A bounty hunter (Kurt Russell) travels Wyoming mountain territory by stage chained to a valuable and deadly quarry (Jennifer Jason Leigh) he treats as a virtual punching bag. Along the way to Red Rocks where his target awaits hanging, he hesitantly picks up a fellow head hunter (Samuel L. Jackson) and an ex-Confederate (Walton Goggins) and a blizzard forces the group to hole up for the night at a remote outpost where one or all of its visitors (Tim Roth, Bruce Dern, Michael Madsen, Demian Bechir) may be in on an ambush. After spending a career addressing high expectations and criticism simply by crafting excellent, particular, stylish, violent, and outlandish films, Quentin Tarantino finally hits a major stumbling block with The Hateful Eight, completely playing into the critics’ hands with a self-important pretentious, trashy, violent for violence’s sake, stupid, and uninspired, schlocked out quasi-Western that feels like a gross imitation of his own work (this would have been a good one for Eli Roth to direct). The cast, which has some strong points in support (particularly Goggins and Dern), is marred by an utterly lost Russell playing a lead, Jennifer Jason Leigh as a seriously confused character, and Jackson is employed again to do the same old tired thing he usually does in these movies which is to yell and intimidate. The Hateful Eight is a major disappointment that sees Tarantino losing control (if you listen closely you can actually hear him drooling over the script and reciting the words) and seems like something made in the wake of Reservoir Dogs, instead of progressing into the great filmmaker that he is.

0 stars out of ****

A Jewish woman (Melanie Laurent) escapes slaughter at the hands of a ruthless SS colonel (Christoph Waltz) and both of their fates will intertwine with that of the Basterds, a ruthless band of Jewish American brothers led by a bloodthirsty lieutenant (Brad Pitt) who specializes in taking Nazi scalps. Inglourious Basterds is inspired, intelligent, intense, entertaining, and sometimes off-putting and self-indulgent revisionist World War II fare from Quentin Tarantino, with an over-the-top ending that thwarts at least some of the great work that preceded it. Waltz steals the show in his brilliant, multilingual star making performance, Pitt is entirely effective in an amusing comic turn, and Laurent is quite good in a challenging role.

*** 1/2 out of ****

After butchering her wedding party and leaving her inexplicably clinging to life, The Bride (Uma Thurman) seeks revenge on the colorful and treacherous members (Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, and Michael Madsen) of her former hit squad led by the wily and enigmatic title sage (David Carradine). Quentin Tarantino's passion project, written with his leading lady then severed and distributed in two parts after the initial insane notion of showing it as a five hour roadshow, retains a lot of the fun it provided when first viewed, for me during a less discriminating time. Although much of this is egregiously over-the-top (the infamous Crazy 88 massacre all but takes you out of the film) and some scenes worked as self-contained bits but not within the context of the movie (the animated origin story of Liu's character for one), the movie soars when you let go and let it take over. So many scenes are remarkable (Liu's exit and the trailer park brouhaha are both knockouts), Carradine is unforgettable, and I liked how the picture slowed down a bit for its concluding halve. Thurman, while occasionally irksome, is most impressive while alternating between kicking ass and generating sympathy for her character.

An aging flight attendant (Pam Grier) working for a low rent airline and running money for a lethal arms dealer (Samuel L. Jackson) is arrested by two ATF agents (Michael Keaton and Michael Bowen) for carrying a large sum of money and a small amount of cocaine. Thus commences a complicated and deadly game of double and triple crosses also involving a bail bondsman (Robert Forster), a beach bunny (Bridget Fonda), and a lackadaisical layabout ex-con (Robert De Niro). Working from Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch, Quentin Tarantino's follow-up to Pulp Fiction is done just about as good as you can do a small crime film. It features the expected violence and heightened dialogue on top of a complex plot structure and features dynamic performances from Grier and Forster, and a menacing one from Jackson. Of all his films, Jackie Brown is the only one that Tarantino developed from a book and I wonder if this isn't a preferable method. Working from someone else's story provides a welcomed restraint that still allows him to incorporate his own flourishes without resorting to out of hand, kill everything that moves culminations that have tarnished his recent films. Jackie Brown proves that going out on a whimper can be just as effective, if not more so.

SPOILERS

A German born gun for hire (Christoph Waltz), posturing as a travelling dentist, happens upon a slave transport in a wooded southern nightscape just a few years before the Civil War.  Seeking a guide to the plantation residence of his latest targets, he contracts the services of Django (Jamie Foxx), after dispatching the hostile slavers and freeing their chattel. Together, following the completion of their primary task and acting out of sympathy towards his recent acquaintance's tumults (and animosity towards the institution of slavery in general), the bounty hunter spends a winter training his friend in the ways of his craft, and seeks to free his imprisoned wife (Kerry Washington), held by a genial yet malevolent plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). "Django Unchained" is another postcard to film from Quentin Tarantino (perhaps a farewell to it), a tribute to Leone and the Spaghetti Western, and another rollicking, intelligent, revisionist splatterfest that will again leave you feeling bowled over and needing a few days to recover. It features four supreme performances: another great, finely tuned one from Waltz, an over-the-top, very fun performance from Leo, Samuel L. Jackson playing his treacherous, long serving house slave, and a very tricky, wonderfully acted, and somewhat thankless (due to the flash on display around him) role for Foxx. I wish Tarantino would have pulled the rug out, as it appeared he was going to do and which would have given a truer sense of the kinds of horrors endured under the system. Instead he opts for the more conventional kill everything in sight finale he's used so often before, which nonetheless achieves a showstopping effect that leaves a pit in your stomach which, as mentioned earlier, lingers for some time.

Birth of a Nation. Citizen Kane. Star Wars.

To that list of films that revolutionized the movies I would also add Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino's masterwork from 1994. As the first three films were not so much unique as influential, they changed how movies were made. Pulp Fiction brought independent films to the forefront and inspired countless retreads with its witty, existential, and massive dialogue combined with harsh violence and the tweeking of the plot structure. Aside from what it did for the movies, it is a great movie within itself and one that is just plain fun to watch and contains probably the best performances from John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Ving Rhames, and Bruce Willis. The brilliance of the plotting is in making it episodic, so the film actually feels like three short films and therefore the length doesn't become off-putting. Though I haven't seen it in awhile, I was surprised how much of the dialogue and plotting I remembered, and then I thought that it must be because of how carefully constructed the film is by Tarantino. Every shot, every set, every word, and every actor's mannerism is carefully thought through and presented and the result is a film that did no less than shake the world.

****