Tag: The Hateful Eight

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The Hateful Eight

In 1977, an ad touted the Heroes album with: “There’s Old Wave, there’s New Wave, and there’s David Bowie”. Like the Thin White Duke, Quentin Tarantino has become a genre unto himself. There are thrillers, there are mysteries, and there are Tarantino movies.

The buzz going into The Hateful Eight was characteristically bizarre: a Western shot on 70MM film in the age of digital. For the cinephile, anything that starts with the Cinerama logo raises expectations of wide-open vistas, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey. After the opening overture, The Hateful Eight seems like it’s going to deliver on that promise with a series of shots of a stagecoach plowing through Montana’s snowy vastness. But then the stage is stopped by a lone black figure: Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a former Union calvary major-turned-bounty hunter, sitting atop a pile of dead bodies. The horseless man asks the coach’s charter John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) for a ride so he can escape the coming blizzard. Ruth is reluctant to help, because he is transporting his own bounty to Red Rocks, a woman named Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and she’s extremely valuable. But Warren is very convincing, and since they once had dinner together in Chattanooga long ago, Ruth agrees. Then, the action shifts to a long conversation inside the stagecoach, and we’ve seen the last of the beautiful western landscapes. After picking up another hitchhiker, racist sheriff Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), the stage arrives at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a frontier tavern where the inhabitants hope to hunker down to avoid the snow. Needless to say, things go spectacularly wrong.

Kurt Russell and Samuel L. Jackson

From there, The Hateful Eight resembles Reservoir Dogs more than How the West Was Won. The motley crew trapped in the blizzard slowly circle each other spouting stupendously flowery dialogue as they look for an opening for murder. If there’s one thing QT is good at, it’s writing a menacing speech leading up to mayhem, and his language machine is cranking double time. Jackson and Russell provide ideal vessels for the profane wordsmith, but from Tim Roth to Bruce Dern to Michael Madsen, there really are no weak links here. Lies are told, identities shift, Pynchonesque names are checked, and poison surreptitiously administered. Tarantino uses the fantastically expensive and obsolete camera technology not to open up spaces, but to present the whole of the interior of Minnie’s as a single stage set where he can move his crack actors around like a theater director.

SLJ. ’Nuff said.

There are a hundred reasons why a three-hour widescreen epic that devolves into an Agatha Christie play shouldn’t work, and yet, at least after the first viewing, The Hateful Eight comes off as more satisfying than Inglourious Basterds or Django Unchained. It’s the critic’s job to explain this stuff, but Tarantino creates alchemy that defies easy description. Sometimes things just work.

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The Hateful Eight: 70 MM Roadshow Edition

The Hateful Eight: 70MM Roadshow Edition (2015; dir. Quentin Tarantino)—First impressions: Formally striking but morally bankrupt, just like always. What a waste of a potentially awesome widescreen format. What a way to spend Christmas night.

Second impressions: Maybe The Hateful Eight isn’t so disappointing after all. Maybe once you wash all the blood off your face and out of your hair, it’s actually pretty effective in its savage and meaningless way. Maybe I’m just being contrary because so many other people love QT so unconditionally, it’s embarrassing.

Or maybe when it comes to Tarantino movies, I shouldn’t trust my first impressions.

I am a deeply conflicted QT fan whose minor-to-major issues with most of his films has never prevented me from seeing them on the day they premiere. And once I found out that the “Special Roadshow Engagement” of The Hateful Eight was coming to my town a week before its nationwide release, I even bought my tickets in advance, like I was going to an unrepeatable event. Rather than running down The Hateful Eight’s numerous strengths and weaknesses, though, I want to focus on the roadshow experience—the first of its kind in American theaters since Khartoum in 1966.

Like many cinephiles, I love celluloid a lot more now that it’s virtually extinct. And I’ve been very fortunate to see Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Jacques Tati’s PlayTime in the 70mm format; in fact, the Kubrick and Tati screenings are two of the most profoundly affecting moviegoing experiences I’ve ever had. Celluloid has a depth and warmth that digital photography can’t yet replicate; the browns and blacks in particular have volume and presence onscreen, and larger vistas, like a stagecoach wending its way through the mountains during a blizzard, are stark and elemental and man-made in a way that digital photography often isn’t. The format is ideal for capturing the nuances of the human face as well; Samuel L. Jackson’s unblinking glower, Jennifer Jason Leigh’s cruddy teeth and Kurt Russell’s magnificent walrus ‘stache are a few of The Hateful Eight’s more indelible physiognomical details.

