“See it in glorious 70mm {Ultra Panavision 70mm}.”
I’m in. Probably a wait until it hits rentals deal due to the kid factor, but more Tarantino Western is ok by me.
Every Tarantino movie I’ve seen has entertained me. He tells a good story with the camera.
I was so excited when I saw Walton Goggins was in Django, but then all he really got to do was grope the protagonist. But Taratino must have liked having him on set, because he’s back! Hopefully he’ll get to tap into some of the full Boyd repertoire.
Tarantino on The Hateful Eight and other stuff. Oh, and a dig at Cate Blanchett.
Hateful Eight uses the Civil War as a backdrop, sort of like how The Good, the Bad and the Ugly does.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly doesn’t get into the racial conflicts of the Civil War; it’s just a thing that’s happening. My movie is about the country being torn apart by it, and the racial aftermath, six, seven, eight, ten years later.
That’s going to make this movie feel contemporary. Everybody’s talking about race right now.
I know. I’m very excited by that.
Excited?
Finally, the issue of white supremacy is being talked about and dealt with. And it’s what the movie’s about.
And in fairness to blockbusters, nothing stinks worse than bad Oscar bait.
The movies that used to be treated as independent movies, like the Sundance movies of the ’90s — those are the movies that are up for Oscars now. Stuff like The Kids Are All Right and The Fighter. They’re the mid-budget movies now, they just have bigger stars and bigger budgets. They’re good, but I don’t know if they have the staying power that some of the movies of the ’90s and the ’70s did. I don’t know if we’re going to be talking about The Town or The Kids Are All Right or An Education 20 or 30 years from now. Notes on a Scandal is another one. Philomena. Half of these Cate Blanchett movies — they’re all just like these arty things. I’m not saying they’re bad movies, but I don’t think most of them have a shelf life. But The Fighter or American Hustle — those will be watched in 30 years.
Wait, so he does or doesn’t like The Fighter?
Anyone else see it? Post more later, but it may be the slowest paced movie in history. And it’s 3 hours of that pace. Looked down to check the time and I couldn’t believe we were only an hour in.
Saw this in 70 MM. It’s awesome. I missed Django, but I’m a big Tarantino fanboy. I like that he uses the same actors over and over, like one of those old TV episodes of Mission Impossible when Peter Graves sorts through the 8x10 glossies to assemble the team. You know he’s gonna pick Greg Morris.
Does.
From the rest of the article:
But The Fighter or American Hustle — those will be watched in 30 years.
You think so?
I could be completely wrong about that. I’m not Nostradamus.
What makes The Fighter something we’ll be talking about in 30 years?Part of that is the explosion of David O. Russell’s talent, which had always been there but really coalesced in that movie. I think he’s the best actor’s director, along with myself, working in movies today. And The Fighter had impeccable casting. As an example, I really liked The Town, which also came out in 2010. It was a good crime film. However, next to The Fighter, it just couldn’t hold up, because everybody in The Town is beyond gorgeous. Ben Affleck is the one who gets away with it, because his Boston accent is so good. But the crook is absolutely gorgeous. The bank teller is absolutely gorgeous. The FBI guy is absolutely gorgeous. The town whore, Blake Lively, is absolutely gorgeous. Jeremy Renner is the least gorgeous guy, and he’s pretty fucking good-looking. Then, if you look at The Fighter, and you look at those sisters, they’re just so magnificent. When you see David O. Russell cast those sisters,5 and you see Ben Affleck cast Blake Lively,6 you can’t compare the two movies. One just shows how phony the other is.
5 and 6 above are links to photos of the actresses, the sisters look “earthy” while Ms Lively deserves a Kelly Wand growl.
I can’t wait to hear Tarantino try to justify Russell’s latest, Joy. Ugh.
By the way, I hated Hateful Eight. Hated it. As did Christien, one of my podcast co-hosts. Kelly, our other co-host, liked it.
As for Tarantino making a movie about “the country torn apart by racial issues after the Civil War”, that’s not what I saw in Hateful Eight. I saw a facile representation of crackers who “fought to keep niggers in chains”. To Quentin Tarantino, the South fought not because their economy depended on slavery, but because it was populated by ignorant racists.
