THE HATEFUL EIGHT Is a Badass and Wild Western From Tarantino

THE HATEFUL EIGHT Review:

- There are few singular storytellers left in film these days, and so there is a unique pleasure in watching a new movie from Quentin Tarantino. Knowing that we're watching a story written, shot, and delivered with all the quirks and artistic flourishes that its creator desires means that a Tarantino movie is a special sort of gift to unwrap. Most movies we dare to impress us. Tarantino movies, we can sit back and breathe in - knowing we're in good hands, and knowing that even if we don't love every aspect of the movie, well, you can be damn sure that it'll be a movie that we won't soon forget. Come to think of it, that's a good way to describe THE HATEFUL EIGHT - a movie - nay, a movie-going experience, that I won't soon forget. Badass, twisted, brutal, darkly hilarious, ostentatious, indulgent, verbose, stubbornly old-school yet undeniably of-the-moment ... THE HATEFUL EIGHT is nothing if not Tarantino at maximum Tarantino-ness. Love it or hate it, it's the exact opposite of most of the endlessly-tested, market-driven synthetic cinema that litters movie screens. For me? Movies like this one are why I love movies.

In many ways, THE HATEFUL EIGHT feels like a full-circle movie for Tarantino. It takes the Western setting of his previous film, Django Unchained - plus many of that movie's themes (race, revenge, frontier justice) - and combines them with the sort of claustrophobic, character-driven, limited-setting feel of his first film, Reservoir Dogs. Tarantino movies are always dialogue-heavy, but this one is all-dialogue. And because it mostly takes place in a single confined location - a ramshackle haberdashery in the Wyoming wilderness - the film, in many respects, has the feel of a stage play. I can see why that might be a turn-off to some - but when the dialogue is this rich, the characters this well-drawn and acted, and the storytelling this entertaining - you can't help but hang on every word and fully lose yourself in this rough-and-tumble black comedy.

The story, at least initially, centers around Kurt Russell's impressively-mustachioed bounty hunter John Ruth, who is transporting a wanted criminal - Jennifer Jason Leigh's Daisy Domergue - to Red Rock, Wyoming to see her hanged and collect the bounty on her head. Ruth - known as "The Hangman," has a policy of always bringing in his quarry alive - letting them die by the law rather than by his own bullet. Unfortunately for him, Domergue is a particularly ornery, feisty, rabid sort of woman - and so he's got to keep her handcuffed to himself for both of their protection. As the two journey through a fierce blizzard on their way to Red Rock, they pick up two additional passengers looking to escape from the deadly cold. The first is Samuel L. Jackson's Union soldier-turned-bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren - known far and wide as having been a friend of President Lincoln who carries in his pocket, always, a prized letter from the assassinated leader. The second is Walton Goggins' Chris Mannix, a former Confederate soldier - son of a Confederate General - who claims to be on his way to Red Rock to be installed as their new Sheriff, following the murder of the previous one. Already, there is tension between the former Union and Confederate soldiers (John Ruth was also on the Union side and sympathetic to the cause of emancipation). But things escalate even further when the group takes refuge from the storm at Minnie's Haberdashery. There, they find the usual proprietors mysteriously missing, and a group of suspect individuals occupying the place who each seems like they may have something to hide. Added to the mix are Bruce Dern as an aged Confederate General, Michael Madsen as an abrasive cowboy, Tim Roth as a talkative British hangman, and Demian Bechir as the immediately-suspect man who claims to be running the haberdashery in its owners' absence.

As you can see, the movie's cast is an all-star lineup of all-time badasses. And as tends to happen in a Tarantino film, every single one of 'em brings their absolute A-game. Let's talk for a second about Kurt Russell. These days, Russell takes roles somewhat selectively, and it's increasingly rare to see him play the sort of larger-than-life badass that the man was born to play. Tarantino himself helped remind everyone the ownage of Russell several years back when he cast him as Mike the Stuntman in Death Proof. But 2015 has been a full-blown Russennaissance (trademark: me), with the man-who-played-Snake-Plissken appearing in not one but two all-time great badass Western roles - first in the future cult classic cannibal Western Bone Tomahawk, and now here in THE HATEFUL EIGHT. Russell is so great here that you both forget he was ever gone and leave desperate for more of him in kickass roles. Suffice it to say, he rules as John Ruth - a gruff and at-times-vicious bounty hunter who nonetheless adheres to a particular code of justice.

