THE HATEFUL EIGHT; FULL-TILT REVIEW

“OHHH, you believe in Jesus now, huh, bitch? GOOD, 'CAUSE YOU 'BOUT TO MEET HIM!”

Major Marquis Warren 

The one on the left is hateful. So is the one on the right. Who's the most hateful? Watch and find out... Maybe.

Synopsis:

Daisy Domague is a cunning and feral criminal being escorted by famed bounty-hunter 'the Hangman' to the town of Red Rock, where her execution will take place. But the arrival of a sudden and terrible blizzard means he's forced to take shelter in Mia's Haberdashery with a group of enigmatic strangers; among them another bounty-hunter, the sheriff and the hangman of Red Rock, a Southern Civil War veteran, a cattle driver, and the Mexican left to run the premises in the absence of the real owners. However, one or more of those sheltering inside the haberdashery may be lying about who they are, and why they are present, and so begins a tense game of cat-and-mouse between those gathered. Emotions run high as the storm outside rages, and the only certainty is that before the night is out, blood will spill.

Script: 1/2

It's a Tarantino script, so, as you'd imagine, the dialogue is slick in that special Tarantino way, and plays like a western retelling of John Carpenter's The Thing, only with added “mother fucker”.

The problem in that is, Tarantino only writes in the one voice, which means everybody talks the exact same way- the talented cast can only disguise that so much, and after so many films the trick is becoming all the more noticeable: everybody is playing a version of Tarantino... It also has to be said, Tarantino doesn't really concern himself with accuracy when it comes to a' cussing, and his use of pulling the race card, while revisionist at first, soon grows tedious and, worryingly, a little gleeful.

Pace: 0/2
Oh. My. God. This one really, really takes it's sweet time. The story (a relatively straight froward whodunnit in a novelty western setting) warranted about 90 minutes to work successfully, but this beast takes over 2 and a half hours. I feel like 15 minutes of that was spent sitting through the credits, forced to watch a distant coach slowly make its way towards the screen. I mean, this really drags. Drags. Is this clear enough? When these people talk (as they do at length in that very special “I'm Quentin Tarantino and when I start writing I never fucking stop” sort of way) they go on, and on, and on. I read once that the key to a great screen-writing sequence is come in late and leave early, essentially just cover the important bit. Apparently, Tarantino's never heard of that advice...

Acting: 2/2
Everybody convinces; the eight truly are a hateful bunch. So much so that I didn't really care when any of the eight start to perish. Samuel L. Jackson plays Quentin Tarantino (or more accurately, the person Quentin Tarantino probably wishes he was), who also happens to be a bounty hunter with issues around slavery, as you'd reasonably expect. Kurt Russell also plays Quentin Tarantino who also happens to be a bounty hunter. He's escorting Jennifer Jason leigh, who also plays Quentin Tarantino and happens to be the murdering leader of an outlaw gang. And so on. Yes, my joke may sound a little unfair but it's sadly on the money, although I can't blame the cast for this.

Aesthetic: 2/2

The film is beautiful, no 2 ways about it. Tarantino is certainly an enthusiastic cinephile, and, love or hate his films, that enthusiasm is almost palpable. Every frame of the film is a work of art, from the wide open landscapes, the confined quarters of the coach-house, to the creased and weathered close-ups of scowling faces. The costumes all look of the period (all be it stylishly heightened), and the sets all feel used and dirt-flaked. That, and the cold wilderness and the raging blizzard is captured incredibly. Rarely (if ever) has a film actually made me feel so cold while watching it.

Intention: 1/2
This is Tarantino back on the right track in so much as the story is it's own thing. While it may be heavily inspired by Sergio Leone style 'spaghetti westerns', it's not the usual patchwork of better films and contrasting styles (see Kill Bill 2, Inglorious, Death proof and Django). That said, Tarantino is still reluctant to break from his comfort zone; it's Reservoir Dogs with cowboys, hardly breaking new ground. Not exactly a western, not really a thriller, and only in the loosest sense a mystery, too simple for political allegory, too nasty for simple entertainment and definitively not a morality tale, the overall intention of the film is lost on me.

Final Word: 6/10

It's a simple story told in a complicated fashion, heading towards the inevitable Tarantino bloodbath of betrayal and id-fuelled hostility. It could have been entertaining if only it wasn't so painfully labored and self-congratulatory- even the climax itself feels like it takes an age to end. However, if you're a fan of Tarantino's self-aware and quick-pitter-patter vocabulary style, and you're not so sensitive to having your time wasted in era-sized proportions, then there's much to admire. For my money, this is a step in the right direction but still a frustrating waste of a film that could-have-been so much better.