I remember seeing the reels for the 70mm 2001 in the theater lobby and thinking that they were as big as stagecoach wheels. As Chapin Cutler of the specialty projection company Boston Light & Sound notes, the Ultra Panavision 70 format for The Hateful Eight is even bigger. According to Cutler, “Each shipping case is 5 ft. x 5 ft. by 1 ft. thick. When loaded, it weighs about 400 lbs. . . . With the reel full, out of the box, the film and reel weigh about 250 lbs. Four people can easily lift it onto a platter deck.”

The informative if overenthusiastic program notes in the 16-page Hateful Eight booklet handed to me by the woman who took my ticket assert that “The exclusive 70mm Roadshow engagement of The Hateful Eight pays homage to and recreates the grand film exhibition style popularized in the 1950s and ‘60s and that brought audiences to theaters with the promise of a special event. Taking place in the nation’s largest and grandest theaters, Roadshows presented a longer version of the film than would be shown in the film’s subsequent wider release, included a musical overture to start the show, an intermission between acts and a souvenir program.”

Great! I’d never call the AMC Southdale in Edina, Minnesota one of the nation’s “grandest theaters,” but I’m glad the management there made the efforts to accommodate Tarantino’s mad vision. I liked the slow burn of Ennio Morricone’s eerie, chiming overture, which plays before the film starts (there were no trailers beforehand) and mirrors the uncharacteristically slow burn of the film’s first 100 minutes. If I could guess which scene won’t make the cut of the official release edition, I’d say it was the one where two shady characters stake out the path to the outhouse as the blizzard gets worse. Tarantino’s decision to stay indoors most of the time is a strange one, and I wish he’d done more with the theatrical arrangements of tables, beds, chairs and chains in the mountain outpost where all of the action takes place. But there’s a musical number that plays with racking focus and the superwide format very well in case you thought he had no reason for shooting things the way he did. Also, the intermission is perfectly timed.

Some random notes:

  • Has any white male filmmaker ever enjoyed using the words “nigger” and “bitch” as much as Tarantino has? The knee-jerk defense for his kind of verbal button-pushing is, of course, that he’s challenging PC limits for entertainment and authenticity’s sake. Fine, whatever. So all he’s doing is portraying a bunch of racists. But he sure loves listening to those racists be racist, doesn’t he? Are we supposed to? Or are we supposed to be offended, thus PLAYING RIGHT INTO HIS HANDS? If that’s so, then perhaps the true antecedent of The Hateful Eight is not the Spaghetti Western. It is Blazing Saddles. 
  • Although the commemorative booklet informs us that, “The cast and crew would eventually finish the shoot on a Los Angeles soundstage, which was chilled below freezing temperatures to mimic the Telluride (Colorado) climate,” there’s no genuine feeling of wintery chilliness in the film. As a guy who’s spent his life in the snow, this is a hard one to explain but an easy one to spot. I just didn’t believe they were all that cold. (The champ in this regard remains Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller.) 
  • The best part of this Western is when Samuel L. Jackson starts sleuthing about and turns it into a mystery. His long fact-finding mission slowly and inexorably turns into the kind of scene for which Tarantino is best known—a long monologue filled with thinly veiled threats disguised as folksy, profane erudition. 
  • One scene in particular plays on prior knowledge so effectively that it is as nerve-wracking as anything Tarantino’s ever done.
  • Food for thought, per critic Armond White of Out (and, amazingly, The National Review): “Tarantino exploits gay porn—and repressed gayness—in the same vein that he notoriously exploits race.” You’ll know what I mean when you get there. 
  • Relevant Tweet #1, from Rembert Browne: 
  • “there’s nothing that has been allowed to slide, by liberal & conservative folks alike, quite like the notion of the big scary black person.”
  • Relevant Tweet #2, from someone named Zodiac Motherfucker: “TARANTINO REALLY DOES BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER. THIS THEATER IS LIKE A MELTING POT OF ASSHOLES”

Happy to be counted among them!

Grade: B+

[Editor’s Note: This review refers to the 70 MM film edition of The Hateful Eight, which is not screening in Memphis. The nearest theaters screening in this format are Ronnie’s in St. Louis and the Carmike Thoroughbred 20 in Franklin, TN. A full review of the film as it appears in Memphis will run in the Flyer’s January 7 issue. 

