La-La Land's latest release is a 3-disc set of music from the 1970s TV incarnation of WONDER WOMAN, with the memorable theme song by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel, and episode scores by Fox, Johnny Harris, Artie Kane, Richard LaSalle, Angela Morley, Robert Prince, and Robert O. Ragland. Charles Fox will appear in person this Sunday at Creature Features in Burbank to sign copies of the CD and discuss his music in a Q&A.
Intrada plans to release one new CD next week.
This last Tuesday, May 9th, Jerry Goldsmith received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I don't know what else to say besides "about f****** time."
CDS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
The Circle - Danny Elfman - Sony [CD-R]
La Domenica Specialmente - Ennio Morricone - GDM
Sentenza Di Morte - Gianni Ferrio - Digitmovies
The Untouchables - Joel Goldsmith - Dragon's Domain
When Women Lost Their Tails - Bruno Nicolai - Digitmovies
Wonder Woman - Charles Fox, Johnny Harris, Artie Kane, Richard LaSalle, Angela Morley, Robert Prince, Robert O. Ragland - La-La Land
IN THEATERS TODAY
Burden - Andrew Bird, Roger Goula
Dead Awake - Mark Vanocur
Folk Hero & Funny Guy - Adam Ezra
Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story - David Lebolt
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword - Daniel Pemberton - Score CD due May 19 on WaterTower
Like Crazy - Carlo Virzi
Lowriders - Bryan Senti
Paris Can Wait - Laura Karpman
Sacred - Edward Bilous
Snatched - Theodore Shapiro, Chris Bacon
The Wall - no original score
Whisky Galore! - Patrick Doyle
A Woman’s Life - Olivier Baumont
COMING SOON
May 19
Colossal - Bear McCreary - Lakeshore
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword - Daniel Pemberton - WaterTower
Raw - Jim Williams - Republic of Music (import)
May 26
Alien: Covenant - Jed Kurzel - Milan
Broadchurch: The Final Chapter - Olafur Arnalds - Mercury
For Honor - Danny Bensi, Saunder Jurriaans - Sumthing Else
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - Geoff Zanelli - Disney
Prevenge - Toydrum - Invada (import)
June 2
Free Fire - Geoff Barrow, Ben Salibury - Lakeshore
I Sette Gladiatori - Marcello Giombini - Digitmovies
The Lovers - Mandy Hoffman - Milan
Max & Me - Mark McKenzie - Sony (import)
My Cousin Rachel - Rael Jones - Sony
Polizziotto Sprint - Stelvio Cipriani - Digitmovies
Wonder Woman - Rupert Gregson-Williams - WaterTower
June 9
The Promise - Gabriel Yared - Lakeshore
Rabbit & Rogue (ballet score) - Danny Elfman - Sony
June 30
Dawn of War III - Paul Leonard-Morgan - Sumthing Else
The Handmaid's Tale - Adam Taylor - Lakeshore
It Comes at Night - Brian McOmber - Milan
July 7
A Ghost Story - Daniel Hart - Milan
August 4
Wind River - Nick Cave, Warren Ellis - Lakeshore
Date Unknown
A Esmorga - Zeltia Montes - Caldera
Jane & Payne - Andres Goldstein, Daniel Tarrab - Quartet
La Conquete/Comme Un Chef - Nicola Piovani - Music Box
Monster from Green Hell - Albert Glasser - Kritzerland
Ode to Billy Joe - Michel Legrand - Kritzerland
Plan de Fuga - Pascal Gaigne - Quartet
Richard the Stork - Eric Neveux - Quartet
Scott of the Antarctic (re-recording) - Ralph Vaughn Williams - Dutton
Thriller (re-recording) - Jerry Goldsmith - Tadlow
THIS WEEK IN FILM MUSIC HISTORY
May 12 - Gordon Jenkins born (1910)
May 12 - Burt Bacharach born (1928)
May 12 - Klaus Doldinger born (1936)
May 12 - Niki Reiser born (1958)
May 12 - Steven M. Stern born (1967)
May 12 - Ernest Gold begins recording his unused score for Used Cars (1980)
May 12 - Humphrey Searle died (1982)
May 13 - David Broekman born (1902)
May 13 - Isaak Shvarts born (1923)
May 13 - John Lunn born (1955)
May 13 - Craig Safan begins recording his unused score for Wolfen (1981)
May 13 - Recording sessions begin on Basil Poledouris’ score for RoboCop (1987)
May 13 - Alan Silvestri begins recording his score to Predator (1987)
May 13 - Leon Klatzkin died (1992)
May 13 - Robert Drasnin died (2015)
May 14 - Charles Gross born (1934)
May 14 - J.S. Zamecnik born (1872)
May 14 - Kenneth V. Jones born (1924)