"I LIKE THE WAY YOU DIE, BOY!"

*Django (Django Unchained).

Not as topical as it has been, I've still decided to wade in on this Tarantino debate:

Is Quentin Tarantino's portrayal of black slavery culturally sensitive?

Rather than drag this out I'll try and get straight to the point. Yes and no.

"Explain yourself Mr Carlisle! What sort of a half-arsed answer is that?" Alright, I will.

What I found most uncomfortable about the film wasn't so much what I saw on screen, but what I took into the experience from my understanding of Quentin's character. See, Good 'ol Quentin has often been heard telling people that he enjoys the "aesthetic of violence" which in my mind doesn't really qualify him for the job of 'sensitive exploration of controversial subject matter' (when it's very clear Tarantino doesn't have a nuanced  bone in his body).

How can I know (for certain) that he's not getting the same satisfaction out of his violence-on-blacks as he is his white-on-white violence? For example, while we accept the bloody shootouts as comic-book style entertainment, is their inclusion here in this film inviting a similar voyeuristic enjoyment of a scene where attack dogs literally rip a slave to pieces?

Even that question poses difficult sentiments. Should violence (any violence) be seen differently just because of the colour of a victim's skin? Is drawing such a distinction, in its own way, not racist?

So here's the thing. My issue is not with Tarantino's 'take' on slavery (for his own part he clearly knows that "slavery is bad" and sees everybody equally whatever the shade of their skin). My issue is more to do with his 'take' on violence in general. I genuinely feel that he is unable to distinguish between comic-book sensitivities which glorify 'action' from gritty 'brutality'. At least, if Tarantino can distinguish the difference, then I feel that perhaps he enjoys them both equally- which is very problematic...
 Reservoir Dogs is NOT Kill Bill, and while their content can both be considered violent, one is realistically visceral while the other is highly styalised. To my mind, one is a condemnation of violence while the other is an action-ballet designed to both thrill and entertain. By including both tones within the same film you send out very mixed messages, and when you apply that rather jarring combination to such a sensitive subject as slavery, then you're going to upset people and invite the criticism of 'trivialising history'.



On a final note; 
Quentin, you really don't help your cause when, aside from showing the horrors endured by the black slaves, you start making shit up like Mandingo fighting! As if things weren't bad enough for them already, you have to draw 'popcorn entertainment' from their suffering? That's pretty insensitive... You dick.

DJANGO UNCHAINED, Carlisle's Final Word.

"Gentlemen, you had my curiosity. But now you have my attention."

Calvin Candie. 

Script Logic; 1/2

Pace; 0/2

Acting; 2/2

Aesthetic; 2/2

Originality & Intention; 1/2

Final Score; 6/10

Final Word; 
So, a fair bit has been said about this film already. On the one hand, we have critically acclaimed director Spike Lee condemning the film for its depiction of slavery and its overuse of racially provocative language, while the film's stars, including Samuel L Jackson and Jamie Foxx, defend it as an 'important work of art' (yep, that ol' chestnut). We also have Quentin Tarantino (in typically animated and stuttering fashion) loosing his temper during an interview with the BBC. As you'd imagine, I have an opinion on all this, but I'll wade in on that subject later, probably during my long-overdue article on the works of Quentin Tarantino. For now we should consider the film without the murky ambiguity of its subject and behind-the-scenes agendas. I didn't have high hopes, it has to be said (the bitter disappointment of Inglorious still fresh in my mind), but it wasn't the complete mess that I'd expected it to be. I only decided to watch it for the sake of this blog, and because it's all anybody will be talking about for the next couple of weeks (see how I suffer for you people?). 

On the positive side, the first hour is perfection: the slavery is eluded to tastefully, while the violance is comically over-the-top and punctuated with Tarantino's usual flair for irreverent wit (much kudos for the scene where the hooded racisits discuss costume-related issues). What with all the Spaghetti Western styling present in his previous movies, it would seem that this, more than any other project, was the film Tarantino was tailor-made to direct... Everybody gives cracking performances, with particular praise for DiCaprio and Jackson going spectacularly against type, and the script gives everybody some great lines (even if in reality the term 'mother fucker' wasn't used til much later). The locations, the sets and the costume design are also all top notch. Unfortunately, that's where the good stuff ends.
The second hour, where the cruelties inflicted on the slaves is more apparent (subject of the controversy), is over-long and off-kilter with the comic-book sensibility of the set-up, and this apparent return to realism draws attention to the flaws in the script's logic- without wishing to give anything away, the much-aligned Mandingo plot is unnecessary and makes little to no sense at all. Neither is it historically accurate. The last hour again jarringly differs in tone to what has come before, and any tangible sense of realism is cast aside for a disappointing final act; where the ludicrous gun battles are orchestrated to modern-day rap songs, the director has a cameo affecting the World's worst Australian accent, and the hero's horse can dance.

