The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

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Mr Sausage
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The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#301 Post by Mr Sausage » Thu Aug 18, 2016 3:49 pm

GTO wrote:Finally got around to this last night. I'm in the "loved it despite flaws" camp, but the one thing that seriously bothered me that I haven't seen addressed is
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the way Chris Mannix went from being great admirer and defender of the general one minute, and yet was apparently indifferent to his murder by the guy in the group he hated most of all. Even if the reason Mannix hated M. Warren had more to do with his murderous ways than his race, I can't figure out how it makes sense.
But maybe it's not supposed to make sense, anymore than having Tim Roth do a Christoph Waltz impression does.
Regarding Roth,
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his exaggerated upperclass British accent and mannerisms is a ploy to hide his actual, working-class British accent and mannerisms and make himself more convincing as an official. I too thought Roth's acting choices were odd and affected, and this made me suspect the character from the start. Roth's choices payed off nicely following the gunfight, when he revealed a different and more natural accent.

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copen
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#302 Post by copen » Thu Aug 18, 2016 3:56 pm

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"About fifteen minutes have passed since we last left our characters. Joe Gage volunteered to take Smithers' dead body outside. Straws were drawn to see who'd help him... O.B. lost. Chris, John Ruth and Oswaldo had a vigorous debate about the legality of the self-defense murder that just transpired. Major Marquis Warren, who was supremely confident about the legality of what just transpired ignored them, sat by himself at the table and drank brandy."
This turned out to be the most rewatchable Tarantino movie since Jackie Brown. That's a long wait.

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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#303 Post by GTO » Thu Aug 18, 2016 4:47 pm

Mr Sausage wrote: Regarding Roth,
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his exaggerated upperclass British accent and mannerisms is a ploy to hide his actual, working-class British accent and mannerisms and make himself more convincing as an official. I too thought Roth's acting choices were odd and affected, and this made me suspect the character from the start. Roth's choices payed off nicely following the gunfight, when he revealed a different and more natural accent.
That does make sense. Maybe Tim Roth doing
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his exaggerated upperclass British accents and mannerisms
just naturally results in a Waltz impression. But I seriously thought CW was doing an uncredited appearance until my SO pointed out my folly.

Kurt Russell's John Wayne impersonation made more sense to me. That felt like QT saying "this is a Hollywood western like Hawks, not an anti-Hollywood western like Altman."

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knives
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#304 Post by knives » Thu Aug 18, 2016 4:53 pm

I wouldn't be surprised if on a certain level the Waltz-Roth thing is just a case that Tarantino associates specific things with upper class European men and thus directs is actors to the same ends. Also I believe Waltz was cast before having to drop out hence Oswaldo having a more eastern name.

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Cold Bishop
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#305 Post by Cold Bishop » Thu Aug 18, 2016 5:06 pm

There's always the other possibility as well:
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Mannix is indeed the law, and despite his personal animosity, has every intention of upholding the office, up to putting his personal prejudices aside until at least a consensus was reached that Warren committed murder (which Warren seems pretty confident he didn't).

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domino harvey
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#306 Post by domino harvey » Thu Aug 18, 2016 5:10 pm

That was my interpretation

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#307 Post by matrixschmatrix » Thu Aug 18, 2016 6:50 pm

Mannix also seems to be something of a follower by nature? Even when making momentous decisions, he always seems to be doing so by joining up with one extant side or another- without anyone strongly to advocate that he take action, it seems as though his default state is one of guarded neutrality, even if that wouldn't align well with his feelings.

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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#308 Post by cdnchris » Thu Aug 18, 2016 7:03 pm

Just FYI to those near Seattle: the Cinerama will be screening the 70mm version on September 15th. It's part of their 70mm festival (http://www.cinerama.com/News/August-201 ... edule.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

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aox
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#309 Post by aox » Fri Aug 19, 2016 1:30 am

GTO wrote:just naturally results in a Waltz impression. But I seriously thought CW was doing an uncredited appearance until my SO pointed out my folly.
Embarrassingly, I thought the exact same thing until I looked at IMDB after seeing the film in the theater. No offense to Roth.

gfxtwin
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#310 Post by gfxtwin » Sun Nov 06, 2016 7:47 pm

This was an interesting watch, obviously a lot of complex themes about morality and unpredictable characters and lots of atmosphere. I liked Django Unchained a lot more, but couldn't take my eyes off the screen and felt it was one of the more suspenseful films I've experienced in recent memory. That said, I'd also be interested in seeing a Tarantino Western where he uses his writing ability to tell a story with more than two or three likable characters lol. A Tarantino Western that takes place in a less hostile part of the west and feels more like True Grit, Unforgiven, the first two acts of Bone Tomahawk, etc (and less like a horror show) would be kinda refreshing at this point TBH.

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knives
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#311 Post by knives » Sun Nov 06, 2016 7:53 pm

But then that wouldn't be QT who has what, three genuinely likable characters in his career.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#312 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Nov 07, 2016 12:59 am

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree- Inglorious Basterds has a deficit of likable people (outside of Melanie Laurent), but I found both Django and King charming and engaging in Django Unchained- though I do think he has a habit of pushing your identification with people you like by having them act in horrific ways, on occasion.

