Hateful 8

[sickrubik]

I could have sworn there was a thread for this already, but I can't find anything. Trailer's out. Looks good so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnRbXn4-Yis&feature=youtu.be

[HaemishM]

I am so skeptical of Tarantino these days, though I will say Django was the best thing he's done since Jackie Brown. Still not up to the standards of his early work, but better than that shitpiece Inglorius Bastards or either Kill Bill.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I'm not gonna stand up for inglorious basterds here since I just thought it was decent but not great. However, it's widely regarded as one of his best movies and I think that needs to be at least recognized, not just one of his average ones that is understandable to hate.

[Merusk]

Yeah I don't get the hate for Basterds and never have. It's campy and parts of the plot were mind-bendingly dumb when you realize how useless the basterds were to the end result, but so was Indy.

[HaemishM]

The only positive thing about Bastards was Christoph Walz. The rest of it was utter fucking wank.

[Tannhauser]

I'm with Haem, though maybe not that strongly.  IB was one of my least liked QT films.  Maybe one less chat scene and one more fight scene.  Django is three times the movie IB is.

[schild]

Django was the only Tarantino film I have liked since Reservoir Dogs.

And it was because of the strength of the actors. Tarantino is horseshit. Tim Roth, however, is fantastic. As was Christoph Waltz.

[Soln]

I like this  for Walton Goggins    but Tim Roth is also bankable.

[satael]

I think the cast looks great for a Tarantino movie since most of them have already worked with him so atleast the performances from the actors should be up to par.

[sickrubik]

I'm with Haem, though maybe not that strongly.  IB was one of my least liked QT films.  Maybe one less chat scene and one more fight scene.  Django is three times the movie IB is.

What? Really? The "chat scenes" are some of the better scenes in that movie.

But then, I like movies with lots of dialogue.

[Surlyboi]

Goggins, Roth, Russell and Jackson. I'm in.

[Setanta]

IB was probably the worst of the Tarantino films for me, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it or that it was shit. I liked Kill Bill and would have happily seen Pt2 stripped down but it was still good. A bad QT film is still better than 80% of the shite that passes for entertainment.

Django, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs all do it for me as did Kill Bill Pt1.

[Rendakor]

Tarantino and Goggins? Sign me up.

[Merusk]

Saw this Friday night. I was going to wait for IMAX but there were 2 more weeks on Disney's "we own you" contract so normal screen it was. 

The movie is gorgeous. Just beautiful all around and I wish I'd waited for IMAX.  However, it was far slower than I expected. I was expecting a slow-build for drama but it was too slow. With a 168 minute runtime I felt like a lot of scenes could have been cut shorter and this was just Tarantino being extravagant because he can. I got bored with a lot of the slow-walk prior to the end of the third chapter and could have used a good walk-around.

The characters were great and each actor pulled off the personality wonderfully, though I kept feeling Waltz was wasted. Jackson was loving his character and you could feel him wallowing in the role whole-heartedly.

Ultimately, though, the payoff was only "meh" for me. Because the majority of the movie happens in this one cabin, things felt like they never really worked right. I can't really place my finger on the why of it but I think because of all the tension building-up to the climax I was expecting something grander. More of the final scenes of Django rather than what was presented. More slow-walk to resolution.

In the end I give it about 6.5/10.

[murdoc]

...though I kept feeling Waltz was wasted.

Waltz? Or did you mean Tim Roth playing Waltz?

[Merusk]

Shit, yes. How the fuck I thought that was Waltz is beyond me now, but he was definitely channeling the man.

Now I'm starting to think I *am* suffering early-onset dementia. Damnit.

[Ruvaldt]

Saw the 70mm roadshow 3+ hour version with an intermission and overture last week.  It is beautiful.  It also feels more like a play than a movie.  That's not a complaint; just an observation.

It is slow, but I'd give it an 8/10 because the characters are great and I honestly didn't know how it was going to turn out.  Also, Samuel L. Jackson.  The dialogue isn't as good as a lot of other Tarantino movies, but...I dunno, I just liked it.

Also, the music is phenomenal.  Ennio Morricone did the score and the man is a fucking genius.