Now let's talk about Walton Goggins. Some of you may not be familiar with Goggins, but you should be. For six seasons, he tore the house down as the chief antagonist of TV series Justified, the inimitable Boyd Crowder. Goggins' performance on Justified was so good and so iconic that you couldn't help but root for him to become a huge star following the show's end - or at the least, root for him to get the kind of star-making roles that he got here in THE HATEFUL EIGHT. Because here, finally, Goggins gets a movie role that allows him to go full Goggins - to be every bit the scene-stealing, ass-kicking, endlessly-quotable showstopper he was on Justified. Goggins' Mannix practically steals the movie away from his bigger-name co-stars, and it's because the actor has a knack for charismatic theatricality that is unmatched. As he did with Crowder, Goggins makes Mannix into a character who you're not sure whether to love or hate - but one thing's for sure: you can't wait to see what he does next.

I will also give a specific call-out to Samuel L. Jackson. The dude appears in so many movie roles, oftentimes in not-so-great movies, that it's easy to forget how downright awesome the guy can be when he's at the top of his game. He's most often at the top of his game when paired with Tarantino - and he's *damn sure* at the top of his game in THE HATEFUL EIGHT. Jackson gets the kind of monologues here that only Jackson can deliver, the kind of wrath-of-god stuff where you can practically hear Tarantino giggling with delight as Jackson preaches the good word of QT. In many ways, Jackson's Marquis Warren is a similar character to Jamie Foxx's Django - a man who has seen violence and has now become violence, but a man whose violence is colored by a righteous sense of vindication for a world that did him wrong. All that aside, Samuel L. is quite simply entertaining-as-hell in this movie.

One more specific call-out, and that's to Jennifer Jason Leigh. A journeywoman actress who has done it all, this may well be her finest (and bloodiest) moment. Leigh is a witchy delight as Daisy Domergue - a vile woman who you start to foster a grudging respect for thanks to her ability to take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. Leigh gets all-kinds-of-roughed-up by the men in this movie, and the violence against her can be hard to watch at times. But it's played for dark comedic effect by Tarantino, because in a room full of black-hearted men, Domergue's heart is the blackest of them all. A running joke of the film is how Domergue - who starts the movie with a grotesque black eye, only becomes increasingly grotesque as the movie progresses, to the point where she becomes a bruised, blood-covered, toothless wretch. But what spunk she has in the face of it all. This is a zero-vanity role for Leigh and she absolutely crushes it.

Tim Roth, Demian Bechir, Madsen, Bruce Dern - all excellent. Channing Tatum pops up in a surprise role that's a lot of fun. The cast is just top-notch top to bottom.

Tarantino, for his part, uses a lot of his usual tricks in terms of giving us a slow-burn build-up followed by moments of shocking violence and sudden twists of the narrative knife. The film looks amazing - in 70 MM, there's a richness and vividness that is utterly immersive. In many ways, the haberdashery is its own character - and QT does a brilliant job of familiarizing us with its geography and layout as a way of framing the action of each scene. There are all kinds of secrets in the haberdashery - guns hidden under tables, people hiding in unseen places - and Tarantino takes great relish in littering the place with an assortment of Chekhov's Guns, leaving us in anticipation as to when various other shoes will drop. The entire film carries with it a theme of truth vs. lies - the lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves - and the haberdashery with all its secrets is like a living embodiment of that. QT also does a great job of simply making us feel like we're trapped with these characters in the middle of a deadly blizzard. Whenever the barely-held-together door of the haberdashery swings open, releasing a torrent of snow and wind and cold, I had a visceral reaction to it. "Shut the damn door" I thought, right alongside the characters. The look and feel of the film is only enriched by the original score from the legendary Ennio Morricon, whose mood-setting Western melodies instantly create a feeling of danger and high-adventure. And of course, Tarantino's use of anachronistic yet perfectly-chosen songs inserted into the film is as spot-on as ever.

I used the word indulgent earlier, and I will say that the movie does at times get a little long-winded. In many of QT's best films, the extended diatribes and dialogue tangents are offset by thrilling action sequences and briskly-moving plotlines. Here, as in Death Proof, the action comes in short, self-contained bursts, and so there are very long and uninterrupted stretches of dialogue that can, at times, feel like QT milking character exchanges for all they're worth at the expense of the movie's pacing. In particular, a late-movie chapter that serves as an extended flashback feels like an overlong departure from the main story that could have been cut shorter.

