The Hateful Eight (2015)

[filmlover]

As a preface, I saw the standard version and not the 70MM version (I'm going to assume that the intermission occurs right before the narration, correct?). I kinda have a love/meh relationship with Tarantino, so I never know what kind of reaction I'll have to his movies (Django Unchained left me mostly cold, for instance). There are times where I feel like his excesses can be more of a detriment than a plus. The Hateful Eight falls somewhere in the middle for me. This is definitely a very striking motion picture from a technical standpoint (Ennio Morricone's memorable score and Robert Richardson's beautiful cinematography are definitely highlights), but the pay off is sort of deflating after the mostly effective build up. While the cast is well assembled, only a few of them have anything noteworthy to do, with the acting stand outs being Walton Goggins (especially terrific) and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Everyone is good though, although I thought Channing Tatum was something of a distraction, being a popular actor in a cast full of chameleons. Not all of it works (I found the sudden narration to be a bit jarring) but overall this is an enjoyably nasty piece of fun. B

[Ezen Baklattan]

Yeah, the intermission occurs right after Marquis kills the general.

[Mango]

I thought it was awesome. Violent, well paced, hilarious and occasionally satire, but most of all phenomenally acted (especially Jackson, Goggins, and Leigh)

 

Would have loved to see this in 70mm, it was already a visual treat in standard.

[Kevin Bacon]

After seeing Goggins give an all-time great performance over the course of several years that went largely unnoticed as Shane Vendrell on The Shield (and of course his stellar work on Justified), it's such a wonderful thing to see him killing it in a major role in a major motion picture. Really, even if the movie wasn't as good as it was, the mere pleasant surprise of his character being one of the last ones standing would've made me a fan. Very grateful to Tarantino for giving him that spotlight.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Kevin Bacon

[baumer]

Shane was a terrific character on the Shield and it too is where I got to know Goggins.  I think he and Jon Bernthal are following a similar path post TV...both are sought after supporting characters and both have terrific range.  Goggins is the standout to me in H8.

[Raising Citizen Kane]

I really wanted to like this film. Given the actors and the talent involved? My expectations were high. 

 

But when the film was finally strung up, and slowly stopped dancing? I was left mostly disappointed. The "Fun" it seemed to promise at the beginning never really developed. Characters were revealed only to the "verge" of being REALLY interesting, then shot through the floorboards or left to cough up poison. 

 

In the end it was a 70 mm "event" that was just really just a story told in a hat shop. 

 

The macrocosm in the microcosm, is I felt like the film and the audience were placed in the same relationship as Samuel Jackson and Bruce Dern. That was that Quentino was simply telling me a story, word by word, by slow word, waiting to see if I'd react. But as the movie progressed, I never really reached that point. It ended with not much BUT the violence and the shock factor, because I never could care or become vested in any of the Hateful 8 characters. 

 

I think at his best, Quentino rides the wave of Violence and Shock, while creating an environment that offers me chances or reasons to be vested in outcome. That never really happened for me while watching The Hateful Eight. Unfortunately, I was looking forward to the intermission....and that really shouldn't happen.  

[Eastwood47]

 

Hateful Eight is most likely the fastest moving three hour film I have ever watched. Of course it's easy to credit the tremendous writing and casting skills of Tarantino for that blessing. And while I mostly found a number of redeeming qualities in this story and the countless social messages which abounded from a interesting and sometimes clever perspective offered from each character, I did find this particular outing a bit more self aware of it's messaging and overall style sensibilities. One exchange in particular took me out of the story. During the opening scene when Samuel Jackson's character is being introduced to Kurt Russell's prisoner in chains, I found his reaction to her calling him the n-word a bit too modern for the times. Jackson reacting like she was bold for saying it as if there was a social awareness not to speak it in common dialogue seemed more for the audience than the characters, hence it made me aware of the scripting in play and therefore less involved in the movie. And Russell's character explaining that sensitivity to the prisoner was just as removed since he proceeded to call Jackson's character the N-word repeatedly through the movie. That felt more contrived and staged to color the characters than a reflection that felt believable.