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knives
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#313 Post by knives » Mon Nov 07, 2016 1:09 am

matrixschmatrix wrote:Hmm, I'm not sure I agree- Inglorious Basterds has a deficit of likable people (outside of Melanie Laurent), but I found both Django and King charming and engaging in Django Unchained- though I do think he has a habit of pushing your identification with people you like by having them act in horrific ways, on occasion.
I assumed when he was talking about likable he meant in terms like his examples rather than some one like Shoshana or Jackson in Pulp Fiction where they are sympathetic and certainly fun, but too morally compromised to really be counted as likable in a traditional protagonist fashion ala True Grit. I do agree that the three leads of Django Unchained and also the two for Jackie Brown most easily fit into the classical likable box along with the two Thurman characters.

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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#314 Post by gfxtwin » Mon Nov 07, 2016 1:32 pm

I mean, yeah, Tarantino's characters are generally immoral - gangsters, assassins, murderers, racists, shitkickers, etc - but I find that among them throughout his filmography there is a small amount of truly unredeemable characters on screen, and a lot of characters that are immoral but you like and/or laugh with and might consider hanging out with (Jules, Vincent, Jackie, Mel, Max, Shoshanna, Aldo, the ladies in Death Proof, etc) and some are clearly more intended to be laughed at from a safe distance (most of the characters in Reservoir Dogs and Hateful Eight, Louis and Ordell, etc). Seems like he develops characters that generally range from chaotic ethical (not someone all that loveable or responsible, but still a lot of fun) to outright horrifically bad. It's just that with his westerns, most of his characters on screen lean much more towards the unredeemable side of that continuum, which makes sense given the subject matter he explores, but by now I get point he's trying to make. Thing is, there are so many ways to portray the old west accurately enough without it being a horror show (True Grit and The Revenant do this really well), and I think it would be refreshing to see Tarantino make a western that was more fun like his earlier stuff and less trying to use the setting and characters of that time to always ferment what was likely a somewhat more disturbing vision of that time and place than it always necessarily needs to be. I'm glad DU and THE exist, of course, and think they bring something of value to the western genre, but to see Tarantino make a western with more characters you might laugh with rather than uncomfortably laugh at would be pretty dope (I immediately think of Django and Shultz and also Michael Parks' Sherrif character and his deputy from Grindhouse, Kill Bill and From Dusk Till Dawn).

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#315 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Nov 07, 2016 5:13 pm

The Revenant is an interesting one to posit as a less horrific Western, since it's so concerned with cruelty and cowardice in the face of death or of total annihilation- it's certainly in a different mode than Hateful Eight, though, given that nature is at least as dangerous as people, but for me it's closer to it than Django Unchained was.

I think I see what you're saying, though- I feel like Tarantino's friendship with Eli Roth has rubbed off on him some, and we've been getting a lot more truly nauseating moments in his last three or four movies (which is saying something, given the Marvin's head scene in Pulp Fiction. The characters aren't necessarily worse people- Hateful Eight skews really close to Reservoir Dogs in its chamber drama makeup, but if anything it has a greater sense of optimism that people have some honor and redemption in them- but you're not going to get through a movie without a pretty detailed anatomy lesson involving something that used to be inside winding up on the outside, and apparently not without one of our leads killing a woman in a pretty gruesome way. It would be nice to see something that doesn't keep stomping on your guts from him, if only for contrast.

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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#316 Post by gfxtwin » Tue Nov 08, 2016 9:58 am

Have only seen Hostel and Cabin fever, but enjoyed them quite a bit and was genuinely thrilled by both, and I suppose I could see how those movies influenced the tone of The Hateful Eight a bit now that you mention it. I feel the characters in that movie were more interesting to watch than the ones in Reservoir Dogs, though I cared about them less and wasn't sure what to make of the ending. Warren and Mannix heal their prejudices towards one another as much as possible and unite via an act of violence towards another character? K. Couldn't help but laugh uncomfortably during that scene. Was I supposed to? Dunno, but couldn't help it lol and I remember being confused and unsure of the extent of what Tarantino was trying to say (makes me want to re-watch it though, which I plan doing eventually). For the most part I agree that it portrayed the characters as optimistically as possible.