[Velorath]

Ultimately, though, the payoff was only "meh" for me. Because the majority of the movie happens in this one cabin, things felt like they never really worked right. I can't really place my finger on the why of it but I think because of all the tension building-up to the climax I was expecting something grander. More of the final scenes of Django rather than what was presented. More slow-walk to resolution.

In the end I give it about 6.5/10.

Western setting and racial themes aside, in structure the movie felt a lot more akin to Reservoir Dogs to me as opposed to Django.

[Merusk]

I think I'd agree with that and the "it felt like a play" sentiment from Ruvaldt. Which explains my "meh" score. I was expecting something more like his last two movies than RD, which is also my least-favorite of his films.

[HaemishM]

With a 168 minute runtime I felt like a lot of scenes could have been cut shorter and this was just Tarantino being extravagant because he can.

That's pretty much every movie he's done since Jackie Brown. At least with Django it worked because it was only 1 movie. Fucking Kill Bill though... god that movie sucked from start to finish.

[murdoc]

Ultimately, though, the payoff was only "meh" for me. Because the majority of the movie happens in this one cabin, things felt like they never really worked right. I can't really place my finger on the why of it but I think because of all the tension building-up to the climax I was expecting something grander. More of the final scenes of Django rather than what was presented. More slow-walk to resolution.

In the end I give it about 6.5/10.

Western setting and racial themes aside, in structure the movie felt a lot more akin to Reservoir Dogs to me as opposed to Django.

I liked that it was structured like a stage play. The over the top ridiculous violence took me out of it though. Maybe it's because I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs in so long, but the violence and death in that movie at least felt realistic. Even panning away from the ear cutting scene instead of showing it was intentional and unsettling at the time. Hateful 8 just gets cartoonish with it's mayhem for the last hour.

I liked it, even loved some parts - but overall I felt it was a weaker Tarantino movie.

[Velorath]

Maybe it's because I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs in so long, but the violence and death in that movie at least felt realistic. Even panning away from the ear cutting scene instead of showing it was intentional and unsettling at the time. Hateful 8 just gets cartoonish with it's mayhem for the last hour.

Yeah, in that respect it's more like Tarantino's more recent stuff. I'm mostly just thinking about it from the standpoint that both movies are largely about throwing a bunch of strangers together in one space and trying to figure out who you can trust, followed by a bunch of people killing each other. I think H8 has a little bit more to say than RD does, and I also think that the violence itself is probably the weakest part of the movie although I really did enjoy the last 5 or so minutes of the movie.

[Threash]

I liked the beginning a lot more when it was basically a "whodunnit", once the mystery was solved it got kinda lame.  Overall i enjoyed it quite a bit though.

[Velorath]

Yeah, overall I thought it was a good, if uneven movie. Also it's the second best Western with Kurt Russell that's got a slow burn leading up to a really violent end that got released in 2015.

[lamaros]

I really enjoyed this. Best Tarintino in a long long time for my mind, if not one of his best ever. Best movie I've seen for a few years (I still haven't seen Mad Max).

Very funny, a little more thoughtful than his other recent ones, and I love snow. I love the slower pace, enjoyed the intermission, and thought the acting was just hammy enough to get the point across, but not to take you completely out of the film.

As for the violence - It's meant to be cartoonish and comedic, why would you think it was meant to be realism? Give me this over the Revenant any day.

[Jeff Kelly]

This is basically "Reservoir Dogs" in post Civil War Wyoming.

Outstanding cinematography, outstanding original msuic and soundtrack. Great characters. Meh plot. The choice to film a stage play or bottle episode in 21:9 panavision is weird but works and it is used to great effect.

The dialogue is weaker than usual though and the performances are a bit over the place. Tim Roth had to play Christoph Waltz (Tarrantino clearly wanted Waltz to play that role) and so his peformance was pretty much wasted. Michael Madsen is essentially Michael Madsen wearing a cowboy hat. Kurt Russel and Samuel L. Jackson are great. Jenniffer Jason Lee is pretty great until the point she goes full ham and dials it up to 11. Walton Goggins is probably one of the best here. At the end you really like his racist southern wanna-be sheriff.

