[Inspector Abberline]

The Hateful Eight (2015)

It has to be said im not that big a fan of Mr Tarantino,I kind of fell out of love with his work somewhere around Kill Bill and Death Proof,and I just do not think I can watch Pulp Fiction one more time,same goes for Reservoir Dogs,but every now and again he does something that will peek my interest,Jackie Brown is still one my favourite of his films.In fact I kind of like him more when he his wallowing in the genre gene pool,Blaxploitation and Western movie's being my favourite,so I was particularly interested when I found out he was making The Hateful Eight.Let's be honest you would not want to play Movie Trivial Pursuit with this guy,whether you call it paying homage or ripping off,he certainly knows his movies. From the off set H8 is wonderfully filmed,the snowbound scenery and the mountains surrounding Minnie's Haberdashery look suburb,I never saw the film at the cinema,so can not comment on how the 70mm film looked on the big screen,but I have to say the Blu Ray looks top notch.What i found really interesting and worked extremely well was the Ennio Morricone score and especially the pieces used from his previous score for John carpenters The Thing (1982) and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977),of course he does have a habit of poaching music from previous Morricone scores,but never has it worked to greater effect than on this film.Of course no Tarantino film is without its quirky odd ball music,and this time it does not get any weirder than having The White Stripes song Apple Blossom and Now You're All Alone by David Hess,and lest we forget the chocolate soul full voice of Roy Orbison on There Won't Be Many Coming Home. My criticism of Tarantino's work is that there seems to be a check list of things that he must have in his films,The N word seems to be something he loves using,whether its to boast his black audience credentials or just to shock his chin scratching white middle class audience.A lot of swearing,and I mean lot of swearing.maybe I'm getting old. A cast of very familiar faces,some old,some new and some with a bullet between there eyes.The cast is amazing by anybody's standard but i have to say the stand out performance for me is Walter Goggins as Chris Mannix but with a cast this good it is a close call.At three hours long,it gives Sergio Leone a run for his money in the bloody long film stakes,but I have to say I loved every minute of it.