Quoted from Scar Tissue Films Funnily enough...the post I made above was before I saw the film. I thought it was an all time classic...easily his best since Jackie Brown. It had a nastily sagging middle, and I would have preferred a cleverer story than that they were all in on it....but other than that it was great.

STF,

You have interesting opinions. I often agree with them. Erm, most of the time.

Here's what I'm wondering... Where is my other shoe? Sorry, I'll start again.

Why do so many, myself included, think the first hour or so of Hateful Eight gets a bit bleedin' dull, until it kicks in and does its stuff?

I've posted about this before on this thread, I think. I've watched it on DVD too, much to my better half stating several times that QT's films are bollocks since Pulp.

I don't agree with her, about  that I mean, but that's another story.  

I realise you may be writing, so no rush.

I will say this - I can't think of another high profile independent film maker who came from not much to world wide fame and has stayed there for over twenty five years. Not only that, he still gets to do what he wants and when he wants to.

Bugger also knows Morricone. Pity he didn't check up on his past awards. Doh.

R

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films I thought it was an all time classic...easily his best since Jackie Brown. It had a nastily sagging middle, and I would have preferred a cleverer story than that they were all in on it....but other than that it was great.

Care to elaborate? On the above and this too...

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films Been phoning it in since Jackie Brown.

I disagree on both counts, though I understand why one might come to hold the latter sentiments. Kill Bill was a massive sea change for multiple reasons, and many more changes came after it. At the same time, it's entirely possible you hold said sentiments for entirely different reasons than I'm thinking of.

Not a challenge, honestly; I'm curious. Doesn't seem to add up. Hateful Eight has late-career Tarantino written all over it (the script, not as much... except for the written part). Why come around now?

Quoted from rendevous STF, You have interesting opinions. I often agree with them. Erm, most of the time. Here's what I'm wondering... Where is my other shoe? Sorry, I'll start again. Why do so many, myself included, think the first hour or so of Hateful Eight gets a bit bleedin' dull, until it kicks in and does its stuff? I've posted about this before on this thread, I think. I've watched it on DVD too, much to my better half stating several times that QT's films are bollocks since Pulp. I don't agree with her, about  that I mean, but that's another story.   I realise you may be writing, so no rush. I will say this - I can't think of another high profile independent film maker who came from not much to world wide fame and has stayed there for over twenty five years. Not only that, he still gets to do what he wants and when he wants to. Bugger also knows Morricone. Pity he didn't check up on his past awards. Doh. R

I can't really speak for anyone else.

For me it only got dull right before the big climax kicked in. More than an hour into it.

His films tend to be overly long and in dire need of an edit, I find.

Structurally it's probably because the front end was so expositional...introducing so many characters in a very verbal way. But it worked for me...the natural tension of the premise kept me awake...evaluating all the suspects.

The cut of Inglorious Basterds I saw at Cannes was criminally boring. They cut 40 minutes or more for the theatrical cut and it still needed another 40 minutes to an hour slicing out of it.

Tarantino, for me, makes really, really shit films that are so well directed they are, or at least seem, brilliant.

They are like gold plated, diamond encrusted turds.

This was the first I've seen since Jackie Brown that felt that it was actually about something...who we really are under the surface and what really makes a man. It was nice to see  some hint of an intelligent theme in a Tarantino movie. They've been so forgettable, for so long...apart from moments of superficial genius.

I was really surprised by it.

Well, I broke my oath of never seeing this again and tried to with my girlfriend.

She was asleep within the first 15 minutes.  I carried on and have to say on second viewing, it's much worse than I expected...MUCH WORSE!

Dialogue is just plain old poor.  So fake, so stilted, so dull.

I hate to say this, but I have to - this movie never should have been made, as there's so little going on.

New grade - D-

I'm a fan of QT. But not all his films. This one missed the mark for me too.

I have never really understood the obsession with Kill Bill either, though his blend of comic books with 70s Westerns and ninja films is fun in its way.

