It must take some clout to get a movie like “The Hateful Eight” made. Over three hours, with an overture and an intermission, it’s a western featuring an assortment of dastardly people doing dastardly things. It’s the kind of talky, violent film only Quentin Tarantino could conceive of, let alone get financed.
Set a decade after the Civil War, most of the action happens during the “white hell” of a Wyoming blizzard. Eight people find themselves holed up at Minnie’s Haberdashery, the last mountain pass stopover before the town of Red Rock.
Bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell), his prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), infamous union soldier-turned-bounty-hunter Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and proud southerner Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) arrive by stagecoach. They’re on the way to Red Rock, where Daisy will be hung for her crimes while Ruth and Warren will split the bounty on the woman’s head. Mannix claims to be the town’s new sheriff, but given his rebel past no one believes him.
They are met by Minnie’s handyman Bob (Demian Bichir), Red Rock hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), cow-puncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen) and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern). The storm keeps them housebound, thrown together by circumstance, not choice.
Suspicion soon spreads like a virus, infecting everyone in the room until a sudden burst of violence changes the dynamic.
There are no heroes in “The Hateful Eight,” nary a Cary Grant or Randolph Scott in sight. Instead Tarantino brings together eight tough ‘n terrible people, puts them in a room and lights a fuse. The first half—yes, there is an intermission—is dynamic and tense. Secrets are uncovered while Tarantino skilfully manipulates the claustrophobic situation, edging it toward the inevitable bloody climax. It’s dynamic, gritty stuff that places the focus on the actors—Jackson, Goggins and Jason Leigh lead a terrific cast—and their actions and sets the scene for what I hoped would be an exciting, character driven second half. The first half ends with a bang—literally—a blast that signals the change in tone to come.
The second part is where “The Hateful Eight” gets bloody… and problematic. Tarantino spends the length of most features to provide a set-up, one that hints at a powder keg situation about to erupt, and then adds another element—there will be no spoilers here—that undoes the good work from the first half. To me it felt like a cheat, a great unknowable wedged into the story to move things along. At that point the movie becomes a lot more Peckinpah but less interesting.
There is no doubt Tarantino is pushing the envelope here. This is a defiantly uncommercial film—for the first half anyway—whose indulgences—use of the “n” word, lingering shots of cruelty and gore—detract from what is essentially the director’s master class in genre filmmaking.
Everything about “The Hateful Eight” is big. It features big stars set against a vast backdrop of snow and revenge. There are huge themes—revenge, triumph of the righteous and race—and an even bigger blood budget. In some theatres (like the one I saw it in) it’s even being projected in the grand 70mm format. It’s a Valentine to Tarantino fanboys and girls, with Ennio Morricone’s lush score as the cherry on top.
It’s big and daring but also, I’m afraid, bloated, with a pay off not large enough to justify the more than three-hour running time.
Richard’s CP24 reviews about the big movies opening on Christmas Day: Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling in the financial drama “The Big Short,” Quentin Tarantino’s neo-western “The Hateful Eight,” “Joy,” starring Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro and Will Smith in “Concussion.”
Richard and “Canada AM” guest host Melissa Grelo discuss the big movies opening on Christmas Day: Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling in the financial drama “The Big Short,” Quentin Tarantino’s neo-western “The Hateful Eight,” “Joy,” starring Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro and Will Smith in “Concussion.”
Richard’s new Cineplex.com column is now up and running!
“Making love on camera is such hard work,” says actress Julie Christie, “that there is no time for the libido to take over.”
Maybe so, but some good-old-fashioned romance does manage to blossom on movie sets. Just ask Brad Pitt or Goldie Hawn or Ben Affleck. Each of them met their current paramour while making a movie.
Let’s take a look at some of the greatest Hollywood on-set romances… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
Occasionally there is one thing that makes it worth a trip to the movies.
For me “The Art of the Steal” has a few things to recommend it but the thing that would make me reach into my wallet and pay for a second viewing is something that has nothing to do with the twisty-turny plot or the presence of Terence Stamp, one of my favorite actors.
It’s a blink and you’ll miss it moment, but I’d sprung for a ticket just to see Kurt Russell reprise his impersonation of Elvis Presley. Wearing a Vegas era jumpsuit, he mimics one of the King’s famous dance / karate movies he perfected for the 1979 television movie Elvis. It ups the general cool level of the movie and reaffirms my belief that everything is 10% better with Elvis in it.
In this heist flick Crunch and Nicky Calhoun (Russell and Matt Dillon) are brothers and art thieves, who haven’t worked together since Nicky snitched on Crunch and sent him to prison.
Years later they team up to steal The Gospel According to James, one of the world’s oldest and rarest books, but will the job lead to more double-crossing? Or a taste of revenge?
