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The Hateful Eight


The Hateful Eight



A bounty hunter in charge of escorting a criminal to hang is stuck in a motel in the middle of a deadly blizzard. He must wait out the blizzard and everything in the motel is not what it seems.

Quentin Tarantino is a director whose films are equivalent to drugs like cocaine or heroine. Yes, both in terms of the addictive nature and the harm they do to the recipient. But they are excellent pieces of work.Why do you think movies like Stronger or Hostiles or Southpaw or black-mass or out of the furnace or concussion and many other feel good/"important" movies are shut out of the Oscars ? whats the difference between a movie about journalists on lifetime channel and spotlight ? well the number 1 rule about Oscar movies for the most part is nuance and entertainment value of the movies. Movies should never feel like history lessons or preachy. So Tarantino movies check most of the boxes an academy voter would look for in a movie. Entertainment value , Well developed characters, Character driven story line, risky subject matters, casting actors for their talent rather than their star power (for the most part) or identifying obscure actors and pushing them in to stardom or reinvigorating actor's careers.All these are things that the academy loves so much .They love original content that is not based on an IP.But at the same time the movie should not be apologetic for its vision. Something like wolf of wall street was never apologetic for showing the debauchery of the characters. Even at the end they show how white collar criminals are treated in prison and society is always willing to hire them to learn from white collar criminals. Nice little bows at the end of the movie are not welcome. Audience need to feel the punch of the movie. Even Tarantino movies are highly stylized , so his nice little bows are also stylized and has a certain amount of parody to them.

There is room for social commentary to be had when discussing the fans of his movies. After leaving Weinstein company Quentin Tarantino was "wooed" by various studio heads to buy the distribution rights for his movie.So what does that say about his status. Facts tell us that his movies gross between 100 to 500 million dollar. They have huge fan following. You have a 15 yr old girl from France is as excited for his movie as a 20 yr guy from Russia and a 17 yr old guy from India and 18 yr old from Germany. His movies are most likely not going to win best pictures.So whats the appeal ? well the combination of 100-500 million dollar box office + 8-10 Oscar nominations with couple of wins + huge fan following that are passionate and will talk about the movie for years to come is a rare thing to guarantee. With out even shooting a single frame of a movie you can guarantee that any Tarantino movie will have most of these checkboxes covered. Often times you either get a forgettable billion dollar hit or obscure Oscar nominees but rarely do you get movies with such anticipation and meet the anticipation because you want that drug and your body is willing to morph even less potent drug into something you like. You don't have to feed a starving person a world class steak to make him happy. You can just give him an under cooked steak and as long as its steak he will be happy.

So the key word here is "bro-code". Thats a terms which means a lot of things to lot of people.For a loner, its this obscure thing which he lacks and he either learns to vilify that concept or feel incredibly insecure about themselves because they lack it. For a person with an active life and a healthy relationship with fellow humans its this cut throat code which starts with "we against them" - gender wise and every man for himself when stuff hits the fan but till then we back each other up. Why am I saying this ? well, this mainly applies to guys hitting their puberty. This "bro-code" is magnified at their age.Everywhere they see, they see girls vying for the popular guy or guys out macho-ing each other in-front of girls. over course of time by early to mid 20s it will all cool down. But that 10 years "bro-code" is a major part. They start looking for a mating partner but at the same time they realize the need to be tough and be a man. Obviously every person watches movies. So the internal and social changes at this age group will effect the viewing habits. And Tarantino/ Nolan/Dicaprio movies fall into that category. They are not kid movies like Marvel /Disney and they are not adult fair like kings speech. They are attracted to movies which are full of contradictions. Smart movie yet full of expositions and explaining. Realistic but hyper realistic with need for suspension of disbelief. Male ambiguity and brood and anti heroes. Moral dilemma and yet they do the right thing. They are innovative but only as long as they have male lead. Movies like Annihilation has every right to be in the same conversation as Inception. But for some reason since it doesn't have the bells and whistles it doesn't get the same attention.The crazy part of it all is that this group are some of the most regular movie goers ever. If you can tap into the psyche of these guys at this age..you have essential got them for another 2 decades. As long as you don't disappoint them and give them a reason to come to theaters as opposed to watching it at home, you have their money. 15-20 age group of people are desperately looking for an idol . Most of the times they want an Idol that is so far up their reach and so successful. And Nolan/Tarantino/Dicaprio is their answer. They don't want realistic idols who failed a couple of times and eventually succeeded by learning from their failures.They want consistent masterpieces from the get go. And the sad part of it all is that most of these fanboys end up having failures and eventual success or very minimal success in life. The ones who actual go on to achieve the same heights as their idols are not obsessed with their idols. Their idols are their case studies and not their god.So a guy who watched DiCaprio movie in theater for 40 yrs straight in the movies has a higher probability of being an average Joe than a exceptional genius. May be they need much more practical Idols ?

I will let you ruminate on that thought. But getting back to this movie , its a great movie with "who done it" style of plot. But the punches don't land. The mystery of it doesn't work. One of the segment in quite unnecessary except to show how professional criminals stage a criminal act.We have seen that in tons of thriller/crime films.It almost felt like Tarantino is much more impressed with his own dialogue than audience. I think the phrase is "full of himself". Performances are decent but the leads Kurt Russell , Jennifer Jason Leigh and Walton goggins are good. Samuel l Jackson is the same guy he is in every movie but with very good dialogue. I think I started realizing Tarantino is so full of himself during Django Unchained when there is this dialogue " I am curious what makes you so curious". That to me is very basic dialogue that I have heard a million times but for some reason Tarantino couldn't pick it up. This movie has few such lines. There are lot of bad guys and boy do they do socially reprehensible stuff and the kind of stuff that movie buffs from France , Germany , Russia , Italy and India fall head over heals for because of a combination of American dream and English not being their first language, that makes them feel the dialogues are much more resonant and awesome than they are.BTW I do think he was rightfully not nominated for Oscar for screenwriting.Give it a go and the best time is in December snow.