I also didn't understand the love of Django. I watched it in the theater, and I've tried to watch it online, but it's just so stupid and corny when it's trying to be serious. The parts where it's purposely humorous are the only ones the work...and those are few. Most overrated film in a while.

Pulp, Jackie, Inglorious, True Romance, even From Dusk Til Dawn...lot of good stuff in those. The man knows how to milk the tension out of a scene.

There were times that worked in Hateful. He knows how to hold your attention. But then it becomes self indulgent and goes no where.

Hey, no one can hit it out every time. I hope he keeps making films.

I love the work of Mr. Tarantino,  that said, Django dragged toward the end. To much time between the dentist dying and Django killing everyone.
I have  the same problem with Hateful 8, except it dragged in the beginning.  I always thought QT put the bit with the stagecoach in to avoid comparisons to Reservoir Dogs: who set us up vs who poisoned the coffee. Who's the sour apple of the bunch?

The Domergue (spelling ?) gang sucked, none of them were interesting, and Madsen looked completely out of place. Dern should have been the leader becuse when it comes to acting, Channing Tatum is the Sofia Coppola of his generation.

This film felt like Tarantino was trying to imitate Tarantino.

The whole movie and dialogue felt very forced to me.

Guess I am viewing things in relative terms these days. I've seen soooooooo many dreadful films lately that I am now less critical of this one. It needed to be cut by 40% for sure.

Quoted from eldave1 Guess I am viewing things in relative terms these days. I've seen soooooooo many dreadful films lately that I am now less critical of this one. It needed to be cut by 40% for sure.

Ah yes, but saying it needed to be cut by 40% is the key here.  In NO WAY should this film be anywhere near 3 hours, because as is, it's a tedious bore, and even at 2 hours or less, there is very little going on that warrants a feature film from a genius like QT.

Quoted from Dreamscale Ah yes, but saying it needed to be cut by 40% is the key here.  In NO WAY should this film be anywhere near 3 hours, because as is, it's a tedious bore, and even at 2 hours or less, there is very little going on that warrants a feature film from a genius like QT.

Agree - I think QT might have reached the point where he needs someone willing to tell him that something sucks. That being said. I recently watched moonlight and Jackie and gun to my head I ain't re-watching either of those before I re-watch Hateful Eight. By QT standards it was a D- as you said. By what I have seen lately from others - more of a C+. Overall though. we agree.

I am a huge QT fan, but I did not watch Hateful Eight. I tried to watch Django, but bailed. Other than those though, I pretty much LOVE all his films. I even loved Natural Born Killers, which he only wrote the story, but still. As far as Kill Bill goes, it's an excellent revenge movie and it has a female lead who kicks ass, which really appeals to me. (I even like GI Jane.) It's also cool and fun. KB is in my top ten. I watch it every time I come across it on TV, and that's quite often.

Two major problems for me, when it comes to this one.

As said before, the runtime. I swear to God, every Tarantino movie has become longer than the one prior, or at least, it feels that way and that's probably worse.

Second is that, when it came to the twist of who was going to be involved in breaking Domergue out (because we knew someone would at some point), Tarantino had about a million different directions to go... and he picked the worst one. Having previously unseen (and uninteresting) characters and semi-retconning stuff we'd already seen, that was the worst thing possible.

Instead, I'll tell you what I think would've been the best one (or, most interesting, in my opinion). You don't delete that flashback, but instead, use it to show that everyone there is a bounty hunter and how they all found out about Domergue. For Christ's sake, when you have a title like that, have everyone be a bad guy (to varying degrees). There should not have been a single good guy in the entire script. If you have everyone as a bad guy and they're all bounty hunters looking to collect on Domergue, then the third act could almost become a slasher where they're all sort of taking each other out (kind of like the old Simply games. Those were good times).

Anyway, I think this eventually came down as my least favorite Tarantino movie.