Still, the indulgences are part of the fun of a Tarantino flick. Not just the slow-boiling dialogue, but the chapter divisions and names, the random snippets of coyly-delivered QT-provided narration, the digressions into politics and culture and random banter - all of this is what makes a QT film what it is (there's even an intermission in the 70 MM version!). But all of it adds up to accentuate that feeling that you're in the presence of a storyteller who's taking the utmost delight in the story that he's telling. This isn't a story told by a committee of hack writers or because of a corporate mandate. No, this is a story told by a guy who by-god loves telling stories.

THE HATEFUL EIGHT has its flaws - it's not the lightning-in-a-bottle of a Pulp Fiction of Kill Bill - but man, it's a one-of-a-kind sort of film that I had an absolute blast with. It's packed to the brim with the preeminent badasses of our time, and it's a hard-boiled meditation on truth, violence, justice, race, and revenge delivered with rock n' roll style that puts the "wild" back in Wild West. Bring on film #9.

My Grade: A-

BONE TOMAHAWK Is the Badass Horror-Western You Never Knew You Needed

 BONE TOMAHAWK Review:

- Sometimes, there comes a movie that you never knew you needed, but my god, you can only raise your hands to the movie heavens and thank the lords of film that, somehow, it exists. BONE TOMAHAWK is the badass, Kurt Russell-starring cannibal Western that you didn't know you wanted but now must make an essential part of your 2015 movie-going diet, lest you miss out on a bone-crunching, positively kick-ass, gravitas-infused new cult classic.

What's so great about BONE TOMAHAWK ... well, a lot of things are great about it. But here are two things to start. One is that, if you're like me, and you grew up watching Kurt Russell kick ass in iconic fashion in films like Escape From NY, then holy hell - is it sweet to have The Man back doing what he does best. Even as fellow 80's action stars have continued to saturate our movie screens, Russell has kept largely quiet - emerging only for the occasional throwback role in films like Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, or for small, unworthy-of-an-icon supporting parts as in this summer's Furious 7. Well, here we go, kids. BONE TOMAHAWK has Russell front and center, playing the role a badass Old West sheriff, and sporting a 'stache that could make most grown men cower at the mere sight of it. But all semi-joking aside, Russell is legitimately great in this movie. He plays an affable guy - the kind of sheriff that any town would want - cool and collected in the face of danger, but willing to do anything for the well-being of his citizenry. And if you are the guy to wake the lion, so to speak - watch out. Russell gets some great moments here - some truly iconic lines and some truly memorable scenes of badassery. It's a nice reminder of just how great the dude can be when given a meaty role.

The other big thing about this film is that writer/director S. Craig Zahler doesn't just present it as a grindhouse-esque B-movie. Instead, the first two thirds of the film are essentially a classic Western, in the vein of The Searchers and other such movies. Zahler presents a story that doesn't truly even introduce it's more fantastical elements until late in the game. At first, we've got ourselves a fairly straightforward Western plot - some folks have been kidnapped from the town, and so the Sheriff organizes a search party to go track her down and bring her captors to justice. The searchers include Richard Jenkins as the Sheriff's doddering deputy, Patrick Wilson as an injured cowboy who happens to be the doting husband of one of the women who was taken, and Matthew Fox as a transient intellectual who decides to volunteer for the mission. In any case, much of the film is just classic Western stuff, elevated by this supremely talented cast of leads and the great banter and group dynamic between them. Jenkins in particular is a huge standout - unrecognizable, he absolutely slays as Russell's half-senile right-hand-man. Wilson is also excellent here - bringing the same sort of rugged but unassuming determination he's currently displaying on Fargo to this film. Zahler fills the movie with some stunning Old West panoramic imagery as well. This is a great-looking film.

And that's before the mutant cannibal monsters enter the picture. Without spoiling anything, the horror elements that had been lurking in the background for much of the movie eventually spill over into the foreground, and the tone of the movie shifts somewhat drastically. But it works incredibly well, because the film does such a great job of building up the characters and the stakes prior to the $%&# really hitting the fan. But when it does ... the movie becomes an incredibly entertaining pulp-horror actionfest. Things get brutal and shocking and downright insane. And Russell, Wilson, Fox, and Jenkins each get their big moments to shine. Kudos to Zahler for pulling it off as well as he does. It helps that the creature design for the cannibals is fantastic - they look downright menacing, yet it doesn't feel like *that* much of a stretch for these cave-dwelling creatures to have been lying in wait in some off-the-map corner of the still-uncharted West. 

BONE TOMAHAWK is that rare awesome movie that's a complete original -  I mean, when's the last time there was a horror-western, let alone one that was actually great? My only regret is that I did not see the film theatrically - luckily, though the movie was released only in a select handful of theaters, it came out day-and-date on digital and VOD platforms. Luckily, it can be watched by all with an internet connection. Luckily, movies like this are made at all.

