With a Christmas US opening date just around the corner for Quentin Tarantino's 'The Hateful Eight', expectation and buzz run high. Headlines lately see the 'Pulp Fiction' genius scuffling with Disney over LA's Cinerama Dome, expressing in an interview with Howard Stern a sense of being shafted by Disney in favour of its first 'Star Wars' venture. Because J.J. Abrams' 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' had been given dibs on the Dome, Tarantino's highly anticipated Western cannot be viewed in its full 70mm glory. This is a special blow to the 'Kill Bill' filmmaker since he filmed specifically for a Dome viewing: "I made 'The Hateful Eight' for the Dome ... This is the first time seeing it at the Dome for me too, and it was like I hadn't even seen it before, not like this."
Tensions notwithstanding excitement over 'The Hateful Eight' continues to sizzle.
The story, which revolves around the adventures and misadventures of a bounty hunter and his bounty, delivers a fresh team-up of Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, Channing Tatum, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Roth, Walton Goggins, Bruce Dern and Michael Madsen.
Certainly viewers will be delighted to know that even if Tarantino moves a bit away from his trademark 'Reservoir Dogs' style, 'The Hateful Eight' will yet again be a masterful manipulation of audience loyalties and affections with well-placed spurts of violence.
A special treat is Ennio Morricone's Golden Globe-nomintated return to Westerns 40 years after 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly': "In the case of a Quentin Tarantino movie, I really tried to give 'The Hateful Eight' a unique score, because he's a unique director with his own signature style. I wrote the music for a lot of Westerns, but even though I wrote several Western scores, I tried to give each director a unique kind of music. For 'The Hateful Eight', I wanted it to make something appropriate for the movie and not a Western score."