Along for the ride is Crunch’s apprentice (Jay Baruchel) and a variety of law-and-order types, including a former-art-thief-turned-FBI-informant (Terence Stamp) and an FBI fumbler played by “The Daily Show’s” Jason Jones.
The mechanics of the heist aspect don’t entirely add up—what border crossing storage unit doesn’t have closed circuit cameras?—and the twists threaten to overshadow the whole thing but the chemistry of the cast goes a long way toward smoothing over any plot rough spots.
It simply works better as a comedy than a heist film. Dillon and Stamp are in good form, Russell can cut through this material like a hot knife through butter, but it is Baruchel who shines in a supporting role. He provides the film’s funniest moment although it’s one that may make it harder for him to cross the border in future.
“The Art of the Steal” is an entertaining movie that mixes laughs with intrigue, crime with revenge in an offbeat heist flick.
To understand the wild new movie from co-directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez first you have to understand the premise. They have made a good old-fashioned exploitation movie double bill, complete with scratchy film and missing reels. They’ve recreated the grind house experience for an audience that may be too young to remember the days before multi-plexes dotted the landscape and people went to local theatres where movies were two for the price of one.
What is a grind house you ask? You may have been in a grindhouse theatre and not even known it.
If the ushers in the theatre carried a flashlight in one hand and a two by four (known as the “peacekeeper”) in the other, chances are, you were in a grind house.
If they played Santa Claus Conquers the Martians in July, that’s a grind house.
If there were gaps in the story, or if the reels were out of order, you were in a grind house.
Most of those seedy theatres are gone now, but you can relive the experience in the new film Grindhouse, a double feature of two new films aged to look like classic exploitation fare, complete with coming attraction trailers. The only thing missing is the usher with the two by four.
The first film, Planet Terror is Robert Rodriguez’s riff on the zombie genre. Set in a small, dark Texas town on the edge of nowhere the story begins when a toxic bio-chemical weapon that turns God-fearing citizens into flesh-starved zombies is unleashed on the public. The fate of the world rests in the hands of band of vigilantes led by a plucky Go-Go dancer named Cherry (Rose McGowan) and her mysterious companion, and former boyfriend, Wray (Freddy Rodriguez).
Director Rodriguez kicks out the jams, layering one over-the-top exploitation cliché over another. Where else would you see a one legged Go-Go dancer with a machine gun prosthetic who uses stripper moves to avoid getting shot? McGown plays Cherry as the ultimate b-movie babe—beautiful, dangerous and just slightly silly (although you wouldn’t tell her that, she’d likely blow you into a million pieces). With her is Wray, the enigmatic hero, whose back-story is cleverly omitted because of a missing reel. Together they battle creatures that resemble past their expiration date versions of The Toxic Avenger. It’s gooey, ghastly and gross and darkly funny.
Between the first and second features are trailers for make-believe movies. Splat Pack directors Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright contribute funny and outrageous promos for Werewolf Women of the SS and Don’t! respectively. Eli Roth contributes a third twisted trailer that is exactly what you would expect from the warped mind that gave us movies like Hostel and Cabin Fever.
Filling out the bottom of the bill is Quentin Tarantino’s tribute to the killer car movies of the 1970s, Death Proof. Kurt Russell dusts off his badass image, retired after making a string of movies like Escape from LA, to play Stuntman Mike, a psychopath with a 1972 Chevy Nova. The stuntman’s MO is simple; he befriends and stalks women before using his car to commit vehicular murder. When he targets a couple of female stunt drivers, however, he may have bitten off more than he can chew.
Tarantino’s film is the more textured of the two. Whereas Rodriguez’s film takes off like a rocket, Death Proof takes its time. Like its Austin locale, the movie is laid back and just a little quirky. We meet radio DJ Jungle Julia (Sydney Poitier) and her friends who are chillin’ out, getting high and making girl talk. When Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito) agrees to give Stuntman Mike a lap-dance, she inadvertently seals the fate of her and her friends.
From there Mike turns his attention to four gal pals who are working on a nearby movie set. They literally give him a run for his money in one of the most exciting car chases in recent memory. The movie’s languid pace evaporates like water in the hot Texas sun as Tarantino skillfully turns Death Proof into an action packed revenge drama.
Despite some star power—Sin City’s Rosario Dawson is the above-the-title name—it’s a relative new comer who steals the movie. Stuntwoman Zoë Bell, who doubled for Uma Thurman in the Kill Bill movies, plays herself and it is her presence that lends the movie much of its oomph. The realism of her dangerous looking stunts—Tarantino filmed all her dialogue scenes first just in case she was hurt (or worse) during the elaborate car chase scene—kicks the movie up a notch and drew cheers from the audience I saw the movie with.
