When the cats away the mice will play? Something like that. This week's two part podcast marks the very first without your host (none of you needed to hear me whine about The Hateful Eight again! -- plus I was sick the day of the recording). So let's see what Nick, Katey and Joe think of it in this sure to be exciting conversation; I only have a vague notion of what they each thought of it so can't wait to listen with all of you!
24 minutes 00:01 Introductions & Teasings 02:00 Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight: moviegoing crowds, racial & gender controveries, Agatha Christie mysteries 19:00 Reader Question: Three comedy performances that went wildly underappreciated this past year. Nick, Katey and Joe each pick a favorite.
Part 2 will be up shortly
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes.
/Film the first footage from Disney's Moana Playbill Rapper Daveed Diggs on getting his shot on Broadway's smash hit Hamilton expanding the world. (I hope to one day see this show. C'mon lottery gods!) Gizmodo an exo suit from Edge of Tomorrow constructed from junk! MNPP pic of the day Matthias Schoenaerts in A Bigger Splash
Comics Alliance apparently director James Gunn says Captain America: Civil War is awesome and this has excited the internet for some reason. Next time someone OUTSIDE of Marvel's employ enthuses about one of their movies early, get back to us? The Envelope thinks that Mad Max Fury Road and Carol will lead Oscar nominations (with 9 each). I dare not hope that this is true because that's just so much fabulousness in one Oscar year. /Film claims that the breakout character of Star Wars is TR-8R -- this shows how well we've been following Star Wars stanning because who knew? Cinema Blend Joss Whedon talks about why he's done with Marvel Reverse Shot a deeply insightful look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens - it's possible that f I've linked to this before but even so, it's a must read. Towleroad Matt Bomer covers Men's Fitness credits Channing Tatum for his current peak physique
Hateful Tangents Interview talks to Demian Bichir about his first gig with Tarantino. Bichir gave the second best performance in it if you ask me because he realized in the absence of being given a real character to play, play a Real Character. Slate the Movie Club is in session and it's hilarious and thoughtful as always. They argue over whether The Hateful Right is "ineffably evil", share the joys of Spy and Carol, and observe tricky critical duties as with Tangerine and The Danish Girl. Bonus points for the "f*** this thing" cat gif. Cinematic Corner on her issues with the heroism of rapists and murderers in The Hateful Eight.
I'm trying to let hate for Hateful Eight go, I really am. But it's like an exorcism. It takes time and I guess I've still got some pea soup to vomit up. I've made no secret that I personally despise this movie -- but I have been reading reviews with kind of a morbid fascination because of how much people try to say it's still somehow a good movie after lining up their lengthy issues with it. I'm not the only one who has noticed this.
It is not a good movie. In fact it's kind of a betrayal of Tarantino by Tarantino because it's him fucking up things he used to do better than anyone. There is zero depth to the characterizations beyond the most simplistic "What a character!" outline, the gore (such as exploding heads) adds nothing other than wank-bank material for sadists, the dialogue is severely lacking in his usual cleverness, and worst of all Tarantino displays none of his usual skill at that constant electric hum of "shit is about to go down!" that powers all of his best films. The only tension in this particular movie is wondering when the shit will finally go down so that it will end. If you think of all of his best films the tension is alive in every scene. The scenes repeatedly feel dangerous as if anything might happen. And something nearly always does. Here we basically have any of those individual scenes only they're now 3 hours long and the tension just goes out of it completely because who cares?
In short, stop justifying this work people; It's okay to think a movie is terrible when it is! Most great auteurs have a dud (or five) somewhere in their filmography. If we try to convince ourselves that every thing a single person makes is masterful, we are denying our own critical faculties and it also makes our love for their true masterpieces highly suspect. For instance here are a five filmmakers I regularly cite when people ask me for "all time favorites": Haynes, Almodovar, Cameron, Minnelli, Hitchcock. All of them have made a film or films that were not that great or that I could not personally connect to. That does not lessen their genius for me. That just means they're human and it helps me to appreciate their masterworks more because I know the love is true and not me trying to argue myself into fandom.
Try this at home. Realize that The Hateful Eight is a shit movie and go back to loving any of his much better films. And cry with me when The Hateful Eight takes Oscar nominations from far more deserving players in ten days time.
She did this in order to kill off a paparazzi's shot at making a ton of money off of creeping on her at the beach. Smart girl. We don't follow celebrity pregnancies so have no idea when she's due but it looks like soon... CONGRATS TO ANNIE & HUSBAND.
List-Mania Top Tens: Variety (Guy Lodge), The Telegraph (Robbie Collins); Slate (Dana Stevens); Pop Culture Crazy (Kacey Bange) Lists Lists Lists: Gothamist (Best Celebrity Subway Sightings); Pajiba (Seriously F*** That Guy - a retrospective of rage); Pajiba (5 Most Intriguing new Netflix Series. They don't mention Daredevil because it's about new series but season 2 kicks off in March, fwiw); Forbes releases their "30 Under 30" List which includes both of The Force Awakens new stars, natch, as well as all three Straight Outta Compton leads.
