Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight"

are you basing this on an appreciation of his work in films like striking distance and the jackal or did you just forget he made striking distance and the jackal

https://thedissolve.com/features/forgotbusters/939-a-1996-double-feature-looks-at-the-year-of-john-tr/

These days, Travolta’s personal and professional career, not to mention his religious and sexual lives, emit an enduring trainwreck fascination. But in the aftermath of his career-resurrecting performance in 1994’s Pulp Fiction, and the success of 1995’s Get Shorty, Travolta was so popular, he starred in no fewer than three of the 20 top-grossing films of 1996: Michael, Phenomenon, and Broken Arrow. Yes, there was a time when Travolta’s name in the credits actually encouraged audiences to see a film, when they assumed any film with him in a starring role must be worth seeing. It’s a testament to how popular he was in the mid-1990s that audiences paid good money to see, in Phenomenon and Michael, variations on the same sub-mediocre movie.

those movies are horrible but I don't think he was mailing it in, I mean perhaps a bit but not in the sense that you could tell he'd rather be doing something else. I mean he was napping during the action scenes in die hard 5 iirc

i definitely agree he's found new lows but dude was never exactly a reliable fount of inspiration

remember when the summer of 1994 was supposed to be about the racy, adult, and innovative Color of Night?

that that is the only richard rush movie since The Stunt Man boggles my mind

I remember the ads were all "from acclaimed director richard rush"

Related, I remember when Natural Born Killers opened and Tarantino said he was more excited to see Color of Night opening the same day.

I have a memory of Siskel and Ebert having a ball ripping this one to shreds

here it is. And they review Killing Zoe!

http://siskelandebert.org/video/54AOBG19GSHO/Color-of-Night--Killing-Zoe--Andre-1994

rewatching some moonlighting was really eye-opening cuz you can see how he delivered the "bill murray type" they wanted. hard for me to remember sometimes that die hard (the film where we learned a bill murray type could fire an automatic gun while swinging on a rope) came AFTER The Return of Bruno - he hadn't even had a blockbuster movie before he was showing stunning levels of hubris. pretty much from the beginning bruce let filmmakers know that his attention on set was a privilege, not a right. it's not really that recently stopped trying so much as he can't even be bothered to look self-impressed anymore.

bruce let filmmakers know that his attention on set was a privilege, not a right

this comes through in his nonstop smugness on-screen, I really don't like watching it. He's never been in a great movie imo (he has been in some decent-to-very-good ones, which were usually good in spite of him, incl Moonrise Kingdom)

That's partly why he's effective in Nobody's Fool: the smugness gets punctured (who wouldn't leave Bruce Willis to fuck Paul Newman?).

Willis is a true asset and not it's-all-about-me in, say, Mortal Thoughts, Death Becomes Her, Breakfast of Champions.

he's fine in The Sixth Sense too when we remembered his baldness.

eh I'm not watching that

http://wondergressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/shrug.jpg

It just occurred to me that there were two movies prior to PF that featured both Travolta and Willis.

iirc sidney lumet said brando had a test where he'd give two similar takes to a director early on and if the director didn't notice some key magical difference brando would consider them a rube and not even bother for the rest of the shoot. it would seem like willis might have a similar philosophy but the implication then is that m night shyamalan noticed the difference.

Alfred otm re Nobody's Fool.

yeah i guess i was being a bit hyerbolic. willis isn't always great. i guess i've skipped a lot of his big action movies and seen more of this "character" roles in smaller films, in which he's usually quite charming.

For example Moonlight Kingdom?

He's never been in a great movie imo

Willis? He's been in a few. Die Hard, 12 Monkeys (great acting in both), Sixth Sense, Pulp Fiction. Whenever he does show up in smaller films, it's usually a pleasure. Like Nobody's Fool, or Fast Food Nation, or his cameos in The Player or even Oceans 12.

his cameo in the player is funny but come on

he's about to do Misery on Broadway

And he's in the new one by Barry Levinson, with Bill Murray

Gotta keep busy between Emmett/Furla pictures

There was a profile of him in the NYTimes fall arts preview about Misery and it was clear that the poor reporter was given nothing but glares and curt answers.

