The Hateful Eight

In Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 movie, eight travelers with joyfully massive personalities sit out a blizzard together at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach rest stop in post-Civil War Wyoming. The group includes two bounty hunters (Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell), a prisoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a sheriff (Walton Goggins), an English hangman (Tim Roth), a cowboy (Michael Madsen), an ex-Confederate general (Bruce Dern) and Bob the Mexican (Demián Bichir). The performances are strong all around – it’s all a dialogue driven, theatrical enjoyment – but it’s Goggins, as the racist goon Chirs Mannix, who is the highlight.

The basic story is John Ruth (Russell) is transporting Daisy Domergue (Leigh), a criminal with a $10,000 bounty with her, to the beams in the town of Red Rock. He has a hunch over one or more of the strange characters at the cabin of either being in cahoots with Daisy and wanting to free her or wanting to steal her and claim the reward themselves. Louis Lalire said in his review, “What follows is classic Tarantino: slow-burning, tense dialogue in a claustrophobic setting, intermittently diffused by humor—until it isn’t and explodes in a hail of bullets.”

“The Hateful Eight” is called “The Eighth Film From Quentin Tarantino,” and it looks to work under the thought its audience already knows the director’s elements. What makes the first half of the film so suspenseful is the inevitability of the second, where blood – lots of blood – will be seen. Lalire said, “It plays out as a murder mystery for a violent act we’ve yet to witness. The audience gets its kicks from trying to guess which of the suspicious stagecoach passengers will instigate Tarantino’s patented style of bloodshed—and how, and when.”

Sadly, the “when” proves paralyzing to the film’s final act. Once the violent eventually shows itself, it unleashes all the high tension long before the film’s end. Tarantino plays out too soon yet thinks the audience will remain entertained. Lalire mentioned, “We’re left with a gory but dawdling final act further hindered by an expository, unnecessarily violent flashback that spends far too much time revealing what we already suspect. Tarantino always seems to mistake body counts for provocative payoffs.”

You think if he’ll ever really trick the audience and stop showing bloodshed altogether. Eight films in Tarantino remains unwilling to disrupt his own style in that manner. He once again displays his expertise for creating strong suspense and combining it with humor, but the only way “The Hateful Eight” could have really amazed is if no one ended up shooting a bullet.

This is another movie that I ended up seeing on Netflix, but it was split up into a four-part miniseries. I don’t know if that was any different from the theatrical version, but I still enjoyed the movie. If anyone is a Tarantino fan, they should see this movie. You will like how everything plays out and it is definitely worth seeing. If it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t be surprised. Still, check it out because you will love it.

Now we have concluded “Western Month.” I hope all of you enjoyed it and stay tuned next month to see what I will review next.

Django Unchained

For those who grew up around the times of those independent Westerns of the 70s, or at least have seen them on video, you understand the type of movie experience writer/director Quentin Tarantino is referencing with the 2012’s “Django Unchained.” As with everything Tarantino does, there’s a type of film history/commentary, as if someone is sitting next to you saying, “Remember this movie? Remember this moment in this movie? Wouldn’t it have been cool if this could’ve happened? And then that happened because of this? And then those led to this other thing?” Abbie Bernstein said in her review, “That’s a big part of Tarantino’s aesthetic, and if you remember the movies he’s referencing here – which look to be everything from Sergio Leone’s canon to some infamous exploitation flicks – you can speculate on the jumping-off points. However, you don’t need to know anything about earlier works in the genre to appreciate the part-parody, part quite-serious epic that Tarantino has wrought here.”

A title shares that it’s two years before the U.S. Civil War. A line of chained black men are being forced along by two white slave traders. A white German man, played by Christoph Waltz, driving a dentist’s wagon crosses their path, introducing himself as King Schultz and wanting to know if any of the slaves worked on a plantation where the Brittle brothers were managers. One of the slaves, Django, played by Jamie Foxx, steps forward. Shortly afterwards, the slave traders are killed, their prisoners are unchained and Django and King have agreed on a deal.

