All Things: Directors

The Stately, Explosive, Shocking ‘The Hateful Eight’ Is One Of Quentin Tarantino’s Best Films

http://uproxx.com/movies/2015/12/the-hateful-eight-review/

It’s a strange thing, liking a movie this much when, at the halfway mark — which includes an intermission; related: I kind of like intermissions! — I was that unsure. Even stranger: After watching the second half of The Hateful Eight, I now like the first half just as much as the second. Each half has a very different tone, but the second half perfectly contextualizes what we saw in the first half. (Yes, I suppose we can kind of say that with a lot of movies, but director Quentin Tarantino has a special knack for this.) And even though 90 percent of this film takes place in pretty much one room, Tarantino makes a run for his bloodiest film yet. And, perhaps, even with a three-hour running time, his tightest.
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Can honestly say, I am actually really amped for this...more than Star Wars amped even.
 
jerseydevil said:
You know...after ENJOYING the spoiler free experience with Star Wars, I may start rethinking my reading/viewing habits.
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Yeah, same here. Usually, I just skip to the last paragraph to get a summary of the reviewers thoughts without any plot info. In this particular case, though, they were still talking about the plot at the end for some reason. So I didn't read it and didn't quote anything.
 


Honestly...it's a beautiful movie. Sooooooooooooo recaptures the look that movies had when they were something special...something hand made. Regardless of your enjoyment of the movie or your opinions on QT, thank whatever god you believe in that someone still cares. And yeah, Sam Peckinpah is somewhere, with a drink and a smoke, having a helluva laugh.
 
The Unproduced Script That Could Have Completely Altered The Careers of J.J. Abrams And Quentin Tarantino
http://uproxx.com/movies/2015/12/quentin-tarantino-j-j-abrams-speed-racer/

There was a version of Speed Racer that he did “dig,” however. Back in the 1990s, after he had finished Pulp Fiction, Richard Donner was trying to get a Speed Racer film off the ground. Tarantino read the script and he “really, really liked it. The script was better than the movie they ended up doing. It really did capture the comic book. He cracked it.”

At the time, the screenwriter of that unproduced screenplay was not particularly well-regarded. He had written the Harrison Ford film, Regarding Henry, a very bad Mel Gibson film called Forever Young, and Gone Fishin’, one of Joe Pesci’s last films before he semi-retired from acting.

His name? J.J. Abrams.

Though Tarantino ultimately didn’t bite on the script, it almost got made. Julien Temple (Earth Girls Are Easy) was attached to direct and Johnny Depp was attached to play the lead. It was scrapped due to budget concerns, although Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity, Children of Men) was brought in to direct it with a smaller budget. That version, of course, never made it to the screen, either. Abrams, however, managed to pick himself up and keep going. He’s doing okay these days, having directed a movie that just crossed $1 billion at the box office faster than any other movie, ever.

In an alternate reality, however, there’s an awesome Speed Racer movie written by Abrams, directed by Tarantino, starring Johnny Depp and Peter Weller (as Racer X) that probably still bombed at the box office and derailed the careers of both Abrams and Tarantino, if only briefly.
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EXTREMELY SPOILERY...however, the quote I pasted is not. It eloquently states a truth that I clumsily tried to express to my boy SmytheKing earlier today.


‘The Hateful Eight’ Is A Crude, Brilliant, Gross-Out Western Whodunnit
http://uproxx.com/filmdrunk/hateful-eight-review/

The first thing that becomes clear about The Hateful Eight is that Quentin Tarantino has long since reached the eccentric dad stage of his career. Early on, in the Pulp Fiction/Reservoir Dogs days, he attempted to translate his whims to the audience, to put just enough of himself into something that he thought people already wanted for it to be mutually satisfying.
These days, Tarantino is a known quantity. He doesn’t have to temper any of his impulses. His films are like a time capsule of all the things QT was into when he made them, and you can join the fun if you want, but he’s not going to hold your hand. That means: more blood, more N-bombs, more experimental techniques and obscure references, more wild-eyed character actors. Where in the past a producer might’ve tried smooth his rougher edges, nowadays Tarantino sits in his well-grooved La-Z-Boy and doesn’t have to rise for company. If he says something a little racist from time to time, well, that’s just Quentin being Quentin.

You can see Quentin being Quentin right away in The Hateful Eight, which begins with a title card, a stagecoach graphic that says simply “Overture,” and stays onscreen for a full five minutes while Ennio Morricone’s score plays. Any other director probably would’ve been pressured to cut this down, and even I thought “Okay, we get it,” somewhere around the three-and-a-half-minute mark. But even when I’m feeling like something QT does is a little too long, a little too crass, a little too pulpy, etc., I still enjoy experiencing vicariously his utter freedom from giving a *****. You can never truly separate Tarantino’s sophisticated storytelling from the fact that he’s also kind of a punk, who lives to get a rise out of people.
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