 

And as far as the ending, that was enormously predictable. Anyone aware of Tarantino, knows he loves his movies to carry plenty of corn syrup and food coloring for effect. So taking a group of maladjusted heavies and placing them all in a small room together begged the obvious. Once they arrived at that house, with the storm trapping everyone inside, I said to myself, "Well everyone is going to die." How he got them to that point was interesting and he did a good job of twisting the story around, but even the twists were becoming more of a story telling mechanism than something that made me feel like he created something enduring here. He got a tad too formulated from his past films to bring anything new to the table here. Without question his dialogue skills, while somewhat flawed this time around, remain his greatest gift. He can hold your attention like few directors can. He will likely never lose his touch in that department. But this is the first movie where he did seem to work less on story and more on demonstrated techniques of the past to acquire his final product. As stated, not a bad film by no stretch. He continues to fascinate with his blend of the macabre in traditional settings. But he is beginning to show signs of becoming a victim to his own success as a story teller. It may be time to change up a bit on his next outing.  3 out of 5

[Jessie]

Great movie, Tarantino is quickly becoming my my favourite director.

 

Im starting to get sick of watching films where people get shot in the dick, seriously the last 3 films ive seen, someone gets shot in the dick.

Edited January 8, 2016 by Jessie

[Jake Gittes]

I saw it twice in 70mm and have been turning it over in my head for the past couple of days. First of all, I felt the loss of Sally Menke here even more than in Django and really thought it was just way too goddamn long; I already had that feeling during the first scene, where we see Warren approach the stagecoach, talk to O.B., hear he needs to talk to Ruth, say "OK, I will talk to him", talk to him, take out his guns, walk over to the stone, lay the guns on it, walk back, argue with Ruth some more... and then again every time people were introducing and reintroducing themselves to other people and repeating things the audience already knew. I never felt the tension building up as precisely and beautifully as it did, say, in the opening scene or the bar scene in Basterds, and on the second viewing I was actively yawning during much of Chapter 3 especially. 

 

Meanwhile, important things got somewhat glossed over: there's little depth or sense of long history to Jody and Daisy's relationship because it's so incredibly brief, and at least half of the main characters never really get fleshed out; the only ones that do are Mannix, Warren and Daisy, which is a low number for a Tarantino film. (Reservoir Dogs had more character work in half the screentime). Ruth comes off especially weird because he just ends up being useless, which is darkly humorous but all of his screentime mostly goes nowhere in the end.

 

Also: did anyone else feel that QT basically spoiled a couple of kickass surprises here? Even though I saw the film in 70mm, we had no intermission, and not only did the voiceover feel sloppy and out of place, but WHY tell the audience that someone's poisoned the coffee? It still works because we don't know what kind of poison it is and how long it will take, but for me it would have worked even better if Ruth and O.B. just started spitting out their insides with zero warning and the audience realized what happened by themselves. Same thing with Jody shooting Warren: why have the camera going under the floorboards when you can have the more sudden shock of him getting shot out of nowhere and with no warning?

 

All that probably makes it sound like I didn't really like the movie, but I did - even when Tarantino is being somewhat sloppy he's still better than 90% of other people at their best. It's still a compelling story and a compelling statement (I took it as less of one about race, though that's obviously in there, and more as a vision of America as a country built on lies; and it's people lying and being lied to that ultimately leads to everyone's death, with the last survivors only finding peace when they decide that the pretty lie of the Lincoln letter is one still worth believing in. It's a wonder how moving the ending manages to be). The dialogue has plenty of gems, the cinematography/70mm is jaw-dropping (my favorite shot, perversely, being the one where Warren is leading Smithers' naked son over a bridge), the score legitimately kicks ass and is not just Morricone slumming it, and all the actors shine like they always do under QT's direction. Overall I'll take it over Django and Death Proof, but I think the rest of his filmography is better.

