![]() ![]() I believe “Pulp Fiction” is still Tarantino’s best work by a wide margin. Tarantino makes sure we see how every single character is put in place so that no one will miss the joke (this is also the main reason why this movie is almost three hours long). Tarantino takes his time telling the story in painstaking detail in his own way, like when the opening credits spend an eternity with a simple shot of a crucifix, or when one of his characters makes the humorous decision to stick several metal poles in the ground, connecting them with ropes as to make sure no one gets lost traveling to the outhouse during the snow storm. Around the 90-minute mark, where most movies are about to end but this one was only halfway through, I stopped and realized how entertaining the film had been even up to that point, considering that the only relevant occurrences so far involved a stagecoach driver reluctantly agreeing to give a ride to a couple of people during a snow storm. The first thing to say about “The Hateful Eight” is that it proves Tarantino still has the ability to entertain with the fewest of elements. ![]() Curiously enough, “The Hateful Eight” also includes Channing Tatum giving a long and very Tarantino-esque monologue, even though he clearly has a long way to go before mastering the art of delivering his dialogue like the rest of them. Jackson and Michael Madsen, all of whom clearly meet those standards. There are also his regulars and semi-regulars, like Tim Roth, Samuel L. There’s also David Carradine, Dennis Christopher and Don Johnson whose names probably mean little to you if you weren’t around during the Ford/Carter/Reagan years. There’s John Travolta, who prior to “ Pulp Fiction," had just about vanished. His only casting criteria seems to be each actor’s ability to recite his very particular brand of dialogue with the necessary joy and conviction. ![]() One of the things I like best about Tarantino’s movies is how little he cares about casting the biggest or most fashionable stars of the period, even though most of them would surely be happy to work with him. An Agatha Christie-type murder mystery will develop, and the tension will build to the point of full eruption, where it always seems to end in just about every one of Tarantino's films. A stagecoach riding in post-Civil War times with a bounty hunter and the prisoner he's transporting for a hanging ( Kurt Russell and Jennifer Jason Leigh, respectively) are forced to pick up two additional passengers on their way to Minnie’s Haberdashery, where they will take shelter from a snow storm with a group of rather unsavory characters. The plot of “ The Hateful Eight” is as simple as anything Tarantino has ever written, including the “Kill Bill” saga whose title pretty much summed up the whole movie. ![]()
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