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The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)
Tarantino continues his decline into irrelevance with this exceedingly long film about people who express their hate for each other in word and deed. As with most Tarantino films, talking leads nowhere, guns solve everything. The story, to the extent that it matters, revolves around a bounty hunter taking a valuable possession to market who seeks refuge from a severe blizzard in a remote 'Haberdashery' which in addition to selling household goods acts as a bar and restaurant. Having collected another bounty hunter on the way, and a man claiming to be the new sheriff of the collective destination -Red Rock, Wyoming (although the film itself was shot in Telluride, Colorado) -these three people and the prize find themselves in the Haberdashery with four strangers. Half way through there is a plot twist which is intended to send this 'drama' spiralling into a new dimension, but is in fact ruined by the voice over -by Tarantino himself- which explains what is happening, presumably because he couldn't work out how to do it as a film. Indeed, Tarantino's trade-mark cross-references to his own and other people's films becomes the weakest part of his work these days. Most of the plot seems to have come from an Australian tv drama called The Rebel, and while there is supposed to be some context in the left-over soldiers from both sides of the Civil War carrying on their private struggle as criminals and bounty hunters, any attempt to link this to contemporary America is feeble, given that profound is the one concept Tarantino does not do. A graduate student in semiotics will point you to the moments when the inhabitants have to nail the door shut from the inside, as if it were their coffin, which is as deep as it gets. We are told only Minnie sits in Minnie's chair, but when she is on set, someone else is sitting in her chair and she doesn't mind, just as we are told she don't allow Mexicans in her 'crib' yet there is one right in front of her. Joe Gage arrived with four others in a stagecoach, yet wears spurs on the heels of his boots...it is just so sloppy. Or it could be that this is a film about 'brotherly love' taking that as a reference to ties of blood, gangs, the 'hood'...let's just say that I can't be the only person not waiting for the next chapter in the career of this gun-crazy hack.

Mostly agree with your take on The Hateful Eight, Stavros. Thanks for the review, and welcome back (I haven't seen you for awhile). I'll add that for an action movie where everything is settled with gun-play and violence, there is a lot of talking and story telling. The film is broken into a number of well-defined segments, each one filling in or adding to the history of one or more of the characters. In spite of all the action and violence, the story telling functions to slow down the film. Unfortunately the characters and their stories are 'cartoonish' and uninspired. Most people can find more productive ways to spend three hours and seven minutes.

The Danish Girl

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Originally Posted by Stavros

The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)
Tarantino continues his decline into irrelevance with this exceedingly long film about people who express their hate for each other in word and deed. As with most Tarantino films, talking leads nowhere, guns solve everything. The story, to the extent that it matters, revolves around a bounty hunter taking a valuable possession to market who seeks refuge from a severe blizzard in a remote 'Haberdashery' which in addition to selling household goods acts as a bar and restaurant. Having collected another bounty hunter on the way, and a man claiming to be the new sheriff of the collective destination -Red Rock, Wyoming (although the film itself was shot in Telluride, Colorado) -these three people and the prize find themselves in the Haberdashery with four strangers. Half way through there is a plot twist which is intended to send this 'drama' spiralling into a new dimension, but is in fact ruined by the voice over -by Tarantino himself- which explains what is happening, presumably because he couldn't work out how to do it as a film. Indeed, Tarantino's trade-mark cross-references to his own and other people's films becomes the weakest part of his work these days. Most of the plot seems to have come from an Australian tv drama called The Rebel, and while there is supposed to be some context in the left-over soldiers from both sides of the Civil War carrying on their private struggle as criminals and bounty hunters, any attempt to link this to contemporary America is feeble, given that profound is the one concept Tarantino does not do. A graduate student in semiotics will point you to the moments when the inhabitants have to nail the door shut from the inside, as if it were their coffin, which is as deep as it gets. We are told only Minnie sits in Minnie's chair, but when she is on set, someone else is sitting in her chair and she doesn't mind, just as we are told she don't allow Mexicans in her 'crib' yet there is one right in front of her. Joe Gage arrived with four others in a stagecoach, yet wears spurs on the heels of his boots...it is just so sloppy. Or it could be that this is a film about 'brotherly love' taking that as a reference to ties of blood, gangs, the 'hood'...let's just say that I can't be the only person not waiting for the next chapter in the career of this gun-crazy hack.

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You're brutal like Tarantino but, unlike Tarantino, you get to the heart of things quickly! I agree with your assessment though I still watch his movies if only to see and hear actors I like speaking Tarantino's lingua franca. Yes, it's tired and has been since Pulp Fiction but I do get some joy from seeing Samuel Jackson holler essentially the same caveman script time and again. And I definitely enjoy seeing DiCaprio let loose his inner racist or Jamie Fox kick white ass or Kurt Russell as an aged and more voluble Snake Plisken. With Tarantino it's all about the visceral effect derived from watching certain actors expand on innate characters that they don't get to do in other movies. Once they play their Tarantino role it's difficult to imagine them otherwise. And of course, details are somewhat inconsequential - maybe spurs on Joe Gage's boots were used to keep him steady in the stagecoach!

For me, watching the latest Tarantino movie isn't much different than listening to the latest Rolling Stones album: you pretty much know what to expect and will get what you expect with maybe a fatter pig and different colour of lipstick.

Kuroneko

Milk

Chi-raq