My Grade: A-

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK: The Carpenter Classic Gets An Epic Screening in Hollywood

- Last weekend, I had an amazing movie-going experience. Here in LA, there tends to be so much cool film stuff going on that it's easy to be overwhelmed by it all. That overabundance of riches is all the more apparent this May, when two competing, geek-centric film fests are taking place - Entertainment Weekly's Capetown fest, and The LA Times' HeroComplex event. The caliber of events that both fests are holding this year is pretty off-the-charts, but one in particular jumped out at me. Escape From New York. Kurt Russell Q&A. Oh. Hell. Yeah.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is one of my favorite movies ever. Here's what I remember of discovering it as a kid: I remember reading a videogame review that pointed out a certain game's Escape From NY-style visuals. Hmmm ... what was Escape From NY? I hadn't heard of it. Soon thereafter, I sought out a VHS copy of the movie from my local video rental store. I found one, and I was immediately captivated. The cover art - of an eyepatch-clad hero standing heroically in front of the Statue of Liberty, in some kind of dark, apocalyptic scenario, sent my imagination reeling. Before I even saw the movie, I had a feeling that this ... this was awesome.

And the movie was exactly as awesome as I'd hoped. I quickly learned that the eyepatched hero was Snake Plissken, and that Snake was pretty much the baddest mofo on planet earth. I also paid attention to the name of the director of the film - John Carpenter. Whoever this guy was, I wanted to see more. Over the years, I've become a massive fan of Carpenter and his filmography, and it all traces back to Escape From NY.

Seeing the movie on the big screen, newly-restored, was flat-out awesome. Carpenter's movies have a certain something that makes them feel timeless, despite relatively low budgets and f/x constraints. His movies are all about atmosphere in a way that most modern movies don't concern themselves with. Carpenter is the all-time master at creating cinematic worlds that wholly immerse you. They are dark, there are dangerous and ominous things going on - but there's also a streak of pitch black humor and social satire that runs through his work.

So many of today's big action movies want to be all things to all people - it's rare that they carry with them the unique vision of one person. John Carpenter's movies are nothing if not iconoclastic. His semi-warped personality bleeds into every one of his creations. Sometimes that makes for moments that are cheesy, absurd, or just plain weird - but mostly, Carpenter's films have an auteurism that you rarely see in modern genre films. Even the music ... man, the music! Carpenter scores many of his films, and the results are some of the all-time best and most badass movie scores. Escape From New York's score is so kickass ... I remember literally going back and rewinding that old VHS tape multiple times to "watch" the movie's end credits, just to hear the score in all its glory. Again, it's all about atmosphere. Carpenter did these minimalist synth scores that just bleed badassery. As soon as you hear the synth tones from Escape From New York's iconic theme, you know exactly the kind of movie you're about to see.

That same minimalist attitude colors many of Carpenter's movies. Everything tends to be economical, from the dialogue to the shot selection. It has the effect of making everything feel painterly, iconic, larger than life. And larger than life is exactly what Kurt Russell is in Escape From New York. The movie needs no lame "origin story" for Snake Plissken. No, our antihero arrives fully-formed. We get hints of his backstory ("Snake? Heard you were dead."). But only hints. Carpenter wasn't big on being overly expository. He left things to your imagination. And that lack of detail made Snake all the more badass. He was mysterious, and yet at the end of the day, we knew the most important things about him - like the fact that he was not a man to be messed with. More than that, Snake's nihilistic attitude colors the whole film and its punk, anti-establishment message. When Snake is first recruited to serve on a last ditch mission to save the President - stranded in the island prison of Manhattan - Snake is warned that a failure to save the President could bring about world war. "I don't give a &$#& about your war. Or your President." says Snake. Classic.

Kurt Russell is pitch perfect in this movie - one of the all-time classic and iconic performances in the Badass Hall of Fame. And the movie is bursting at the seams with awesome performances. The legendary Lee Von Cleef as the Warden of Manhattan Island is just so damn good, it hurts. The movie universe sorely, sorely missed him and his unmatched presence. Every interaction between him and Russell is just quietly earth-shaking. At the movie's end, when the Warden makes an offer to Snake to come work for him ("We'd make a hell of a team."), you can't help but imagine the potential for gravitas-infused Russell/Von Cleef team-up in future films. But of course, joining with "the man" wouldn't be in character for Snake. And while some movies would take that sort of sequel-bait and run with it, Carpenter's film gives us the ultimate f-you, middle finger sort of ending that few, if any, films of today would have the guts to go with.