In a nut shell; first hour great, second hour dull and ethically uneasy, and the third hour is dementedly surreal and at the same time dramatically under-whelming. Somewhere in this mess is a decent 90 minuite homage to the Spegetti Westerns of yester-year, but this is unfortunately caught up in the eccentric self indulgence of an egotistical and rambling director- one who occasionally needs to be told 'no'.

 

"BLESSED IS HE WHO EXPECTS NOTHING, FOR HE SHALL NEVER BE DISAPPOINTED"

Alexander Pope

Warning: due to the passionate nature of this post, it features worse language than what is normally found in this blog, and I’m not talking about split infinitives…




In this article I’d like to take the opportunity to let rip about some real disappointments.

Bitter disappointments.

I’m not even referring to the common-place buzz around the larger blockbusters (take that with a pinch of salt), but about the good-old-fashioned and ever-reliable word of mouth. The type of films your most trusted friends and movie critics tell you “man, you really have to see this!”. And I don’t mean films that were ‘meh’, I mean films that had me literally screaming at the television screen, or ringing up my friends shouting “why the hell did you recommend that piece of shit?”.

In no particular order, these are my ‘ten most’. Enjoy (if that’s the right word in this context).


28 Days Later
Danny Boyle, 2002.
Alright, so we technically have a lot to be thankful for with this. The atmospheric set-up, the nightmarish vision of  a deserted London (we’ve gotten used to seeing such things in America, but here on home territory it’s enough to turn the blood cold), some nicely developed characters- and who can forget: this is the film that made Zombies scary again! Holy shit, they can run now! Suddenly every film and comic geek had to reassess the skills necessary to survive the Zombie apocalypse.
So you may well be asking me ‘why are you so down on it?’. I’ll admit, it’s inclusion here may be a little unwarranted, and I enjoyed the first half of the film, but by God does the second half suck cock. End of the day; it was a good opening and a new take on the zombie myth, but it buckles during the second act and becomes an entirely different film in the third.
I’m in the minority with this view, I do realise that, but for all the hype this film received (and in my view Danny Boyle has always been hugely overrated) I’m looking for something really special, and to disappoint with such a weak climax is criminal. By all means break with some of the conventions, but you can’t go breaking all of them!
How can you have a ‘zombie movie’* without a zombie attack at the end? All we get is about five of them staggering around in the front garden (without having any impact to the story) and one (just one!) on the loose inside the mansion. For a bunch of squaddies who survived the worse of the outbreak, they sure fucked things up at the end, didn’t they? I mean, come on, how many of them were there? And they had fucking guns. And am I supposed to believe that a bunch of squaddies left to their own devices after less than 30 days, with no reason to assume the virus has decimated anywhere else in the world besides England, suddenly turn into hostile rapists and pedophiles? The T.A maybe, but not squaddies...
28 Weeks Later, now that was awesome.




Avartar
James Cameron 2009.
You’ve heard all the jokes, you know, the ones like Dancing With Smurfs. I wasn’t so much bothered by the obvious nods to other films, but by the sheer laziness of the story. A knowingnod here and there is expectable, and a few similarities is to be expected in any film these days, but this clichéd mess? “Isn’t that tough Latin soldier a lot like Vasquez? And that slimy corporate guy, that’s Carter Burke!” It doesn’t matter if they’re your own films Mr Cameron, it’s still fucking lazy! This, from the guy who’s capable of Terminator 2, Aliens and the Abyss? James Cameron, I know you can write, and that just makes this even more inexcusable! Don't even get me started on Unabtanium! Real subtle.
And, the ‘crowning turd in the waterpipe’, all that bullshit “game-changer” talk. How is it exactly a game changer Mr Cameron? Because it features cutting-edge CGI, which will be outdated before the year is out? Because it’s in 3D, a method first pioneered at the dawn of cinema? Because of the originality of your ideas (ahem)? Because it’s over 2 hours long, like every other fucking film these days? It certainly isn’t because of the complexity of the writing or the quality of the acting!
Game changer my arse. Despite all that, it wasn’t even any good anyway.