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Film Features Film/TV

The Year in Film 2015

It’s fashionable to complain about how bad Hollywood movies have become. But from the perspective of a critic who has to watch it all go down, it’s simply not the case. At any given time in 2015, there was at least one good film in theaters in Memphis—it just may not have been the most heavily promoted one. So here’s my list of awards for a crowded, eventful year.

Worst Picture: Pixels

I watched a lot of crap this year, like the incoherent Terminator Genysis, the sociopathic San Andreas, the vomitous fanwank Furious 7, and the misbegotten Secret in Their Eyes. But those movies were just bad. Pixels not only sucked, it was mean-spirited, toxic, and ugly. Adam Sandler, it’s been a good run, but it’s time to retire.

Actually, I take that back. It hasn’t been a good run.

Most Divisive: Inherent Vice

Technically a 2014 release, Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s ode to the lost world of California hippiedom didn’t play in Memphis until January. Its long takes and dense dialogue spun a powerful spell. But it wasn’t for everyone. Many people responded with either a “WTF?” or a visceral hatred. Such strongly split opinions are usually a sign of artistic success; you either loved it or hated it, but you won’t forget it.

Best Performances: Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay, Room

Room is an inventive, harrowing, and beautiful work on every level, but the film’s most extraordinary element is the chemistry between Brie Larson and 9-year-old Jacob Tremblay, who play a mother and son held hostage by a sexual abuser. Larson’s been good in Short Term 12 and Trainwreck, but this is her real breakthrough performance. As for Tremblay, here’s hoping we’ve just gotten a taste of things to come.

Chewbacca

Best Performance By A Nonhuman: Chewbacca

Star Wars: The Force Awakens returned the Mother of All Franchises to cultural prominence after years in the prequel wilderness. Newcomers like Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver joined the returned cast of the Orig Trig Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in turning in good performances. Lawrence Kasdan’s script gave Chewbacca a lot more to do, and Peter Mayhew rose to the occasion with a surprisingly expressive performance. Let the Wookiee win.

Best Memphis Movie: The Keepers

Joann Self Selvidge and Sara Kaye Larson’s film about the people who keep the Memphis Zoo running ran away with Indie Memphis this year, selling out multiple shows and winning Best Hometowner Feature. Four years in the making, it’s a rarity in 21st century film: a patient verité portrait whose only agenda is compassion and wonder.

Best Conversation Starter: But for the Grace

In 2001, Memphis welcomed Sudanese refugee Emmanuel A. Amido. This year, he rewarded our hospitality with But for the Grace. The thoughtful film is a frank examination of race relations in America seen through the lens of religion. The Indie Memphis Audience Award winner sparked an intense Q&A session after its premiere screening that followed the filmmaker out into the lobby. It’s a timely reminder of the power of film to illuminate social change.

Best Comedy: What We Do in the Shadows

What happens when a group of vampire roommates stop being polite and start getting real? Flight of the Conchords‘ Jemaine Clement and Eagle vs Shark‘s Taika Waititi codirected this deadpan masterpiece that applied the This Is Spinal Tap formula to the Twilight set. Their stellar cast’s enthusiasm and commitment to the gags made for the most biting comedy of the year.

Best Animation: Inside Out

The strongest Pixar film since Wall-E had heavy competition in the form of the Irish lullaby Song of the Sea, but ultimately, Inside Out was the year’s emotional favorite. It wasn’t just the combination of voice talent Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, and Phyllis Smith with the outstanding character design of Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness that made director Pete Docter’s film crackle, it was the way the entire carefully crafted package came together to deliver a message of acceptance and understanding for kids and adults who are wrestling with their feelings in a hard and changing world.

It Follows

Best Horror: It Follows

The best horror films are the ones that do a lot with a little, and It Follows is a sterling example of the breed. Director David Robert Mitchell’s second feature is a model of economy that sets up its simple premise with a single opening shot that tracks a desperate young woman running from an invisible tormentor. But there’s no escaping from the past here, only delaying the inevitable by spreading the curse of sex and death.

Teenage Dreams: Dope and The Diary of a Teenage Girl

2015 saw a pair of excellent coming-of-age films. Dope, written and directed by Rick Famuyiwa, introduced actor Shameik Moore as Malcolm, a hapless nerd who learns to stand up for himself in the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of Inglewood, California. Somewhere between Risky Business and Do the Right Thing, it brought the teen comedy into the multicultural moment.