May 14 - Tristram Cary born (1925)
May 14 - Frank Churchill died (1942)
May 14 - David Byrne born (1952)
May 14 - Miklos Rozsa begins recording his score for Tip on a Dead Jockey (1957)
May 14 - Alex North begins recording his score for Hot Spell (1957)
May 14 - John Williams wins the Emmy for his Jane Eyre score, and Pete Rugolo wins for the Bold Ones episode “In Defense of Ellen McKay” (1972)
May 14 - Michael Kamen begins recording his score for Adventures in Babysitting (1987)
May 14 - Michael Kamen begins recording his score for Die Hard 2 (1990)
May 14 - Dennis McCarthy records his score for the Enterprise episode “The Expanse” (2003)
May 15 - Bert Shefter born (1902)
May 15 - John Lanchbery born (1923)
May 15 - Freddie Perren born (1943)
May 15 - Brian Eno born (1948)
May 15 - Mike Oldfield born (1953)
May 15 - Andrey Sigle born (1954)
May 15 - David Munrow died (1976)
May 15 - Jerry Goldsmith wins his third Emmy, for Babe; Alex North wins his only Emmy, for Rich Man, Poor Man (1976)
May 15 - Billy Goldenberg records his score for the Amazing Stories episode "Secret Cinema" (1985)
May 15 - John Green died (1989)
May 15 - Dennis McCarthy records his score for the Enterprise episode “Shockwave, Part 1” (2002)
May 15 - Marius Constant died (2004)
May 15 - Alexander Courage died (2008)
May 16 - Jonathan Richman born (1951)
May 16 - Elmer Bernstein begins recording his score to Hawaii (1966)
May 16 - Jerry Goldsmith begins recording his score for The Shadow (1994)
May 16 - Recording sessions begin for David Arnold’s score for Shaft (2000)
May 17 - Taj Mahal born (1942)
May 17 - Joanna Bruzdowicz born (1943)
May 17 - Heitor Villa-Lobos died (1959)
May 17 - Trent Reznor born (1965)
May 17 - Ron Grainer begins recording his score for The Omega Man (1971)
May 17 - Joshua Homme born (1973)
May 17 - Hugo Friedhofer died (1981)
May 17 - Ikuma Dan died (2001)
May 17 - Cy Feuer died (2006)
May 18 - Meredith Willson born (1902)
May 18 - Rick Wakeman born (1949)
May 18 - Mark Mothersbaugh born (1950)
May 18 - Jacques Morelenbaum born (1954)
May 18 - Reinhold Heil born (1954)
May 18 - James Horner begins recording his score for Testament (1983)
May 18 - Kevin Gilbert died (1996)
May 18 - Albert Sendrey died (2003)
DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC?
"If there’s one element of 'The Hateful Eight' that merits the lavishness of the production, it’s Ennio Morricone’s score -- the extravagant Western has always been one of this legendary composer’s many wheelhouses, and he’s given free rein to craft another grandly exuberant and haunting soundtrack."
Alonso Duralde, The Wrap
"This is Tarantino’s Big Western, and he hews closely to Western conventions, even down to a (magnificent) Ennio Morricone score."
Will Leitch, New Republic
"While genre fans will dig Tarantino’s nods to whiteout spaghetti Westerns like 'The Great Silence' (a connection goosed by Ennio Morricone’s sublime red-sauce score), others will be left wondering if that’s all there is. In this case, the answer, sadly, is yes."
Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly
"Shot on 65mm film using the super-rare Ultra Panavision lenses (seek out the 70mm projection if you can for the full experience), with an intermission and a stunning score by the great Ennio Morricone, it also boasts grizzled veterans of the western genre Kurt Russell and Bruce Dern. But this being QT, there’s gratuitous violence (as much inspired by the Russell-starring sci-fi 'The Thing' as anything else) and a prolific spattering of profanities, including a liberal application of the n-word. There’s also a smartly crafted script, with a switchback structure almost as ingenious as his Oscar-winning 'Pulp Fiction.'"
James Mottram, The List
"The movie, billed in the opening credits as 'The 8th Film by Quentin Tarantino,' is a beastly brew: a blend of Agatha Christie and Sergio Leone, spiked with postmodernist poison. We get an Ennio Morricone score -- sadly, no match for 'Once Upon a Time in the West,' where his musical glories washed in sadness against Leone’s array of sombre deeds."
Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
"Aesthetically, 'The Hateful Eight' is top-notch. Shot by longtime Tarantino collaborator Robert Richardson, the lensing of the movie in 'glorious 70mm' in such close quarters seems counter-intuitive on the surface. But like Paul Thomas Anderson’s 'The Master,' there are deceptive insights to be found by shooting with such lenses in cramped interiors. It’s also extremely well-staged and beautiful to look at. Composer Ennio Morricone‘s terrific music adds another dimension to the movie, not only with a grand and vintage symphonic score, but one that also underscores the threat of violence coming in like a storm over the mountains. Plus, tense elements of horror work wonders too (it’s no wonder Tarantino utilizes unused musical cues, written by Morricone, from John Carpenter’s 'The Thing')."
Rodrigo Perez, IndieWire
"If you see 'The Hateful Eight' in glorious 70-millimeter format, as it’s being presented in limited engagements around the country, it begins with a soaring overture and has an intermission halfway through its three-hour-plus running time. It’s the perfect moment to get up, stretch your legs, and perhaps chat with a nearby friend, as I did. Because the first half of 'The Hateful Eight' begs a question that the second half doesn’t really answer, namely: What’s the point of all of this? 'The Hateful Eight' is part Western, part drawing-room mystery, part exploitation film, but shot with the most gorgeous lenses imaginable and scored with an epic sweep by Ennio Morricone."
David Sims, The Atlantic
"The other old school elements, the overture by Ennio Morricone and the intermission, are most welcome. Tarantino's love of Spaghetti Westerns and of Morricone's music is widely known: he's used Morricone's work in his last five movies but this is the first time Morricone has composed original music for Tarantino and his first score for a Western since 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.' [sic] It's lovely. I wish there was more of it. The intermission came at the right moment. It was hard to go back for more."
Jeff Baker, The Oregonian
"'The Hateful Eight' is an ultrawide bore. If you have the option, and you're committed to seeing the thing, you should see Quentin Tarantino's latest in one of its 100 or so limited-release 'roadshow' screenings, projected on film, complete with overture (a lovely, eerie one from the great composer Ennio Morricone) and running just over three hours. After that, it'll be the conventional digital projection editions at the multiplexes, running 20 minutes shorter. The actors do what they can. Russell's the anchor, and unlike Jackson (who's good anyway), Russell seems like a 19th century artifact, not a 21st century gloss on the past. It's sad Morricone didn't compose a full score; too much of the soundtrack is taken up with deliberately anachronistic musical selections and music Morricone wrote for earlier projects. Tarantino doesn't care about hewing to plausible notions of period filmmaking. But as the bodies pile up in the second half, along with the switchback narrative reveals, 'The Hateful Eight' becomes a hermetically sealed exercise of a dispiriting sort."
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"'The Hateful Eight' stakes territory previously worked by Sam Peckinpah and the more politically conscious of the spaghetti Westerns, but it owes just as much to John Carpenter’s 'The Thing,' with which it shares a star, a composer, and a whole lot more. The claustrophobic set-up -- seven bad men and a feral woman, trapped in a Wyoming roadhouse -- brings out the worst in an ugly bunch, and it comes out at first in slurs and pointed fingers, and then in sprays of bloody vomit and gunshots that blow heads and nutsacks clean off. But even if a lot of it is played for laughs, this is still the first Tarantino movie that might be called a drama. Set to an orchestral score (Ennio Morricone, no less), with a script that could easily be a stage play, 'The Hateful Eight' is about as close as this pastiche artist is likely to get to the classical tradition, its story’s crisscross of opposites and suspicions cut through by some of his most lucid and sophisticated camerawork. One long take turns the sharpness of 70mm on its ear, with the point of focus hopscotching from foreground to background on perfect cue."
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, The Onion AV Club
"Self-consciousness isn’t the issue; in fact, the Lean-esque 'overture' and the intermission that endeavours to 'eventise' the otherwise modest film register as fond nostalgia, and give Ennio Morricone’s original score a chance to unleash its dramatic roar. Unfortunately, the epic significance the music promises is never delivered. (Should it have been played in air quotes?) Rather, the frontier expanses where bountymen Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell meet and squabble about a coach ride, a prisoner (a feral Jennifer Jason Leigh, forever getting punched in the face) and a letter from Lincoln, are soon relinquished for the cluttered cabin inn, which is as absurdly large as Sergio Leone’s frontier farmhouses."