-Tom
P.S. Blake Lively is really good in Age of Adaline! And not because she’s gorgeous, but because she’s talented.
That was evident from Django Unchained. Tarantino may be a very talented film maker, but his understanding of history certainly seems less than sophisticated.
I’m guessing my understanding of history is equally unsophisticated, but not really seeing why “economic issues” and “lots of ignorant racists who can’t stomach political equality for blacks” can’t both be driving forces of the civil war. I mean, slavery doesn’t exactly lend itself to slave owners having a sophisticated appreciation of the enslaved. And it’s not like one big ol’ multi-racial love-fest broke out in the south after the economic drivers went away.
I realize this thread isn’t the place for an extended political discussion, but I’d say historians are pretty much agreed that the Southern elites’ fear of losing what they believed was the basis of their economy was the driving force for succession and the Civil War. Of course there were ignorant racist yahoos then and ignorant racist yahoos now, but as racist as the Confederacy’s leaders may have been, I don’t think ignorant is an accurate term for them. Certainly they weren’t kind of stupid buffoons that Tarantino populated Django Unchained with.
What Jason said. The Civil War was fought for economic reasons with ethical implications; it was not fought for ethical reasons with economic implications. In other words, I suppose you could say – paraphrasing Hateful Eight here – “the Civil War was fought to keep the niggers in chain who drove the agrarian economy”. Anyone who leaves off that bit about the agrarian economy to make it sound like it was merely an issue of racism is just race baiting out of ignorance or to get attention. In the case of Tarantino, I’m guessing both.
-Tom
Or the North, by the way. There was no easy divide of “Southerners = racists” and “Northerners = enlightened abolitionists”. It’s just that the North didn’t have an economic stake in slavery. It’s easy to do the right thing when the right thing doesn’t affect you.
But to be fair to Hateful Eight, it does end with a message of harmony in which a black man and a Southern racist come together to…
the end of the Hateful Eight
…brutally lynch a white woman who has been sadistically beaten throughout the movie. Thanks, Tarantino!
-Tom
I haven’t seen Hateful Eight yet, but both Django and Inglorious Basterds went after easy targets for revenge fantasies. That’s not to say either movie doesn’t have other merits, but Tarantino is pretty good about allowing the audience to feel at ease luxuriating in ultra violence.
I don’t get the Tarantino h8rs!
Tom, what? Did you just find the premise offensive? Is it an “N” word thing? I guess I should go listen to the podcast. I didn’t get a chance to listen today but I see it on my phone and I’m hoping to check in tomorrow.
Jason, I agree with all you’re saying* but I’m not sure how it relates to the movie. It seems like all eight characters were equally despicable/ignorant and hateful. I’m not even sure how you would draw up the north/south lines in the cast. Where the Domergue gang rebels or yankees?
North
Bounty Hunter
Hangman
South
Sheriff
General Dern
I don’t think you can make an argument that the movie slights rebels for being ignorant racists. The yankees were ignorant racists too! They were all terrible people. The only one who didn’t seem half bad was the hangman, but he just kept pummelling his poor prisoner. But as shocking as it was, it’s hard to hold it against him seeing as she …
h8 spoilers?
murdered him, just as he knew she would, given the chance.
- I mean the civil war stuff in post 52. I didn’t get a chance to see Django yet.
I haven’t seen Hateful Eight yet, so I don’t know how or if what I said relates to this movie. I was responding to Tom’s criticism of Tarantino and bigdruid’s reaction to my post. What I was saying boils down to this: Based on what I have seen so far from Tarantino–and in this vein that would be Django and Inglorious Basterds–is a not very sophisticated understanding of history. As mono said, great revenge fantasy stuff, but history not so much.
Really? I’m surprised, but I guess what you and the others are saying makes more sense in that light.
To me, it seems wrongheaded to gauge Hateful Eight as historical fiction. It’s set in the past, but it doesn’t seem even a little concerned with offering any kind of historical perspective. Is it even clear where it takes place besides up in the mountains? When, besides 10 or 20 years after the Civil War? And it’s the same with IB. It happens during WW2, but otherwise it’s just fantasy. It’s been a while since I saw it and I can’t remember the plot, but
spoiler for IB
doesn’t Hitler die in the fire at the end of IB
?
To your question: yes.
To your argument: completely agree.