Friday, April 15, 2016

year 5 day 125

movie: The Hateful Eight
starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth
genre: Western, Crime, Drama,
year; 2015
format: Shaw Video On Demand

plot: A bounty hunter in the 1800's, finds himself stranded for a few days in the middle of  a blizzard along with his prisoner and a group not to be trusted.

So a few things were going through my mind while watching this  1) it is just so beautifully shot. There were scenes that made me think -and rightly so- of westerns from the 1960's, as well as Hammer films and even the way Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) had been shot.  From the first few seconds of the opening credits, you almost expect John Wayne's name to come up or something, you know you're about to watch a western.  and 2) this movie is so bloody long!  I saw the "watered down general version" at almost 3 hours, and midway, all I could think was "there's an extended version?"  (yeah I know, I guess I'm just getting old and everything takes to long these days)

This has the feel of a stage play, given there really are only two sets, the stage coach where the first half of the movie takes place -which is basically the intro- and the cabin area (this includes the one shot of the barn and out house)  And that first hour is where the heaviness of dialogue takes place. At the midway mark, we get Tarantino's voice over filling in a few gaps, setting us up for the shift in genres; which is where the real "Tarantino" film starts. You almost want a rain slicker there is so much blood from that point on.

The big theme here is race issues. There's no denying it, there's no running from it, there's only the question of why do they all sound like they've been hanging out on the Jeffersons? I kept expecting someone to scream for "Whizzie".

what did I learn? Even when Tim Roth is not the star of the show, he's the star of the show.

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