in that final showdown, some kind of self justification that Django could shoot down rather than just killing him.

IIRC, horse-dancing scene was only put in because Foxx, who was using his own horse, was showing off the moves and it felt to me a rather indulgent inclusion, but that was par for the course for the film.

[great_badir]

Death Proof rules, everyone's a moron.

Best thing about Death Proof is the plate of nachos Kurt's tucking into.

[popcorn]

Those were fairly minor issues, I could see the reason for extending it beyond the first shootout to cast Sam Jackson as the real villain, the disappointing thing for me was that Samuels character didn't really have anything interesting to say in that final showdown, some kind of self justification that Django could shoot down rather than just killing him.

I really enjoyed Django but two things bothered me about it.

The first was the Blazing Saddles-style scene with the comedy discussion of not being able to see out of the eyeholes etc. I just didn't think it was funny. I'm not sure why. It just wasn't done very well.

The second is bigger. I thought the handling of Sam Jackson's character was rather fishy. When he was introduced, doing all that hoo-wee-massa-I'm-a-comedy-black-guy schtick, people in the audience were cracking up, but I didn't read it as straightforwardly funny, I thought it was tragic. Like, this guy's reduced to this sort of performance. And then he's kind of revealed as the worst villain of the piece, the traitor or whatever, but I saw him as a victim of the whole grisly business just like the other slaves, a product of the crime of slavery. I didn't really buy the Swift Justice dealt to him.

Movie still owns though.

[Mango Chimes]

I really want Tarantino to make a screwball comedy. I really want it.

I really want him to stop making them.

[Pit-Pat]

Death Proof rules, everyone's a moron.

I can't remember the last time I was more bored in a film.

"Tarantino Dialogue" from Pulp Fiction/Reservoir Dogs is good[nb]if dated[/nb], but dialogue doesn't become Tarantino Dialogue just because Tarantino's writing it.

[kngen]

Those were fairly minor issues, I could see the reason for extending it beyond the first shootout to cast Sam Jackson as the real villain, the disappointing thing for me was that Samuels character didn't really have anything interesting to say in that final showdown, some kind of self justification that Django could shoot down rather than just killing him.

Oh there are far, far bigger issues in the film. Django himself saying that he IS "the one n*****[nb]I don't feel particularly comfortable starring it out, but I don't feel comfortable saying it either, even in reported speech, so yeah - I'm a pussy[/nb] in 10,000" that Candie refers to earlier during his phrenology lectures, thereby legitimising those racist views, is the most egregious one, to my mind. The dressage and Quentin's attempts at Strine are just really shit addendums that should have been DVD extras if anything, and made the last 30 mins of the film a fucking chore.

[Old Nehamkin]

I liked the horse dancing bit at the end of Django. I thought it was an endearingly daft little moment to cap off the film with. I didn't really have a problem with the last half hour either, Tarantino's rubbish Australianness aside. If I was going to cut the film down I'd probably trim some of the initial section at Candie's estate, which is where things did start to drag slightly for me after the amazingly cathartic opening hour-or-so.

Is Tarantino still going ahead with his plan to re-cut the whole thing into a 6 part miniseries or whatever? That seems like such a bizarre and pointless idea.

[Mango Chimes]

Is Tarantino still going ahead with his plan to re-cut the whole thing into a 6 part miniseries or whatever? That seems like such a bizarre and pointless idea.

Probably right after he finishes shooting the Vega Brothers movie and the Kill Bill sequel with Vivica Fox's character's kid.

(Or even just releases The Whole Bloody Affair - wasn't sure if this had ever come out, but checking now suggests it's still allegedly imminent a decade on...)

[wooders1978]

He tried that, once, but his fanbase reacted so negatively to Jackie Brown NOT being Pulp Fiction 2, he scuttled hurriedly back into his comfort zone and has stayed there ever since.

Yeah that was a shame - I really thought it was great, perhaps his best one.

[mothman]

I think the thing is, it's not necessarily a perfect film - as I say, outside his comfort zone, so it was bound to maybe misfire a bit; I can understand what popcorn above said about not liking it... Could have been a tighter edit for one thing, it does sprawl a bit in places. But he was at least reaching for more. When it didn't work he went back and did his Really Cool Samurai/Martial Arts Movie(s), his Really Cool Grindhouse Movie, his Really Cool War Movie, his Really Cool Western Movie, and now Another Really Cool Western Movie. Jackie Brown has the trademark QT dialogue, but it's used to say something rather than just sounding Really Cool. It has the career-reviving casting, but it's more than just done as stunt casting of secondary characters - Grier and Forster are the main actors.

That said, I've enjoyed a lot of his stuff since, I just feel he could do more.

I wonder... if you had to pick one volume of Kill Bill to be your favourite - or, if you don't like either, the one you grudgingly admit  is better than the other - which would it be? I'd go for volume 2, personally.

[popcorn]

I fucking love both volumes of Kill Bill but I vote for Volume 1. I really like the Tokyo stuff, I think it's somehow more "definitive Kill Bill" - when I think of Kill Bill I think of Uma in the yellow jumpsuit splattered with blood in Tokyo - and the ending of Volume 2 sags, which is a shame. The entire bit where she talks to the old Mexican bloke could have been cut.

[popcorn]

I object to the notion of Tarantino doing grindhouse/exploitation stuff being somehow lesser than thoughtful talky drama. It's not like he's getting less ambitious, either. I don't think he's staying in his comfort zone.

That said, I would dearly love to see something perhaps gentler and lo-fi. I'd love to see his take on the Asian drama, something like Chungking Express... oh goodness, the man can do whatever he wants, I'll love it either way.

[Mango Chimes]

I object to the notion of Tarantino doing grindhouse/exploitation stuff being somehow lesser than thoughtful talky drama.

Jackie Brown was an Elmore Leonard pulp crime story done in the style of a blaxploitation film.  The difference with that and his later stuff is that it committed to that idea and did it thoroughly.  Everything since feels like a pastichey and disjointed collection of cool scenes.  He's stopped making films in favour of clip shows.

[great_badir]

I'd love to see his take on the Asian drama, something like Chungking Express

Fuck no - the last thing we want is emotional and deeply heartfelt Chinese melodrama peppered with random and unrelated conversations about Aquaman and going for KFC on Christmas day.

[greenman]

The second is bigger. I thought the handling of Sam Jackson's character was rather fishy. When he was introduced, doing all that hoo-wee-massa-I'm-a-comedy-black-guy schtick, people in the audience were cracking up, but I didn't read it as straightforwardly funny, I thought it was tragic. Like, this guy's reduced to this sort of performance. And then he's kind of revealed as the worst villain of the piece, the traitor or whatever, but I saw him as a victim of the whole grisly business just like the other slaves, a product of the crime of slavery. I didn't really buy the Swift Justice dealt to him.

Again I would say some kind of self justification or questioning of Django was probably in order in that final scene, you look at Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds and in both of them the villain is presents more than just a physical challenge(or no physical challenge at all with Landa). When Steven drops the his walking stick I was expecting something along those lines that Django would have to at least put down.