Films You Have Watched This Week: With a Vengeance

[QualityChimp]

I saw The Hateful Eight last night and really enjoyed it. Just the standard version as there are no 70mm showings near me.

Soundtrack was ace. Love the intro theme with the hi-hat and the brooding bass.
It was more of a whodunit than I realised and I loved watching the story unfold. It was like a foul-mouthed Agatha Christie story, such as The Mousetrap, which features a group of people trapped in a house as a blizzard sweeps in and on e of them is a murderer...

Weirdly enough, I got a bit of a "The Thing" vibe: Morricone score; Kurt Russell; blizzard-trapped outpost and the bit where a character treks to the outhouse really reminded me of when they go and speak to Blair.
Ha, I just websearched it and QT says it was a major influence!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/hateful-eight/john-carpenter-the-thing-quentin-tarantino/

“The Thing is the one movie that is the most influential movie on this movie per se,” Tarantino told Christopher Nolan during a recent Q&A). “It’s the only movie that I showed the cast. I even showed it to Kurt Russell. He loved watching it with the cast: ‘That’s mine baby, that’s what I did.’ And actually Reservoir Dogs was very much influenced by The Thing so it goes a long way…”

At over 3 hours, it was quite long. It didn't feel that long, but even the comfy seats were uncomfortable by the end!

Fave character has to be Samuel L. Jackson's. I love it when he first enters the cabin and, like some detective, he surveys the room and takes it all in. Great stuff.

[Baseley09]

Hateful Eight here also. The soundtrack was excellent, felt so long though i was near retirement age by the end. Not overly thrilling but a decent yarn for me. Deffo getting those Thing vibes, but i'd much rather watch that.

[QualityChimp]

The Hateful Eight won "Best Original Score" at the 2016 Golden Globes, so it seems a lot of people rated it, [MENTION=2725]Baseley09[/MENTION]!

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6836477/ennio-morricone-best-original-score-golden-globes

Apparently, for this score, Morricone implemented some unused cues from The Thing for this because he had some scheduling conflicts and was unable to score the whole soundtrack.
Talking with fellow director Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins) at a DGA-hosted event, Tarantino explains what Morricone told him:
’I wrote a whole orchestra score [for ‘The Thing’], and I wrote a whole synthesizer score, because I knew that was what [John Carpenter] was used to, and I gave him everything, and the only thing he used in the entire movie was the synthesizer main title [track].’ So basically, if you stay away from the synthesizer main title, all that music that’s on the soundtrack album has never been used in a movie ever. So, he goes, ‘What I can do, is I’ll write the theme…and with the other ‘Thing’ pieces of music, now you have your original score that’s never been used in a movie before.’

[Dogg Thang]

Didn't The Martian win best comedy? Is it a comedy?

[Darwock]

I hope so. it works better as comedy than as SF.

[PaTaito]

Didn't The Martian win best comedy? Is it a comedy?

There are a few smiley parts far from being a comedy though. Brilliant film.

[QualityChimp]

I should probably admit I watched You Again on the telly the other night. Well, I thought the missus would like it, so I recorded it and watched it with her the day after, but it's still not very manly of me.

To be fair, there's a great cast. It stars Kristen Bell who, as a teenager, is bullied by head cheerleader Odette Yustman (well fit!).
Fast forward and she's a successful publicist heading back for her brother's wedding only to find out he's marrying... dun dun duuuun, the cheerleader bully from school!

Her family are cooing over their future daughter-in-law, but Kristen doesn't buy the whole Mother Teresa act and sets about trying to prove a leopard doesn't change its spots. Kristen's mother (Jamie-Lee Curtis) is very placid about the whole thing until Odette's aunt (Sigourney Weaver) turns up to help plan the wedding, who, naturally, was her high school nemesis and everybody is trying to out do each other.

Total pap and if Odette had just apologised the film would be 14 minutes long, but it's interesting to see the two veteran actresses effortlessly dominating the screen. Plus The Rock is in it for 64 seconds.

It was very easy viewing and something I could watch with the missus, so 3 out of 7.

[PaTaito]

It was very easy viewing and something I could watch with the missus, so 3 out of 7.

[QualityChimp]

Hehe, yeah!

It was almost as good as "The Dark Night".

[Neon Ignition]

The Hateful Eight
To be honest I enjoyed it, it's got some great moments in it. It's a much shorter film stretched far too long, probably the biggest issue with it. Not that bothered about missing the 70mm release though, to be honest it's shot in a pretty contemporary way so the film image alone wouldn't recreate the style he went for anyway. Enjoyed it more than Django at least.

[QualityChimp]

I think I'd prefer a snappier cinema edit too and a longer one for the 70mm and home release option later.
Most people think it could do with being a bit shorter. I had to pay extra on my car parking because it was longer than the allotted free time! You owe me ?1.50, QT!

Also, I think the 70mm woul;d serve something like The Revenant better with it's sweeping landscapes rather than a cramped horse carriage.

[usman]

The Revenant

Was seen in a very poor old cinema with exceedingly poor seats. The 3 hour runtime killed my back. Also had a friend with who kept checking his phone and messaging which was both annoying, and also made me feel bad for suggesting the film and seeing he was clearly bored.

Wish I'd seen it in a nicer cinema with good seats. I think I was in too much discomfort - from both the seats and my bored companion - to appreciate it.

The Hateful Eight
To be honest I enjoyed it, it's got some great moments in it. It's a much shorter film stretched far too long, probably the biggest issue with it. Not that bothered about missing the 70mm release though, to be honest it's shot in a pretty contemporary way so the film image alone wouldn't recreate the style he went for anyway. Enjoyed it more than Django at least.

It was long but I thought in a nice, took-its-time, comfortable satisfying way.

I certainly don't want to see the death of 3-hour films as a good runtime for films that deserve it .

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I saw 'Macbeth' last night with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard.

It was good but I have to give it a 4/10 for unintelligible dialogue to anyone who isn't familiar with the entire play.

I last read Macbeth at 17, don't remember a bit of it save for the bloody hands and the Weird Sisters. This movie badly needed subtitles but in sacrificing them for purists or whatever, has doomed this film.

Coriolanus also used the original script, but it was at least spoken clearly and intelligible.

Shame on extremist Shakespeare purists, they and Amazon Studios doomed this film with a lack of subs and muttered dialogue.

[Baseley09]

Sounds a shame about Macbeth, really want to see that but didn't get on well with the dialogue in Coriolanus at all.

[usman]

I suppose the home release will have subs, but that's moot for me. The cinema experience was pretty much ruined and that's the experience I go for.

I have to say don't bother unless you have Macbeth memorised or know it inside out.

[Neon Ignition]

Rocky IV
Was feeling it more this time out. That sodding robot though...
Still too 80's glam etc to compete with the originals for my taste but I think I enjoyed it a small bit more than the third film. So far: R1-R2>R4>R3