Casino Royal
Martin Campbell, 2006.
First of all, I’d like to point out that this is the director who recently bought us Green Lantern. Just saying...
I’m not a Bond fan, which I realise may put me at something of a disadvantage to reviewing a Bond film, but I went to the cinema expecting that to work in my favour. After all, this was supposed to be a radical reinvention of the character. Instead I was lumbered with this sad-sack of an film, watching the most unsympathetic, misogynistic, self-centered unlikeable prick of a hero scowl and strop from one short-lived action scene to the next. And to top it off, Bond doesn't even kill the main antagonist. Oh no, that honor goes to some guy you barely meet in the film's set-up. I'm normally quite astute in films (I didn't see what was so complicated about Inception at any rate), but I had to nudge the guy next to me and ask "who the hell was that?". Imagine it: a Bond film where Bond doesn't beat the bad guy? No, Bond get's some twat that nobody remembers, in a scene that felt like it was tacked on. Talk about an anti-climax. I assumed the guy faked his own death to trick Bond into releasing the code to his love interest, but he really was dead.
In screenwriting and story telling, they always teach 'don't take the climax out of the hands of your protagonist' because it's hugely unsatisfying and leaves the main character looking redundant. Something else to bare in mind; 'Deus Ex Machina (or 'god in the machine'), a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object. Or another villain suddenly bursting in and saving the hero from torture...




Cloverfield
Matt Reeves, 2008.
Behind the mystery and the found-footage gimmick is a blatant knock-off of Godzilla, only less fun and more whiney. They told us it was a ‘post 9/11’ movie. Well, sure if by that you mean it was made afterwards, that’s a no-brainer. If by that you mean ‘edgy’ because you’ve used a faux documentary style reminiscent of the news coverage on the day the planes hit the Twin Towers, then I’d like to point out that footage of horrific events like this have ALWAYS been in the public domain, you just never heard about them because you’re fucking American! That’s not a racist statement I assure you, but as a country you need to wake up and understand that things like that have happened across the globe, try asking the Jews all about it. Making a film that intentionally brings to mind a horrific occasion in modern history for the purposes of entertainment isn’t ‘edgy’, it’s just distasteful.
On a lighter note, it’s a dull film with lots of spoilt yuppies running around in the dark panicking, and that whole found-footage thing is boring and headache inducing! Plus, who’s actually still be running round filming all that? Sure, to start with perhaps, but if you’re in the middle of all that then NO! And even if you were that stupid, the army would have snatched that off you in a heartbeat in the field hospital scene…
And what sort of a title is Cloverfield? Is that a subtle attempt at irony?
I once bought a shatter proof mobile phone. I dropped it onto gravel in the first week and it broke. My new phone has a battery on it that lasts around two days, if I don’t actually make any calls or send any texts. Modern technology isn’t made to last. That may sound like an unrelated comment, but whatever those yuppies paid for that camcorder was worth it! It’s battery lasted for 12 hours straight, and it didn’t break (or even switch off) when it was dropped from the monsters mouth. They should put that on the advert!
It's a duff creature design too! If you have to wait almost the whole film just to get a glimpse of it, at least make it worth while. It looks like something from an old episode of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.




Contagion
Steven Soderbergh, 2011.
Films that rely on so many big-stars are rarely worth the time to watch. It’s called ‘stunt casting’, and it’s there for either one of two reasons. Either to attract attention to an otherwise uninteresting project, or to counter the fact that the film has no time to develop proper characters (“hey look, it’s Kate Winslet! I like her, she’s always nice, I know where I am now”). I’d say this film needs ‘stunt casting’ on both accounts.
It comes across less like a film and more like a lecture. It’s 28 Days Later, without the Rage Virus. It’s like getting a lettuce sandwich: sure, you can eat it but it’s definitely missing something important… Like the fucking filling!
Yes, I like Laurence Fishburne, I like Kate Winslet, and I even like Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. I wouldn’t even describe their roles as cameos…




Inglorious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino, 2009
I’ll cover this in more depth another time, as I have a Quentin Tarantino post coming soon, but for now I’ll just cover the basics.
It’s a bit shit.
More to follow...




