So last night I saw Hateful Eight in 70mm.
This is a Quentin Tarantino film. If you like QT films, you'll like this one. If you hate QT films, you'll hate this one. What if you don't know which kind of person you are?
It's a Western so there's none of the pop-culture geekiness that you see in a lot of his other films (like Pulp Fiction)
It's also a mystery. In fact, it's rather a lot like Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. A group of strangers are trapped in a snowstorm. No one is who they seem. People wind up dead. But with a lot less cosy English charm and a lot more swears and gore. QT telegraphs his violence pretty well so if you're at all squeamish (like me) it's pretty easy to know when to avert your eyes.
Overall, I thought it was a pretty good movie. Except for maybe one small bit, the overall plot held together fairly well and made sense. One scene in the movie is completely gratuitous but I don't watch QT films for the sparse necessity. It's not the most comfortable movie to watch for a lot of reasons, but it is genuinely compelling in a way a lot of shock movies never are.
How was the 70mm? Expansive. I think that digital films produce a sharper picture and IMAX might be able to deliver the scope, but it was an extremely well-shot picture that tries to take full advantage of its jumbo screen size. Still, it was clear just how long it's been since I've seen an actual film at the movie theater.
So yeah, Hateful Eight, worth your consideration.
I still can't decide if Domergue was feminist or not. I think QT has such difficulty with women (as opposed to every other Hollywood male director :/ ). But Jennifer Jason Leigh was amazing, so that elevates what was already a really good movie.
ReplyDeleteRachel Mello Film has a bit of a grainy texture that you really notice after years of high-def digital pictures. It's not bad or anything, there's just a texture to film.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, film is the only way to get a true black. In digital, "black" is actually a very dark blue. There's one more thing that film can do that digital can't but it's eluding me right now.
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