The Hateful Eight Review

In the middle of a blizzard, eight men and one female prisoner hole up in a cabin on a mountain to wait for the snowstorm to pass. Bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is transporting prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to Red Rock when he picks up Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and Red Rock’s incoming new sheriff Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). Arriving at Minnie’s Haberdashery, they meet four other men, some of which may or not be working with Daisy to help her escape.

Tarantino clearly doesn't give a flying f**k if you don't like the language in his movies. Most of his characters are pretty nasty bastards, so they're going to talk like bastards. Don't see The Hateful Eight if you aren’t prepared to hear a screenplay full of b***hes and n****rs as every character dispenses with politeness and splashes racist and misogynist abuse up the walls, like Tarantino splashes brains.

Therefore, fans of Tarantino will undoubtedly love this. It's talky, it's chronology gets twisted, it's divided into six titled chapters, has opening credits written in big garish yellow letters and its full of sadistic characters just itching to draw buckets of blood from each other. Respect must go to The Walking Dead's Greg Nicotero for providing the brains and bloodshed.

The Hateful Eight has six great performances, and despite spending most of the film being defiant in the face of frequent beatings, it is Jennifer Jason Leigh who is undoubtedly the standout when she finally gets let off the chain (literally). Samuel L. Jackson gets the best monologues, but Tim Roth and Walter Goggins share the big laughs that Leigh hasn't already walked off with.

The Hateful Eight's ace up its sleeve is not its late-in-the-game Channing Tatum appearance but its post-civil war setting. It's characters are all torn apart by the recent history of America's internal struggle. That's what makes what goes down in Minnie's Haberdashery so strangely topical, even with its period setting. The Hateful Eight are divided by politics, race, gender and who holds the guns and who doesn’t.The cabin is full of resentments and suspicion that still spill onto the streets of America every day.

It’s not just the 70mm widescreen that gives the characters space to develop and get a turn at grandstanding. It’s also the three hour running time. Deliberately paced, wonderfully scored by Ennio Morricone and packed with suspense and surprise, The Hateful Eight is Tarantino both staging a bit of a Reservoir Dogs reunion and therefore back to his roots, and also a showcase for how far he’s come as a filmmaker. See it for its range of colourful characters, even if the script sometimes sounds a little like it's been written by a teenager who’s just discovered some very nasty words.

Before The Hateful Eight: A Quentin Tarantino Retrospective

Selma Review

Starting as civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is being awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, and ending with a small victory on the way to attempting to secure African American equality, Selma examines only a very short period in the life of a legend. King’s non-violent activism has already been established before the film begins and his assassination at the age of 39 is merely a footnote. Selma, as its title suggests, is the story of just one of many struggles in King’s life. When it becomes clear that African Americans are not being allowed to vote in many Southern states (despite this being against the law), King and his colleagues head to Selma, Alabama, a place where ‘whites only’ signs are still visible, and organises a march from Selma to Montgomery to ensure every black person is allowed to vote without being refused or intimidated. 

Hounded by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, hindered by President Johnson, and attacked by outraged white people and Southern law enforcement, King must overcome divisions within his own movement, and outright racism from many locals in order to succeed. 

Selma is not a traditional biopic, in that most of King’s life is left out of the film. Don’t expect to learn much about why King developed his strict code of non-violent protest or what achievements led him to winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Selma focuses in on one moment in his life and is all the better for it. There are hints and mentions of what came before and what will come after, but this is the story of Selma and the people who put their lives at risk to gain the right to vote. Most notably, Selma enacts the night of the death of one activist on the streets of Selma in tragically true detail, where Jimmie Lee Jackson was unarmed and shot by police.

The timing of Selma, and its snub in the Academy Awards  acting categories, couldn’t be more pertinent. This is a film that many might want to ignore. The police brutality, the fear of African Americans (particularly from those in power and law enforcement) and the desire to protest their own treatment all feels ripped from recent headlines. For all King’s sacrifices, victories and righteousness, America still has a lot of work to do in terms of race relations and Selma shines a light on this by looking into its recent past.

The decision to concentrate on this pivotal moment is smart; with King’s life having too much to fit into a single film. It touches on the troubled relationship with his wife and Malcolm X briefly pops up for a single scene, but mostly it deals with King, his colleagues and the ordinary people of Selma. The fantastic Brits in the cast - David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Tom Wilkinson and Tim Roth - stand out in this none more American tale but as with so many true life stories, it is the moments where we see real footage that really hit the hardest.

Despite King's speeches having to be rewritten for the film due to rights issues, Oyelowo captures the essence of the man beautifully. With so much left of King’s life to cover, we can only hope that director Ava DuVernay, writer Paul Webb and star David Oyelowo are given another opportunity to shine a spotlight on this great leader in the future.

 Watch the trailer:

Reviews for other Best Picture Nominees 2015:

American Sniper

Birdman

The Imitation Game

The Theory of Everything

Whiplash

Weekend Screenings: The Lords of Salem, Trance, The Liability

I've got three wonderful screenings lined up this weekend; two for Filmoria and one just for me (though I may end up reviewing it for Filmoria too). Rob Zombie's new horror The Lords of Salem stars his good old wife Sheri Moon Zombie again and looks far more interesting than his other films so far, particularly those last two Halloween remakes. From the trailer below, it looks very atmospheric and almost like it is going for a slightly more mature style than his earlier films. Less all out gore and brutality and more of a focus on a single female character who may or may not be going crazy perhaps? Perhaps it's even fair to say The Lords of Salem looks like Rob Zombie has been studying the likes of Dario Argento and Roman Polanski. Perhaps.



Trance is Danny Boyle's first film since 127 Hours. Danny Boyle is one of my favourite directors for three reasons: Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and 127 Hours. He may have been busy with a theatre version of Frankenstein and the small matter of the London Olympics Opening Ceremony (which I have still yet to see as I was on honeymoon in Costa Rica), but he is back with a great cast, a very interesting and trippy, twisty sounding premise and one of my favourite actors Vincent Cassell. I literally cannot wait to see this film. Though Boyle has had the odd misfire, I think this looks like a good one. My Danny Boyle Retrospective is going up on Filmoria tomorrow so please check it out. I've been going through his entire back catalogue which has mostly been a pleasure.



I'm not sure what to think about this next one. The Liability is a British hit man thriller. It's got a great cast with Tim Roth, Peter Mullan and Jack O'Connell and despite the silly macho voice over in this trailer, looks like quite a bit of fun potentially. I'll watch Tim Roth in anything and Jack O'Connell is bound to be a very big star eventually. He was great in Tower Block and is already set for bigger things with the upcoming 300 prequel.



Any of these films take your fancy?