First Oscar Commercial of the New Year Chris Rock kinda sorta prophesies those annual nasty post-show reviews you read every year.
As you may have heard The Hateful Eight expanded a smidge early today into nearly 2000 theaters after the success of its roadshow weekend. So here are 8 links about the movie because we're feeling masochistic...
VarietyThe Hateful Eight is leading current movies in spending the most for TV ads Deadline an interview with Hateful Eight's costume designer Courtney Hoffman. (Everyone knows I hate the movie but I actually liked her work in it a lot!) Awards Daily Sasha struggles to suss out what Tarantino is doing with Daisy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in The Hateful Eight and tries to make sense of the many journalist opinions on whether its an inherently "misogynist" work. I'd love to defend Tarantino on this front personally but I have to face facts. He hasn't written a good female character since Inglorious Basterds. He's lost that particular skill. But I don't think he's misogynist so much as betraying his ultimate misanthropy with his ugliest most masturbatory movie.
Escape From Minnie's Haberdashery (for more hospital climes) Gothamist Russell Crowe throwing tantrums again -- this time about hoverboards Guardian I'm eager to hear what our resident Australian Glenn thinks of their choices for best Aussie films of the year Gawker "the year in Gay" Empire first look at Michael Fassbender in Assassin's Creed Vanity Fair picks the best new TV characters of the year from series including Daredevil, Empire, UNReal, Fresh Off the Boat and more Antagony & Ecstasy Tim's razor sharp review of 45 Years is a must-read but then so is his... Antagony & Ecstasy ...review of Carol. Basically he continues to be one of the web's most underappreciated frequently inspired film critics.
Meanwhile on Jakku... Variety Carrie Fisher on her body shamers imgur "how BB-8 works" NPR Nigerians are getting excited about Star Wars... in large part thanks to John Boyega i09 going to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens a second time? i09 has a list of 23 things to watch out for LA Times talks to the designers of Mad Max, Star Wars, and Mockingjay sequels on their dives into genre work LA Times and here's a dissenting voice on the cultural phenomenon if you're not feeling the love Reverse Shot has an amazingly insightful lengthy review of The Force Awakens that grapples with the film only speaking its own Star Wars language and impatiently exploiting old adventures to venture out on new ones.
Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe are "Nice Guys" - Movies are make believe!
2016? We're so not ready to go there. It's not really our practice at TFE to look ahead to the following year before the Oscars wrap (the true end to the film year) but I have bookmarked this article "61 Original Movie We're Dying to See in 2016" because it's cute on the rare occasion that people realize that non-sequels exist. The Guardian has no such anti-sequel slant in their "75 films we're excited about" and they go full in for any movie that drives traffic so say hello to the superhero films even the ones that are daring us to agonize over how bad they might be like the scowl-a-thon of Batman v Superman.
Alexa here, back from a long vacation and ready to jump into winter film season and, despite reviews, buy my tickets for a 70mm Roadshow showing of The Hateful Eight. Keeping my expectations low worked toward my enjoyment of The Force Awakens so I'm hoping the same (and a healthy pre-show dose of alcohol) will help me enjoy the mayhem, however rote. I have enjoyed these creative artistic homages to Tarantino's latest. Perhaps they will prove superior to the film?
Jennifer Lawrence's Joy starpower couldn't match the double-teaming bankability from Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg for the comedy Daddy's Home but she's still got nothing to worry about as Hollywood's current most popular actress pulling in 17.5 million in Joy's opening weekend despite middling reviews, a glut of new wide releases, and two hot button limited bows, all hoping for those same Christmas dollars.
Meanwhile every movie in theaters is trying to stay visible under the galactic-sized shadows of The Force Awakens which has already topped half a billion in the US box office in record time and should leapfrog Jurassic World's once unthinkable $652 domestic gross pretty soon at this rate. We'll also know fairly soon if the Star Wars saga's sheer cultural size affects the Oscar race. The question is not fully restricted to whether it will be nominated for this or that or a wholla lotta that like the '77 starter-kit, but whether it will drown out conversations about the newer or the more struggling Oscar campaigns and we end up with less movement in the Oscar race from where we were in say, October, because people are thinking of little else than Star Wars right now.
BOX OFFICE WIDE (Christmas Weekend) 01 Star Wars: The Force Awakens$153.5 (cum. $544.5)Review, parody fun Emo Kyle Ren 02 Daddy's Home$38.8 *new* 03 Joy$17.5 *new* 04 Sisters $13.8(cum $37.1) Review 05 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip $12.7(cum. $39.3) 06 Concussion$11 *new* Review 07 The Big Short $10.5 (cum. $16) Review & SAG Ensemble 08 Point Break $10.2 *new* 09 The Hunger Games Finale $5.3 (cum. $264.6) Hunger Games & Oscar 10 Creed$4.6 (cum. $96.3)Review
Christmas proved to be a death wish for many awards hopefuls since behemoths like STAR WARS and talking points like HATEFUL EIGHT & THE REVENANT sucked all the oxygen out of the room for other films
Saturday, January 9, 2016 at 8:48PM 
24 minutes 