The impression of The Revenant that I got (and I'm not super good at film analysis to be honest, hence why I tend to lurk) was that the harsher aspects of nature (the wilderness as well as more brutal tendencies in humans) in those times to a large extent shaped most of the characters in that film. The Hateful Eight seemed to me like more of an ambitious character study that let you observe in detail the behavior of the characters and try to figure them out whereas The Revenant was more interested in the visual spectacle of immersing you in the American frontier and showing its characters' complex relationship with nature. And I don't know if I am totally on board with the description "it is concerned with cowardice in the face of death" to describe a movie where the protagonist is Hugh Glass and attempts to show many of the things he experienced, haha. I thought its commentary on the act of revenge was thought provoking though and I can't stop rewatching it to appreciate the visuals regarding how realistic the movie feels. Watching that Bear attack just felt wrong haha, so realistic, and it's probably been said, but every scene just felt consistently immersive and engaging. It's one of about six or seven movies in my collection (along with Spirited Away, 2001:A Space Odyssey, Samsara, Mad Max: Fury Road, Hardcore Henry, etc) that I can put in the bluray player and just get totally entranced by throughout the duration of the movie.
Last edited by gfxtwin on Sun Nov 20, 2016 1:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#317 Post by matrixschmatrix » Tue Nov 08, 2016 10:33 am

gfxtwin wrote:The impression of The Revenant that I got (and I'm not super good at film analysis to be honest, hence why I tend to lurk) was that the harsher aspects of nature (the wilderness as well as more brutal tendencies in humans) in those times to a large extent shaped most of the characters in that film. The Hateful Eight seemed to me like more of an ambitious character study that let you observe in detail the behavior of the characters and try to figure them out whereas The Revenant was more interested in the visual spectacle of immersing you in the American frontier and showing its characters' complex relationship with nature. And I don't know if I am totally on board with the description "it is concerned with cowardice in the face of death" to describe a movie where the protagonist is Hugh Glass and attempts to show many of the things he experienced, haha. I thought its commentary on the act of revenge was thought provoking though and I can't stop rewatching it to appreciate the visuals regarding how realistic the movie feels. Watching that Bear attack just felt wrong haha, so realistic, and it's probably been said, but every scene just felt consistently immersive and engaging.
I think, for me, that Glass isn't really a character- he alternates between being a relatively passive observer and a frightening, primal force of raw survival, but the only real choice he makes is that he will not allow himself to die. Tom Hardy, on the other hand, is a fairly dynamic character, constantly daring himself in what he is willing to do to survive, and in whether he has any moral core whatsoever- and the other members of the party are all faced with choices between doing something that would be right and leaving Glass behind. It's the moral dynamic of the movie- what people do when confronted by death- with Glass as the fulcrum.

Hateful 8 is also concerned with how people behave in environments of sudden death, but I think that's more or less Tarantino's default; instant death, at any time, is a possibility for almost anyone who lives in one of his movies. Hateful 8 therefore doesn't have the characters breaking simply in the realization that they could die, because anyone who would break there would (in Tarantino's world) have died long since. He uses that knowledge as a ratchet, to force tensions (and alliances) that would otherwise be allowed to stay hidden to come to the surface- there are conscious echoes of The Thing there, where the monster isn't creating anything, just pushing these dynamics that had been there all along. The end of the movie, as I think someone mentioned earlier in the thread, seems to echo and refute The Birth of a Nation- there, the nation could come together, North and South, over the body of a black man. Here, a white cracker and a black man can come together over, well, over lynching a woman, but I don't think Jennifer Jason Leigh is meant to represent femininity or womanhood generally- it's hard to say exactly what she is a representative of, though.


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Big Ben
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#319 Post by Big Ben » Sat Nov 10, 2018 2:18 pm

Strange criticism from a man who scored many, many Spaghetti Westerns.

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Brian C
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#320 Post by Brian C » Sat Nov 10, 2018 5:08 pm

Big-time NSFW link there ... people get fired for going to Playboy at work.


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bearcuborg
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#322 Post by bearcuborg » Sun Nov 11, 2018 1:35 am

I can’t say I’ve liked Tarantino all that much since Jackie Brown, but I don’t think Quentin has ever boasted about his working being “original.”

However, he’s every bit as good as those filmmakers he mentioned. I’m always holding out hope for another great movie.

The opening music/images to Hateful Eight were spectacular on the big screen.

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hearthesilence
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#323 Post by hearthesilence » Sun Nov 11, 2018 2:07 am

Brian C wrote:
Sat Nov 10, 2018 5:08 pm
Big-time NSFW link there ... people get fired for going to Playboy at work.
Even people at Playboy get fired for going to Playboy at work.

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#324 Post by The Narrator Returns » Sun Nov 11, 2018 2:21 pm

You needn't worry clicking on it now, because Morricone says it's completely fabricated and is threatening legal action against the magazine for it.

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domino harvey
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Re: The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

#325 Post by domino harvey » Sun Nov 11, 2018 2:44 pm


It has come to my attention that Playboy Germany has come out with an article in which I have called Tarantino a cretin and consider his films garbage. This is totally false. I have not given an interview to Playboy Germany and even more, I have never called Tarantino a cretin and certainly do not consider his films garbage. I have given a mandate to my lawyer in Italy to take civil and penal action.

I consider Tarantino a great director. I am very fond of my collaboration with him and the relationship we have developed during the time we have spent together. He is courageous and has an enormous personality. I credit Tarantino for being one of the people responsible for getting me an Oscar, which is for sure one of the greatest acknowledgments of my career, and I am forever grateful for the opportunity to compose music for his film.

In London, during a press conference in front of Tarantino, i clearly stated that I consider Quentin one of the greatest directors of this time.

Ennio Morricone

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