Planet Terror and Death Proof are both clearly labors of love for the directors. From the insane plots to the faded film stock to the missing reels, they have nailed the look and feel of 70s exploitation flicks. Both directors are smart enough not to take to the mickey out of the movies. The outrageous material is played straight, with the actors and directors taking the story seriously. The result is a certain earnestness in the performances that transcends campiness.
Grindhouse succeeds because it creates an entire atmosphere, whisking the viewer away to a different time and place where ushers carried two-by-fours.
There have been many nautical disaster films—everything from Abandon Ship! to Speed 2: Cruise Control to Titanic—but the granddaddy of them all, the one that started the disaster movie craze of the 1970s was The Poseidon Adventure. It spawned a series of catastrophic calamity movies with names that usually featured an exclamation point, like Earthquake! and earned producer Irwin Allen the title Master of Disaster.
The new version of the film, Poseidon, not only streamlines the title down to the bare essentials, it also cuts the running time from 117 minutes to 98. Also lost is most of the character development. Director Wolfgang Peterson returns to the watery milieu he knows so well, having made Das Boot and The Perfect Storm—this guy has spent more time underwater than David Blaine—but apparently left any well-rounded characters ashore. He dispenses with any sort of character study in the first twenty minutes of the movie, perfunctorily introducing us to the ensemble cast of stock characters before he gets to the main attraction—the ship flip. Once the wave capsizes the ship the movie takes on a video game tone, with a small band of generically stubborn passengers trying to find a way off the sinking ship.
With dialogue that reads something like this, “Wait! I think there is a way out over here! You’ll have to trust me if you want to get out of here alive!” it’s no wonder that the characters disappear, becoming little more than damp counterpoints to the special effects. The Poseidon Adventure starred five Oscar winners, including Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters—the remake can only boast one, Richard Dreyfuss—who chewed the scenery and made the best of the corny dialogue. The new cast, anchored by Josh Lucas and Kurt Russell with supporting actors who seem to have been chosen by who looks best when wet, play it straight, clichés and all. The camp value of the original is lost and with it, some of the fun.
As uninvolved with its characters as Poseidon may be the devastation is masterfully realized. The real star here is the special effects. The giant wave, the topsy-turvy ship and the claustrophobic vertical climb through an air conditioning shaft are worth the price of the popcorn.
Character wise Poseidon is little more than a wet t-shirt contest—I’ve played video games with better characters than we find here—but the special effects do offer some thrills and after watching 98 minutes of underwater action you will be grateful to have dry clothes to wear.
“You show up on set and you look over here and there’s Kurt Russell and there’s Terence Stamp,” says Jay Baruchel of shooting his new film the Art of the Steal, “and you think, ‘I have a pretty cool gig.’”
The heist film sees Kurt Russell and Matt Dillon as Crunch and Nicky Calhoun, brothers and art thieves who haven’t worked together since Nicky snitched on Crunch and sent him to prison. Years later they team up to steal one of the world’s rarest books, but will the job lead to more double-crossing?
Baruchel co-stars in this twisty-turny movie as Crunch’s sidekick and protégé, which meant he got to spend a great deal of time with Russell.
“It’s one of these things where if we didn’t get along at all we would find a way to fake it but what really helped is that we were two Chatty Cathys. I would ask him every conceivable thing. Every John Carpenter story. Stuff about Tango and Cash. Stuff about Tombstone, one of my very favorite movies of all time.
“He was cool to talk about all of it so whenever cut was called Kurt and I would go outside and have a cigarette and talk. We talked about everything. We talked about politics. We talked movies, sports. He’s a Canadian-O-Phile as well, so the man has some real Canadian bone fides. So when it comes time to say action, there’s an energy, a connection, a shorthand because we enjoy one another’s company.
“It can be faked, but it’s way less fun and way more work.”
Working with one of his heroes wasn’t the only reason Baruchel signed on.
“Like any job I take, I look at the opportunity,” he says. “I look at who I’m going to work with, what it’s about and where it’s going to be and would I pay money to see it. This checked every box on my criteria.”
Chief among those yardsticks is a strong Canadian element. The actor is a vocal supporter of the homegrown industry who says, “We need to make more movies here that take place here and we not hide our Canadian-ness.”
The Art of the Steal fits the bill. It was shot in Niagara Falls, a place he calls “a very specific part of the world, equal parts gorgeous and seedy and strange and disarming. The whole thing is a back lot. You put a camera there anywhere and you have production value up your ass.”
It must take some clout to get a movie like “The Hateful Eight” made. Over three hours, with an overture and an intermission, it’s a western featuring an assortment of dastardly people doing dastardly things. It’s the kind of talky, violent film only Quentin Tarantino could conceive of, let alone get financed.
