How It Works

I love movies, but I hate most movie reviews. I hate them for two reasons: First, they always begin with a 3-5 paragraph in-depth description of the film. I don't want to know the entire plot, I want to know if it's good! I may say generally what the movie involves but that's it. Second, most movie reviews are unclear. I've read countless reviews that left me with absolutely no indication as to whether or not I should even see the film. Not here. I developed three methods to rate television and movies:

1. Just your average 10 point scale.
10 is obviously the best and 1 is the worst. Although, Something Borrowed might make below a 1 if I ever get around to reviewing it. I consider myself quite harsh, so if you see anything above a 9, it's probably in my top ten of all time.

2. What's it Worth?
I will tell you if I think it's worth paying for and worth the 2 (and ever more increasingly 3) hours of your time. I also make an educated guess as to whether or not you can multitask during the film.

3. The (not-yet) Patented Clairometer
In honor of my college friend Claire, I developed this rating system in order to display how "appropriate" the film is. It is designed to tell you a more detailed rating system. I find this helpful. Sometimes you want to know ahead of time so you're not stuck watching Black Swan in an empty theater with your mom. The range between PG-13 and R is more vast than the plot holes in a Michael Bay movie. I hope to combat this. The scale shows photos and descriptions of a few well-known women in film and television. The rating is the farthest woman to the left of the scale who would approve of the film. For example, June Cleaver would not approve of Tequila Sunrise. The woman who would is probably Mathilda.

THE CLAIROMETER:

Clairometer

Clairometer

conclusion

With this blog, I write as though someone will read it and enjoy what I have to say. I am under no false pretense that I have a wide readership. It is mostly for me and for the one other person who accidentally stumbled across this blog. If that is you, I'm glad you are here. With this blog, I send my thoughts about what I watch on a black box into the abyss of the world wide web. I hope you enjoy reading these thoughts as much as I enjoy writing them.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Out Now Review: The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight (2015)
Written and Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth, Demian Bichir, and James Parks

My Rating: 7.9
Worth: Paying to see it in the theater, 3 hours of your time - but to be honest, you could multitask.
Clairometer: The Bride (of course)

It begins with an overture, during which the screen is red and the music builds. This sets the tone of blood and escalating suspense. Also the mere presence of an overture in a film evidences its departure from the norm. This blog will not discuss 70mm in any way other than this sentence.

I love true filmmakers. There's nothing better than seeing the credit "A film by...." followed by a name that you not only recognize, but appreciate many of their prior films. You know what you're getting into by watching it. That moment we all had a few years ago when we watched the Hugo trailer and saw "A film by Martin Scorsese" is the opposite of what I'm describing. Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino are two of my favorites who are comforting in their predictability. With Quentin, you know you're getting violence, masterful dialogue, violence, plot twists, violence, and blood.

The last two films I've seen with Samuel L. Jackson have been Django and Kingsman. No one is really a protagonist in The Hateful Eight, but it was so nice to see him not as the flaming antagonist. If it were revolutionary for Samuel L. Jackson to play a role with tenacity and eloquence he would be nominated for an Academy Award. But alas, we've come to expect his quotable perfection so the Academy snubbed yet another well-deserving actor (**racial subtext**).

I found interesting the lack of cameo by Mr. Tarantino. Does one count a few sentence narration halfway through the film a cameo? I'm not educated enough (or at all) in the intricacies of film to know the answer. What puzzled me was the presence of characters with only a few lines towards the close of the film. These roles were ripe for yet another display of his acting and accent chops. By the looks of the setting, perhaps his tookus was frozen to his director's chair. On a tangential note, go see this while you can, even though The Hateful Eight does not grace Tarantino's top 5 in my book. He seems quite serious that he only intends to do 10 films. (source: Tarantino himself on the horrifically hosted Hollywood Reporter Roundtable. Seriously, who did Stephen Galloway bribe to hold this position for life? I'd give a kidney to host it.)
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