He finds out that King is a very sharp bounty hunter, who is desperate to identify his next mine (that is the Brittle brothers) and in the long run, also open to having a right-hand man. Django, now being free, wants to find his wife Broomhilda, played by Kerry Washington, who was taken form him and sold to another plantation after they tried to escape together. King believes Django’s story, comparing it to the Siegfried and Brunhilde Germanic legend, and promises to help. The journey takes the men to Candyland, the plantation owned by the especially evil slave owner Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Bernstein noted, “In broad strokes, things work out about the way we’d expect, with righteous rage, blood fountaining up into the air at regular intervals and tons of terrific signature Tarantino dialogue. (Trust him to come up with a whole riff on a drawback to being a Klansman that nobody has mentioned before.)”

The filmmaker also brings in a lot of historically accurate shocks of slavery – there’s no “Gone with the Wind” reference here. These scenes are meant to be uncomfortable to watch, so much so that the psychological hurt of witnessing the evil motivates a main action in the latter half of the movie. They are very powerful. How well one credits “Django Unchained” largely depends on how well a person can take in the fast changes in tone, from smart talk to energetic action to serious violence and back, countless times. There are also a lot of racial slurs, one mainly, in the dialogue. Bernstein said, “Granted, a lot of the characters are overseers, but some of it registers as overkill.”

The actors, including Don Johnson, Walton Goggins, Ato Essendoh, James Remar, Dennis Christopher, Michael Parks, and so many other famous actors, all appear to be enjoying themselves, with the exception of Foxx. Bernstein noted, “Granted, Django has plenty of reason to be intent and unhappy, but while he’s impressive and in fact acts like a ‘70s indie Western hero, he doesn’t seem as fully connected with his costars as he could be – excepting leading lady Washington, with whom convincing sparks are struck.”

Tarantino clearly sees what he had in Waltz back in “Inglorious Scoundrels” (I’m not saying the other word, this blog is swear free) (we all saw why, including the Academy) and has here written him in another role that displays his talents. Bernstein said, “This time, Waltz gets to use all that urbane charm, shrewd observation and modest manner concealing lethal skills in the service of a good-guy character, to such an extent that the movie deflates a little when he’s absent.”

DiCaprio is crafty, polite, self-assured and every piece the villain that a story of this kind asks for. DiCaprio plays Candie with the calm confidence of a man who is sure he’s got everything right. Samuel L. Jackson, almost unrecognizable with white hair and bushy eyebrows, is really good, disappearing into the character of Candie’s very loyal valet.

The musical score is eclectic, which makes sense that there are choices from Foxx and famous Western composer Ennio Morricone. Bernstein noted that “when the Jim Croce folk/pop ballad “I Got a Name” accompanies a traveling montage, it’s clear that not only is Tarantino referencing the ‘70s (the style of the film and the titles emphasize this), but he’s reveling in everything about the era, including its filmic anachronisms.”

“Django Unchained” goes off on so many tangents. A lot of them are entertaining, but a few are just strange (some of them is a sequence with Tarantino as an Australian). Unlike his other films, like “Pulp Fiction” or even “Inglorious Scoundrels,” “Django Unchained” doesn’t have a string of connected plot threads – by the end, there’s a feel that the movie could have been fixed a little and not lost any of the elements that make it work.

Bernstein ended her review by saying, “Still, if you are a Tarantino fan, a ‘70s Western fan, a fan of any or all of the actors involved or even just want a bloody, rousing, disturbing, crazy time at the movies, DJANGO UNCHAINED is here to provide it all.”

This is a highly engaging Tarantino Western. I recently saw this a few months back and I really enjoyed it. If you love Tarantino, then this is one that shouldn’t be overlooked. I would have reviewed this back when I did “Tarantino Month,” but I saved it for now, and hopefully people are happy now. I really enjoyed this and thought it was great, so check it out.

Look out next week to see the other Tarantino Western that I will review in the finale of “Western Month.”

Brokeback Mountain

Ennis tells Jack about something he saw as a boy. “There were two old guys shacked up together. They were the joke of the town, even though they were pretty tough old birds.” One day they were found beaten to death. Ennis says, “My dad, he made sure me and my brother saw it. For all I know, he did it.”

This childhood memory is always there, in the traumatized area, in Ang Lee’s 2005 “Brokeback Mountain.” When he was taught by his father to hate homosexuals, Ennis was taught to hate his own self. Years after he first makes love with Jack on a Wyoming mountain, after his marriage has failed, after his world has crushed to a mobile home, the laundromat, the TV, he still feels the same pain: “Why don’t you let me be? It’s because of you, Jack, that I’m like this – nothing and nobody.”