Spiderman 2
Sam Raimi, 2004.
It’s the best of the Sam Raimi Spiderman films, if you believe what your friends tell you. Yet, if like me, you have a slightly better memory, you’ll realise that this is almost exactly like the first Spiderman film!
Peter Parker is trying desperately to woo the girl of his dreams, but due to his shy demeanour and the constraints of a double life he keeps dropping the ball. He is befriended by a nice scientist who becomes a sort of father figure to our hero, except trouble is on the horizon- the nice scientist is working on an experiment that could benefit human kind, but after a slight miscalculation (you’ve guessed it) the scientist is transformed into a vicious villain!
You tell me, is that a description of Spiderman 1 or 2?
Alright, so it’s Spiderman, you’re limited as to what you can change, so why pick a villain with such a similar background? I know it was played well, but it felt a little tame after Willem Defoe’s scenery chewing turn as the Green Goblin.
On a final moan, Doc Ock weilds these giant arms, which are quite powerful, but he himself is just a podgy fella, while Spiderman is strong enough to flip cars punch through walls. So why is it that whenever Spiderman punches Ock in the head he just shakes it off??? Excuse me but no, if Spiderman punches a normal guy in the head then that fight is fucking over. End of. It will also require an 18 certificate.




The Godfather
Francis Ford Coppola, 1972.
Oooooooo. Controversial! The film that makes every critic’s top 10 is in my garbage pile. Truth is, no film will ever live up to that amount of hype, and I was bored watching it. Too many plot strands, unsympathetic characters, and a disjointed and badly-dated style just left me feeling like I’d seen better.
It would seem fair to say that it’s unfair to hold aging badly against it, but not every film out of the 70’s is that rambling or passé. And it’s not impatience before you ask, I’m a patient guy, I enjoy slow films, so long as they go somewhere and keep me involved- my mind isn’t ruined by the fast editing and explosions of modern cinema, it was just a dull film. I was under-whelmed, and given all the hype, that’s a crime enough to warrant it’s appearance in my list. Catchy tune though, and I suppose a film now responsible for so many dyed-in-the-wool cliches had to be influential in its day...




Titanic
James Cameron, 1997.
Poor Mr Cameron, you made the list twice.
Well, the sinking ship may have been impressive enough (I’m not going to be picky about bendy fences and the like), but the over-blown romance at the centre of the plot was, well, over-blown. It was engineered to appeal to simpletons and teenage girls, the sort who use glitter, love pink ponies and still have MySpace pages.
Not an awful film, but is it worth all the hype? Does the Box Office success reflect the quality of the film? No. I think, between this and Avatar, it just goes to show that Cameron is a master at playing the marketing game, and we’re all still stupid enough to fall for it. Myself included.




True Grit (remake)
Ethan & Joel Coen.
“Zzzzzzz… Wait, what did he say? Is that even a language?”
Do I like the Coen brothers, those eccentric and ecliptic purveys of the bizarre and the cultish? I’m really not sure where I stand on this, and no, this isn’t a set up for a gag. Sometimes I love their films, other times I think they produce some of the worst kind of crap. I think they clearly suffer from something of an ego.
For me, this and The Big Lewbowski are at polar ends of their output; True Grit being among their worst, and the other among their best. I wasn’t even that impressed with No Country For Old Men, which like this, took a long time to say very little. We all know that ‘violence begets violence’, it’s a fairly old maxim, and I’m sure I’ve seen it in better films than this self-important piece of conceited critic-fodder.







*A note to Danny Boyle.

Yes, despite your argument to the contrary, 28 Days Later IS a zombie film. You believe, wrongly, that because the infected are not technically ‘dead’ that they should be omitted to appease your pretentious reservations, but here’s why you’re wrong: have you never heard of the zombie slaves in Africa, strongly associated with the Voodoo culture? Although slightly revised, this is a snippet from an article by David Wong that explains my point in greater detail:

This baffling phenomenon has scientifically been explained by the use of poisons that slow your bodily functions to the point that you'll be considered dead, even to a doctor. The victims are then be brought back under the effects of a drug like datura stramonium (or other chemicals called alkaloids) that leave them in a trance-like state with no memory, but still able to perform simple tasks like slave labour.

These ‘zombies’ are, factually speaking, still alive, but are definitively recognised as zombies in their own culture, and ours. Just because you explain away mysticism doesn’t mean your film is any less a zombie movie, so stop being so arty and just accept that you made a zombie movie; one with a promising beginning and a shit ending!

“If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off.” 

 Thomas Jefferson