Tarrantino needs an editor, the flashbacks in the second part are completely superfluous. They add nothing new to the characterization of the villains, and doesn't add anything worthwile to the plot except exposition that is entirely unnecessary. We already know all we need to know about the 'hateful eight' and don't need the additional exposition. Even worse the entire flashback retroactively changes the motivation of one character and is only included to make Samuel L. Jacksons behaviour 'justifiable' undermining a key point of the movie (they are all bastards who had it coming).

The gore detracts from the movie in a big way. You have a beautifully written and constructed stage play with awesome performances and a plot that is reminiscent of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novels (if Hercule Poirot had been a murderous racist bastard), even Ennio Morricone's theme underlines the sense that you are in a murder mystery. Then a head explodes into a gushing fountain of blood and bits of bone and brain as if this was 'Dead Alive' and not a story set in the nineteenth century.

The film feels a bit as if it was written by a five year old whohalf way through was fed up with all the effort it took and decided it is more fun to smash it to bits.

If you like reservoir Dogs you'll probably like this movie because they are very similar

[Velorath]

I agree with the opening and closing statements. Less so the stuff in-between

[Jeff Kelly]

I found Tim Roth playing Christoph Waltz playing an Englishman distracting.  Most of the people in my group even thought it was Christoph Waltz. For me that is a waste of a good actor. Ultimately the performances are a matter of taste though. The same with whether you like the gore content or not.

I stand by my views on the flashbacks though. They are only exposition and an unnecessary one as well. We already know all we need to know about the protagonists by that point and the flashback doesn't really tell us anything worthwile except that the events really happened the way the protagonists suspected. The flashback is an integral part of a murder mystery because it visualises the likely chain of events to the viewer when the detective presents them to the group of suspects. hateful Eight is no murder mystery though and the 'morale' of the story doesn't require the director spelling out what we already know anyway.

That's about 20 minutes of film that you cut cut wholesale without changing anything about the story or its conclusion. I'd even argue that the film would be more impactful if the actual events were more shrouded in speculation.

[sickrubik]

Most of the people in my group even thought it was Christoph Waltz. For me that is a waste of a good actor.

Both are great actors. Really not sure what you mean here.

[Jeff Kelly]

For me Roths character felt as if it was originally intended to be played by Waltz. Including certain mannerism and patterns of speech. It felt less like Tim Roth's take on the character to me and more like him playing Christoph Waltz. Roth is an accomplished actor and so this has to be the direction. It looked a bit as if Tarrantino had originally written the role for Waltz, never adapted the part to Roth and simply had him play Christoph Waltz playing an Englishman.

The role is so clearly intended for Waltz and Tim Roth is interpreting it as such. Most people I talked to actually thought that the role was played by Waltz not Roth.

So if you hire Tim Roth to make him impersonate another actor you're clearly wasting a lot of great talent.

[Ruvaldt]

I didn't see that at all.  Not even remotely.

[Merusk]

I did, as did my wife. To the point we didn't realize until the credits it wasn't Waltz. Not the only time I've seen that comment, either.

[MahrinSkel]

[lamaros]

I do agree that Walton Goggins is wonderful (and the character the most interesting of the film), but otherwise I think your criticisms speak to you looking for another film, rather than taking this one as it is. Yes, it's stagey and indulgent, but it's not pretending otherwise. If you take the gore content out of the movie it becomes much less funny, much more preachy.

The flashback serves a few useful roles. It add character to the southern general, provides a contrast to the violence with 'normal world' people, and it draws out a bit more of the films discussion about race and violence. It also cuts away at the caricatures everyone is playing, which further opens up that thematic space.

And yes the role is similar to Waltz, but that is because it's written by Tarintino and he's obviously interested in that type of character in his last few films. How else is Roth meant to take those lines? He does well with them, and I don't think he is trying to play Waltz, he's just trying to get the best value from the lines given.

This is the most philosophical of Tarintino's film, and I think he tries to bury this behind the black comedy and stagey theatrics so it doesn't come on too strong.

[Jeff Kelly]

...and that is what really bothered me. I felt that this was probably the first Tarantino movie that would not have needed that. It's probably his best and most grown up effort yet and shows that he can really do philosophical and political subtext. For me the the trademark Tarantino gore and scatterbrainedness detracted too much from the core.

I don't mind that it's stagey, I actually think that it fits the theme of the movie quite well.