But it’s not because of Jack. It’s because Ennis and Jack love each other and can find no way to deal with that. “Brokeback Mountain” has been described as “a gay cowboy movie,” which is a cruel explanation. It is the story of a time and place where two men are forced to deny the only large love either one will ever feel. Roger Ebert said in his review, “Their tragedy is universal. It could be about two women, or lovers from different religious or ethnic groups -- any "forbidden" love.”

The movie smartly never goes away from looking at the larger picture, or deliver the “message.” It is specifically the story of these men, this love. It stays upfront. That’s how Jack and Ennis see it. “You know I ain’t queer,” Ennis tells Jack after their first night together. “Me, neither,” says Jack.

Their story begins in Wyoming in 1963, when Ennis (the late Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) are about 19-years-old and get a job tending sheep on a mountain. Ennis is a laconic boy that he can barely even say what he wants. Ebert described, “He learned to be guarded and fearful long before he knew what he feared. Jack, who has done some rodeo riding, is a little more outgoing.” After some days have gone by on the mountain and drinking whiskey, they suddenly and almost aggressively make love.

“This is a one-shot thing we got going on here,” Ennis says the next day. Jack agrees, but it’s not. When the summer is over, they part dryly: “I guess I’ll see ya around, huh?” Their boss, played by Randy Quaid, tells Jack he doesn’t want him back next summer: “You guys sure found a way to make the time pass up there. You weren’t getting paid to let the dogs guard the sheep while you stemmed the rose.”

After a few years have passed, both men get married. Ebert said, “Then Jack goes to visit Ennis in Wyoming, and the undiminished urgency of their passion stuns them. Their lives settle down into a routine, punctuated less often than Jack would like by "fishing trips."” Ennis’ wife, who has seen them kissing, says nothing about it for a long time. But she notices there are never any fish.

The movie is based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx. The screenplay is by Larry McMurty and Diana Ossana. Ebert admitted, “This summer I read McMurtry's Lonesome Dove trilogy, and as I saw the movie I was reminded of Gus and Woodrow, the two cowboys who spend a lifetime together.” They aren’t gay. One of them is a womanizer and other spends his whole life regretting the loss of the one woman he loved. Ebert said, “They're straight, but just as crippled by a society that tells them how a man must behave and what he must feel.”

“Brokeback Mountain” could tell the story and not really be a great movie. It could be a melodrama. It could be a “gay cowboy movie,” but the filmmakers have focused so closely and with such feeling on Jack and Ennis that the movie is as observant as work by Bergman. Ebert said, “Strange but true: The more specific a film is, the more universal, because the more it understands individual characters, the more it applies to everyone. I can imagine someone weeping at this film, identifying with it, because he always wanted to stay in the Marines, or be an artist or a cabinetmaker.”

Jack is able to accept a little more willingly that he is obviously gay. In frustration and desperation, he goes to Mexico one night and finds a male prostitute. Ebert is right when he said, “Prostitution is a calling with many hazards, sadness and tragedy, but it accepts human nature. It knows what some people need, and perhaps that is why every society has found a way to accommodate it.” Jack thinks he and Ennis might someday buy themselves a ranch and settle down. Ennis who remembers what he saw as a boy: “This thing gets hold of us at the wrong time and wrong place and we’re dead.” Ebert then asks, “Well, wasn't Matthew Shepard murdered in Wyoming in 1998? And Teena Brandon in Nebraska in 1993? Haven't brothers killed their sisters in the Muslim world to defend "family honor"?”

There are gentle and shaded visuals of Ennis’ wife Alma (Michelle Williams) and Jack’s wife Lureen (Anne Hathaway), who are important characters, also seen as victims. Williams has a powerful scene where she finally calls Ennis on his “fishing trips,” but she takes a long time to call, because nothing in her background prepares her for what she has found out about her husband. Ebert said, “In their own way, programs like "Jerry Springer" provide a service by focusing on people, however pathetic, who are prepared to defend what they feel. In 1963 there was nothing like that on TV.” In 2005, the situation has not completely changed. One of the Oscar campaign ads for “Brokeback Mountain” shows Ledger and Williams together, although the movie’s posters are completely honest.

Ang Lee is a director whose films are set in many nations and many times. What they have in common is an innate sympathy for the characters. Born in Taiwan, he makes movies about Americans, British, Chinese, straights, gays. His sci-fi movie “Hulk” was about a misunderstood outsider. Here Lee respects the entire arc of his story, right down to the lonely conclusion.