[antovolk]

12 hours ago, Jake Gittes said:

I saw it twice in 70mm and have been turning it over in my head for the past couple of days. First of all, I felt the loss of Sally Menke here even more than in Django and really thought it was just way too goddamn long; I already had that feeling during the first scene, where we see Warren approach the stagecoach, talk to O.B., hear he needs to talk to Ruth, say "OK, I will talk to him", talk to him, take out his guns, walk over to the stone, lay the guns on it, walk back, argue with Ruth some more... and then again every time people were introducing and reintroducing themselves to other people and repeating things the audience already knew. I never felt the tension building up as precisely and beautifully as it did, say, in the opening scene or the bar scene in Basterds, and on the second viewing I was actively yawning during much of Chapter 3 especially. 

 

Meanwhile, important things got somewhat glossed over: there's little depth or sense of long history to Jody and Daisy's relationship because it's so incredibly brief, and at least half of the main characters never really get fleshed out; the only ones that do are Mannix, Warren and Daisy, which is a low number for a Tarantino film. (Reservoir Dogs had more character work in half the screentime). Ruth comes off especially weird because he just ends up being useless, which is darkly humorous but all of his screentime mostly goes nowhere in the end.

 

Also: did anyone else feel that QT basically spoiled a couple of kickass surprises here? Even though I saw the film in 70mm, we had no intermission, and not only did the voiceover feel sloppy and out of place, but WHY tell the audience that someone's poisoned the coffee? It still works because we don't know what kind of poison it is and how long it will take, but for me it would have worked even better if Ruth and O.B. just started spitting out their insides with zero warning and the audience realized what happened by themselves. Same thing with Jody shooting Warren: why have the camera going under the floorboards when you can have the more sudden shock of him getting shot out of nowhere and with no warning?

 

All that probably makes it sound like I didn't really like the movie, but I did - even when Tarantino is being somewhat sloppy he's still better than 90% of other people at their best. It's still a compelling story and a compelling statement (I took it as less of one about race, though that's obviously in there, and more as a vision of America as a country built on lies; and it's people lying and being lied to that ultimately leads to everyone's death, with the last survivors only finding peace when they decide that the pretty lie of the Lincoln letter is one still worth believing in. It's a wonder how moving the ending manages to be). The dialogue has plenty of gems, the cinematography/70mm is jaw-dropping (my favorite shot, perversely, being the one where Warren is leading Smithers' naked son over a bridge), the score legitimately kicks ass and is not just Morricone slumming it, and all the actors shine like they always do under QT's direction. Overall I'll take it over Django and Death Proof, but I think the rest of his filmography is better.

 

Sure it was 70mm if you had no intermission?

 

Anyway I loved this. 

Gloriously gory and gorgeous. So much fun, great ensemble cast, amazing score and cinematography. Can't decide whether Goggins or Roth were the standout. 

On the whole "it should've been a play" feeling - that's precisely what Tarantino is going for with the Roadshow presentation and not just the fact it's in 70mm but the venue you see it in - if you see it at a huge old school theatrical style venue like the Odeon Leicester Square that approach just makes so much sense and it's in a venue like this, with a packed crowd, that you'll best enjoy this. 

 

9/10 - need to think about where this ranks in Best of 2015 for me.

[Jake Gittes]

4 hours ago, antovolk said:

 

Sure it was 70mm if you had no intermission?

 

 

Well, we did have an "Intermission" card appear but the movie resumed in about 40 seconds (with the "15 minutes ago" narration and everything). It was 70mm, our distributor just doesn't give a fuck.

[antovolk]

6 hours ago, Jake Gittes said:

 

Well, we did have an "Intermission" card appear but the movie resumed in about 40 seconds (with the "15 minutes ago" narration and everything). It was 70mm, our distributor just doesn't give a fuck.

Ah. Sounds to me that your projectionist just ran the digital backup instead and fast forwarded through the 12 minute intermission - all the actual prints have the intermission and were built by TWC and shipped to the countries showing it. Any additional studio logos/classification cards etc were shown in digital before the overture, that's how we got it here in London anyway.