Similarly, Marielle Heller’s graphic novel adaptation The Diary of a Teenage Girl introduced British actress Bel Powley to American audiences, and took a completely different course than Dope. It’s a frank, sometimes painful exploration of teenage sexual awakening that cuts the harrowing plot with moments of magical realist reverie provided by a beautiful mix of animation and live action.

Immortal Music: Straight Outta Compton and Love & Mercy

The two best musical biopics of the year couldn’t have been more different. Straight Outta Compton was director F. Gary Gray’s straightforward story of N.W.A., depending on the performances of Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, and O’Shea Jackson Jr. playing his own father, Ice Cube, for its explosive impact. That it was a huge hit with audiences proved that this was the epic hip-hop movie the nation has been waiting for.

Director Bill Pohlad’s dreamlike Love & Mercy, on the other hand, used innovative structure and intricate sound design to tell the story of Brian Wilson’s rise to greatness and subsequent fall into insanity. In a better world, Paul Dano and John Cusack would share a Best Actor nomination for their tag-team portrayal of the Beach Boys resident genius.

Sicario

Best Cinematography: Sicario

From Benicio del Toro’s chilling stare to the twisty, timely screenplay, everything about director Denis Villeneuve’s drug-war epic crackles with life. But it’s Roger Deakins’ transcendent cinematography that cements its greatness. Deakins paints the bleak landscapes of the Southwest with subtle variations of color, and films an entire sequence in infrared with more beauty than most shooters can manage in visible light. If you want to see a master at the top of his game, look no further.

He’s Still Got It: Bridge of Spies

While marvelling about Bridge of Spies‘ performances, composition, and general artistic unity, I said “Why can’t all films be this well put together?”

To which the Flyer‘s Chris Davis replied, “Are you really asking why all directors can’t be as good as Steven Spielberg?”

Well, yeah, I am.

Hot Topic: Journalism

Journalism was the subject of four films this year, two good and two not so much. True Story saw Jonah Hill and James Franco get serious, but it was a dud. Truth told the story of Dan Rather and Mary Mapes’ fall from the top-of-the-TV-news tower, but its commitment to truth was questionable. The End of the Tour was a compelling portrait of the late author David Foster Wallace through the eyes of a scribe assigned to profile him. But the best of the bunch was Spotlight, the story of how the Boston Catholic pedophile priest scandal was uncovered, starring Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo. There’s a good chance you’ll be seeing Spotlight all over the Oscars this year.

Had To Be There: The Walk

Robert Zemeckis’ film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Philippe Petit, the Frenchman who tightrope-walked between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, was a hot mess. But the extended sequence of the feat itself was among the best uses of 3-D I’ve ever seen. The film flopped, and its real power simply won’t translate to home video, no matter how big your screen is, but on the big screen at the Paradiso, it was a stunning experience.

MVP: Samuel L. Jackson

First, he came back from the grave as Nick Fury to anchor Joss Whedon’s underrated Avengers: Age of Ultron. Then he channeled Rufus Thomas to provide a one-man Greek chorus for Spike Lee’s wild musical polemic Chi-Raq. He rounds out the year with a powerhouse performance in Quentin Tarantino’s widescreen western The Hateful Eight. Is it too late for him to run for president?

Best Documentary: Best of Enemies

Memphis writer/director Robert Gordon teamed up with Twenty Feet From Stardom director Morgan Neville to create this intellectual epic. With masterful editing of copious archival footage, they make a compelling case that the 1968 televised debate between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal laid out the political battleground for the next 40 years and changed television news forever. In a year full of good documentaries, none were more well-executed or important than this historic tour de force.

Best Picture: Mad Max: Fury Road

From the time the first trailers hit, it was obvious that 2015 would belong to one film. I’m not talking about The Force Awakens. I’m talking about Mad Max: Fury Road. Rarely has a single film rocked the body while engaging the mind like George Miller’s supreme symphony of crashing cars and heavy metal guitars. Charlize Theron’s performance as Imperator Furiosa will go down in history next to Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven and Sigourney Weaver in Alien as one of the greatest action turns of all time. The scene where she meets Max, played by Tom Hardy, may be the single best fight scene in cinema history. Miller worked on this film for 17 years, and it shows in every lovingly detailed frame. Destined to be studied for decades, Fury Road rides immortal, shiny, and chrome.