A final scene that is a visit by Ennis to Jack’s parents is crushing in what is said, and not said, about their life. A look around Jack’s childhood bedroom says what he overcame to make room for his feelings. What we cannot be sure is this: In the flashback, are we witnessing what really happened, or how Ennis sees it in his imagination? Ennis, whose father “made sure me and my brother saw it.”

I remember reading the short story for an “Ethics in Literature” class in college and saw a short scene from this movie. I knew about this movie since high school, but when I saw it a few years back, I didn’t know how emotional the movie was. After seeing it once, I don’t think I can ever see this again because of how sad it can get. Still, I seriously think that everyone should see this movie to know what I mean. Just a forewarning: this is a highly emotional movie and if you cry, I won’t be surprised.

Look out next week when I look at an action-packed western in “Western Month.”

Maverick

Westerns were really made a comeback in the 90s with “Maverick,” released in 1994. Roger Ebert said in his review, “After years in which no Westerns at all were produced in America, we began to get a few tentative, serious looks at the genre; movies like "Silverado," "Dances with Wolves, "Posse," "Unforgiven" and "Tombstone."” Then came “Maverick,” the first lighthearted, comedy family Western we had in a while, and one of the nice things about it was, it didn’t feel it was necessary to defend its creation. It acted like it was the most natural thing for it to be a Western.

The film was adapted by the 1950s TV series starring James Garner, who played a happy gambler who liked to charm and con people than shoot them, however he was able to handle a gun when that looked like he had no other choice. Garner is casted in the film version, playing a marshal named Zane Cooper, and Bret Maverick is played by Mel Gibson.

Ebert noted, “It is a tribute to Gibson, I think, that he can play scenes side by side with the man who originated the character, and produce much the same effect, as a smiling card shark who hopes to win money by playing poker and not get shot in the process.” With the sideburns and their easy smiles, the two men looked like they were related. Their co-star is Jodie Foster, playing a beautiful poker player named Annabelle Bransford. Ebert mentioned, “I imagine there were few professional poker players in the old west, and fewer still who looked like Foster, but "Maverick" is clearly not striving for grim realism.”

As the movie starts, Maverick is desperately trying to win another $5,000 to finance his entry in a series of poker, to be held in St. Louis. This is difficult because he finds himself in games with players like Angel (Alfried Molina), who likes to shoot people who win money from him, Chief Joseph (Graham Greene), a Native American with a future in public relations, and the Commodore (James Coburn), who has been conning people longer, and better, than Maverick can imagine.

Ebert noted, “The screenplay is by William Goldman, who wrote "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" for Paul Newman and Robert Redford, but its spirit owes more to the next Newman and Redford collaboration, "The Sting." As one deception follows another, we catch on that nothing is as it seems, that the plot will unpeel layers like an onion, that revelations are made only to be unmasked.” This is enjoyable, but at 129 minutes the movie might be a little too long.

One of the enjoyments of the film is watching the actors used by director Richard Donner to be in the background. There are uncredited celebrity cameos by actors of his previous movies, including Danny Glover and Margot Kidder. Fans of Westerns will also like the appearance of such famous Western actors like Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor and Bert Remsen.

One difference between “Maverick” and a vintage Western comedy is that the stunts and some of the gunfights are done more richly. Ebert admitted, “There's a runaway stagecoach scene, with Gibson being dragged behind the coach and then pulling his way up to the front and controlling the team, that's as well done as anything I've seen in that line. And a fastdraw competition with a cocky young gunfighter generates the kind of suspense similar scenes had in "Tombstone."” Is there an audience for the movie? Do people remember “Maverick” on TV well enough to care about the movie? Who knows?

The movie doesn’t require you to have ever seen an episode of “Maverick” to enjoy this story. However, there’s a twist at the end you’ll like more if you were a fan of the show.

I will admit that I have never heard or seen “Maverick” on TV, since I think it was before my time. However, you don’t need to watch the show in order to understand or like the movie. Check it out if you’re a fan of Westerns and comedies because I think you will enjoy this film a lot. You will find it very funny that you will laugh a lot while watching. I know I did.

Look out next week when I look at an emotional Western that I don’t think I can watch after one time in “Westerns Month.”