Looper!

police unions in NY, LA, Philly call for boycott of "cop-hater" QT (ie, he's appeared at a BLM rally)

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-union-tarantino-boycott-20151028-story.html

between this and his calling digital cinema "HBO in public," all he has to do is quit filmmaking (and lying about John Ford) and i might like him again).

Like and dislike are cheap, Morbs, you know that.

i thought that was life

and dislife

The unedited version of the NY Times profile is better than what was published:

http://breteastonellis.com/unedited-new-york-times-quentin-tarantino-article/

What did he say about Ford

Nothing, but there are just fuller opinions, like this:

Tarantino says this is not necessarily new—marginalized groups attacking movies, of all things—but the problem with “socially conscious” filmmakers is that their work can suffer when they resist genre, which Tarantino prizes, and give into something more earnest and PSA-like. Jonathan Demme, for example, makes the noble AIDS drama about a dying gay lawyer, Philadelphia, after the success of his ghoulish Oscar-winning thriller The Silence of the Lambs, which was—hard to remember—boycotted by gay-rights groups in its depiction of Buffalo Bill, a serial killer who isn’t transsexual but believes himself to be. Tarantino sympathizes with what Demme’s intentions might have been in making Philadelphia after the complaints of The Silence of the Lambs. “Look, it would be a drag if my movie won Best Picture and all these gay people were outside protesting the movie—that would be a big drag,” Tarantino says. “Well, it would probably be a bigger drag for Jodie Foster, but it would be a drag. And they were wrong when it came to The Silence of the Lambs, and part of being an artist and putting out your work is that sometimes people you would like to be on your side don’t get it. But you have to stand your ground and say ‘I wish I were on your side in this issue but I’m not and I think you’re wrong and I think it will be perceived as silliness as years go on.’” Tarantino doesn’t go negative on this—his optimism about the future of movies always surges forward full-force: “This is the best time to push buttons. This is the best time to get out there because now there actually is a genuine platform. And in this world where everybody lives with identity politics, you’re going to piss off a whole lot of people, and now your film has fervor. Now it’s being talked about.”

sorry i meant that as an xpost to morbs

What did he say about Ford

― polyphonic, Tuesday, November 3, 2015 1:27 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.filmcomment.com/article/intolerance-quentin-tarantino-john-ford/

(tarantino bragging ahistorically about his enlightened ally's contempt for john ford would be one thing but bragging about it to henry louis gates is some srsly advanced-level whiteness)

(i did laugh unhappily the other day when he said something about digital projectors being run by "billy who scoops your popcorn". hi.)

funny how the director of revenge fantasies sighs about identity politics and "I wish I were on your side in this issue."

Buffalo Bill, a serial killer who isn’t transsexual but believes himself to be.

is this ellis' own analysis

maybe the stock clueless psychiatrist explains about it after bragging about how rare it is to capture psychopaths alive

this can be quite a fun town if you have the right guide

Whatever ye do don't let's discuss the fuckin movie anyways

deems i love u fyi

Saw a screening last night. Loved this. Great casting all around, as usual per Tarantino films. Super dark thematically, no uncompromised heroes to really root for on this one (it's no Django), lots of mystery. In some ways it's like that basement scene in Basterds stretched out to three hours, extremely slow, very tense build up the entire way. Not everyone's gotta love a locked-room bloody Western/Agatha Christie mash-up, I think - expecting a worse reaction publicly than his last two films.

h8 quentin tarantino. can't wait to see this and hate it.

how come you've seen it Nhex? have there been any reviews yet? i haven't seen any of so.

i like the idea of 'slow Tarantino'!

In some ways it's like that basement scene in Basterds stretched out to three hours, extremely slow, very tense build up the entire way.

sounds like my ideal QT movie, hyped.