Isaac Hayes is similarly iconic as The Duke of New York ("A-Number-One!"). The music when he is first introduced, pulling up in a lampshade-emblazoned pimpmobile, is so good. The Duke is just a classic villain. Donald Pleasance as the President is also fantastic ... arrogant, slimy - giving credence to the movie's ironic sense of 80's-style attitude, in which the President is viewed as a puppet with one finger on the big red button and one eye in the vanity mirror. Harry Dean Stanton, meanwhile, is also great as the manipulative rival of Snake's, Brain. And of course, the great Ernest Borgnine lends just the right amount of left-of-center pulp-weirdness as genial sidekick Cabbie.

I will say this. Watching the movie on the big screen, for the first time in years, I was struck by Adrian Barbeau's character. She is unapologetic in her alliance with the scheming Brain, even though she was apparently "given" to him by the Duke. But even though Barbeau has a relatively small amount of screentime, she is such a badass. Here in 2013, I've seen a bunch of recent action movies where it's considered a big novelty when a female character kicks ass alongside her male counterparts (Iron Man 3, anyone?). But in Escape From NY, Barbeau mounts a daring last stand against the Duke and his men that Carpenter stages as completely par-for-the-course. Basically, Carpenter takes it for granted that a woman can be just as badass as Snake Plissken if called upon. Why have movies of today seemingly reverted to the point where it's once again a big deal for women to hold their own?

Overall though, watching Escape From NY at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood just left me completely giddy and geeking out. While many movies and videogames have aped the style of Escape From New York over the years ("Doomsday" is basically on giant tribute, as is the recent "Lockout"), action movies that capture Carpenter's dark sense of humor and social satire - or his emphasis on atmosphere and mood - are rare in today's movie marketplace. So many action movies of today are concerned with sensory overload that they don't know how to properly pace themselves, to properly build tension or a sense of dread and foreboding. Few films capture the iconography of a Carpenter film. And few if any action movies have ever been as iconic or as badass as Escape From New York, and even fewer action heroes have been as iconic or as badass as Snake by-god Plissken.

So to then see Snake himself, Kurt Russell, live and in person to do a Q&A with EW's Geoff Boucher - it was a real treat. Russell is nearly as elusive as Snake himself, and he rarely does interviews or publicity of any kind. It's probably kept him from being in the kinds of big, iconic roles that fans want to see him in, to some degree. I mean, I always wonder how in the hell there's not a badass action movie starring Kurt Russell out every year. There was Tarantino's Death Proof, sure. But that was the exception. Still, Russell's relative absence from the limelight made the talk with him that much more compelling. To hear his stories about being a child actor, about working for Walt Disney, about his stint as a pro baseball player - all pretty fascinating. Of course, the best part for me were the stories and anecdotes about Escape From New York and about John Carpenter. Hearing about how Russell created the character of Snake (he tried to talk in a whisper, thinking that Snake wouldn't care if someone heard what he was saying or not), was really, really cool. Now, do I agree with Russell's assessment that he's now too old to play Snake? Hell no! To me, an older and more grizzled Snake would be badass as hell, and I'd love to see one more "Escape" adventure with Carpenter at the helm. But like Russell, I agree that a remake, which has unfortunately been rumored and discussed, would be a questionable idea. Russell is so iconic in the role - no one else could fill those boots.

But Boucher did a great job with the Q&A - I'd call it podcast worthy. It was a lengthy, informative, funny discussion with many great anecdotes from Russell. While it can be easy to be cynical and jaded here in Hollywood, this was the kind of evening that made you remember why you love the movies in the first place. Hearing a legend and a childhood hero talk, to be in that room with fellow film fans, to see Escape From New York on the big screen - it was an epic night indeed.*

*Well, except for one thing. And that one thing was Entertainment Weekly and sponsor TNT's decision to subject the crowd to the FULL season 3 premiere of TNT's Falling Skies prior to getting to see Escape From New York. EW and TNT severely overestimated the crossover appeal of the two properties, and, sorry to say, but the Falling Skies episode was sort of painful to get through - made even worse by the fact that few if any in the audience were actual viewers of the show. Then, they did a full cast Q&A afterwords, and while, sure, it was cool to see the likes of Noah Wylie and Moon Bloodgood in person - WE WERE THERE FOR ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK AND KURT RUSSELL. Not a good way to shoehorn in some other random thing to a crowd that could, for the most part, care less. Lame.