Tombstone

If you remember a few years back I reviewed famous Westerns starring John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, I thought that I would review other famous Westerns for this month. Let’s start the month off with one of my favorite Westerns, “Tombstone,” released in 1993.

Stories of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and the gunfight at the O.K. Corral have been stories told on television and theaters since they were invented. Peter Canavese said in his review, “In keeping with the Old West from whence the stories came, Hollywood has always worked overtime stretching and kneading fresh mythologies using plenty of dough and grains of truth.” For those who may know, out of every Wyatt Earp movie, “Tombstone” is the one that has so many fans, with many Western history specialists declare that it comes the closest out of every adaptation.

Strangely enough, “Tombstone’s” closest rival for historical accuracy was “Wyatt Earp,” released only seven months after “Tombstone.” Canavese noted, “The two films constituted a classic case of the "race for the screen." Kevin Costner had been planning on starring as Earp in the film to be made from a screenplay by Kevin Jarre (Glory). When Costner clashed with Jarre, he cut the screenwriter loose and teamed with Lawrence Kasdan to develop Wyatt Earp. Meanwhile, Jarre's script found its way to Kurt Russell and Buena Vista, who eagerly determined to beat the Costner version into theaters.”

Adding to the Hollywood story around “Tombstone” is its strange directorial source. Kevin Jarre was to direct this, but the studio did not allow him because of the script fights and a lack of confidence. Canavese noted, “According to Russell, he secretly arranged for credited director George P. Cosmatos to "ghost direct" the film according to the star's express instructions (including a daily shot list). Russell has said that his one-time co-star Sylvester Stallone recommended Cosmatos, as he had allegedly "ghost directed" Rambo: First Blood Part II for the actually in-charge Stallone.”

Despite the film’s many troubles in pre-production and production, the end product holds up well. Obviously, there are many historical inaccuracies in the script, mainly in the fusion of time, but stepping back, “Tombstone” does a pretty good job of telling the time where the Earp brothers went to Tombstone, Arizona looking to succeed financially but ending up in trouble with so many criminals. Along with old friend Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer), Wyatt (Kurt Russell), Virgil (Sam Elliott) and Morgan Earp (Bill Paxton) find themselves – apparently protecting Virgil’s newly made weapons ban – in a gunfight with a lot of guns at the O.K. Corral.

The movie doesn’t end there, but continues to showcase the end results of that day, and the eventual results of every character involved. Canavese said, “Tombstone benefited from the renewed interest in Westerns following the previous year's Oscar-winning Clint Eastwood picture Unforgiven, but in hindsight, it also seems like a precursor to HBO's Deadwood series in its ambition and sprawling cast of characters. Future Deadwood star Powers Boothe commands the screen as "Curly Bill" Brocius, portrayed as the lightning-rod leader of a de facto gang referred to as "The Cowboys."”

Among the villains are Michael Biehn (playing Johnny Ringo), Stephen Lang, Thomas Haden Church, and Billy Bob Thornton. Also casted are Charlton Heston, Jon Tenny, Jason Priestley, Terry O’Quinn, Billy Zane, Michael Rooker, and Harry Carey, Jr. (Robert Mitchum gives narration since he had drop out of filming). Even though Dana Wheeler-Nicholson and Joanna Pacula, the real love interest is Dana Delany as the married Earp’s only girlfriend Josephine Marchus. Canavese noted, “Though Delany is, as always, a likeable presence, she cuts an anachronistic figure here, her scenes with Wyatt being among the film's least convincing.”

In the end, “Tombstone” tells pretty much everything you want from a Western, and despite it’s not always highly clever, it is rarely anything less than everything. Canavese ended his review by saying, “The film's cult has largely sprung up around the depiction of Doc Holliday, which—though sentimentalized and painted in broad dramatic flourishes—gives Kilmer what's easily one of his juiciest screen roles. Kilmer's laconic take on the TB-ridden Holliday turned the non sequitur "I'm your huckleberry" into a strangely enduring catch phrase for the genre.”

You should not have been reading this review if you hadn’t seen “Tombstone.” If you love Westerns and want to see a good take on Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, see this one because it is a must. Check it out and have a great time watching because, I promise, even for people who aren’t fans of Westerns, they will love this movie. It just has to be seen to be believed because this is a real powerful movie and you will get into this from beginning to end. With all the gunfights, the look of the film, when the team works in line, everything.

Look out next week when I look at a film that is a television adaptation in “Western movie.”