 

Based on your profile...you watched it in Moscow? Curious how that worked out haha - I heard they'd get the 70mm in one theatre.

[Jake Gittes]

Yeah, they managed to dig out a single 70mm projector out of somewhere. One showing per day (now two) in a 1500-seat auditorium. 

[antovolk]

1 hour ago, Jake Gittes said:

Yeah, they managed to dig out a single 70mm projector out of somewhere. One showing per day (now two) in a 1500-seat auditorium. 

Ah, nice. I managed to dig up a story of how the guys arranged it all for Moscow, sounds awesome. Seems like they did decide to cut the intermission after all - instead of sending the whole assembled print from TWC they sent it all separated up to Moscow so the projectionists at the theatre and the distributor decided to just cut it out.

Edited January 9, 2016 by antovolk

[Jake Gittes]

It was weird as hell though - both times there were a few dozen people that ran out of the auditorium when the card appeared, then the movie resumed immediately afterwards. Don't see why they needed to have it at all. I liked that they kept the overture though.

[DAJK]

The script was wonderful. Tarantino can write like its nobody's business. That being said, I don't think he should have directed this film, as his style REALLY detracted from the movie. Unlike Kill Bill or Pulp Fiction, the gratuitous hyper violence doesn't add anything, doesn't play as satire or fun. It's quite gross at times actually.

 

For example (spoiler) the scene involving oral sex was disgusting. There was no reason for it do be there: Sam Jackson could have just told the story, you didn't need to see it on screen. It's just one of many examples of gratuitous scenes that were not necessary to be included in the way that they were.

 

I would go more in depth right now, but I am seriously at the point where my dad is threatening to take my phone away, so I'll just say 5/10 don't see this unless you're a die hard Tarantino fan.

[Jake Gittes]

5 hours ago, DAJK said:

the gratuitous hyper violence doesn't add anything, doesn't play as satire or fun. It's quite gross at times actually.

 

I hate to be guy who says "that's the point", but, that's the point. It shouldn't be fun or cool, it should be ugly and hellish and awful.

[DAJK]

3 hours ago, Jake Gittes said:

 

I hate to be guy who says "that's the point", but, that's the point. It shouldn't be fun or cool, it should be ugly and hellish and awful.

I know that it is the point, but it's not like the violence is saying anything. It's just there to be there, and if that's the only reason, it makes me question whether Tarantino would be able to make a great movie without it. Hateful 8 had the makings of a great movie, but the point is it isn't one that asked for Tarantino's style. So by including it seems more gratuitous than even intended.

[DAJK]

I guess the analogy I'd like to use would be horror movies: we (and critics) all give horror movies crap when they have a genuine tension-filled scene of say, a character looking down a dark hall when we know there is a ghost down there. Then the scene ruins it with a cheap jump scare that, while it did make audiences jump, it was a) unnecessary and b ) killed any future tension in the scene.

 

Much like with Hateful 8, there were a lot of great scenes filled with real tension. You don't have to take the cheap route and ruin that tension by having somebody's guts spill all over the floor. It's like the jump scare: we see it coming at this point, and it doesn't add to the story. If "th point" of a horror movie is to scare us, try something a little better than jump scares.

[Jake Gittes]

Tarantino has made several great films where violence is fairly restrained - there's basically no gore in Jackie Brown, nothing except Elle's eye getting ripped out in Kill Bill Vol. 2, we don't see Shosanna's family get shot in the opening of Basterds, etc. I think he always knows what he's doing with violence and how explicit he needs it to be, and in TH8 it serves the same purpose as, say, Tim Roth writhing around screaming in a pool of blood or the cop getting slashed and almost burned in Reservoir Dogs - the audience needs to see the characters viscerally experience it, get exhausted and shell-shocked by it and not know how to escape it. YMMV, obviously, but even though I have several problems with the movie, I think the carnage was the logical conclusion to the prolonged tension - these people are trapped in the hell of their own making, and this is what they're gonna get in the end. I maybe could've done without Bob's exploding head but the rest all came off as natural.