Michael Atkinson, Sight & Sound
"The unpleasant truth exposed by 'The Hateful Eight' is that Quentin Tarantino’s wit and craftsmanship -- his artistic soul -- are inextricable from his sadism. He has gone to elaborate lengths to make the movie look like a classic widescreen Western, in 70mm, with a thunderously lyrical overture by the great Ennio Morricone and an intermission, but there’s nothing widescreen about his story. It seems perversely crabbed, nihilistic, and shot through with cruelty for cruelty’s sake. I suppose there are precedents among spaghetti Westerns of the ’60s (like 'The Great Silence'), but Italians are stoic about their violence, whereas Tarantino seems to be wh*cking off to his own mayhem."
David Edelstein, New York
"Depending on your perspective, Quentin Tarantino's career either comes full circle or spins its wheels with 'The Hateful Eight,' a three-hour Western pastiche that combines the single-setting theatricality of his first feature, 'Reservoir Dogs,' with the explosive Civil War politics of his last, 'Django Unchained.' As cinema's reigning pastiche artist, Tarantino mixes and matches an array of influences into a remarkably compatible whole, with spaghetti western maestro Ennio Morricone scoring a snowbound chamber piece that evokes John Carpenter's 'The Thing' and Agatha Christie's 'Ten Little Indians' in equal measure. Everyone old is made new again, which is true not only of the referential texture of 'The Hateful Eight,' but of the narrow dimensions of Tarantino's filmic universe, which keeps finding new ways to refresh old themes."
Scott Tobias, NPR
"Tarantino hired Ennio Morricone to do the orchestral score (plenty of QT’s trademark Sixties pop tunes are heard, too) and, fittingly, the composer has repurposed some unused cues from John Carpenter’s 'The Thing.' 'The Hateful Eight' has almost too much in common with Carpenter’s film, right down to the slow but memorable decimation of core characters and Kurt Russell’s smart but boozy role. Longtime fans of the director will also note a certain structural resemblance to 'Reservoir Dogs.' Overall, it’s a satisfying wintry treat, as only Quentin Tarantino can do it."
Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle
"Before unleashing its violent wallop of a second half, 'The Hateful Eight' simmers along like the pots of coffee constantly being brewed onscreen. Composer Ennio Morricone’s seesawing score -- his first new Western work in decades -- sometimes brings to mind Tarantino fave Sergio Leone, but the real ancestor here is John Carpenter’s 1982 'The Thing', another thriller percolating with close-quarters paranoia and Hawksian gab. It doesn’t quite work altogether: High-minded conversational detours into racial injustice feel a little too on the nose (as do the periodic, unnecessary punches to Leigh’s bloodied face). But it’s as pure an expression of Tarantino’s voice as he’s ever mustered -- easy to savor, even if the aftertaste leaves a trace of nasty bitterness."
Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
"An epic work of self-indulgence and smug riffing, stringing together tropes from TV and screen westerns and closed-room whodunits, 'The Hateful Eight' announces itself with all the pomp and circumstance of a midcentury cinema spectacle. The 'road show version' of 'the eighth film by Quentin Tarantino'" (as per the opening credits), opening on about 100 screens Friday (it opens wider Thursday, in a digital format), is projected in the 70mm film format, beginning with a title card that reads, 'Overture.' For more than three minutes, we can shift around in our seats and stare at the static wide-screen silhouette of a stagecoach pulled by a team of horses, as a (quite lovely) new Ennio Morricone score works its slow way around the room."
Stephen Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
"That’s when Tarantino reveals the truth behind all the strange intimations and hints of chicanery throughout the story, and the picture transforms into something completely different. Even the score by Ennio Morricone mutates into something lusher and more operatic. 'The Hateful Eight' is a movie about the worst aspects of human nature, which is why the film can’t be quite described as 'fun,' at least in the traditional sense ('The Force Awakens', this is not). But Tarantino isn’t glorifying the ugliness; he’s condemning it. He just wants to put on a grand show at the same time. 'Are you not entertained?' he seems to be asking. Yes. Yes, we are."
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
"Here's to Quentin Tarantino's cussed perversity. 'The Hateful Eight,' his intimate, suspenseful western splatter-horror comedy, has been shot at great expense in the long-gone 70mm format, but the movie itself is set almost entirely in cramped interiors. He's hired Ennio Morricone to score the thing, but don't expect rousing new western themes -- the music is tense and looping, tinkling with chimes. And the first time a white character has a chance to speak that slur that is to Tarantino movies what 'breakin' my balls' is to Scorsese’s, that white guy -- a walrus-mustached bounty hunter embodied by Kurt Russell -- politely opts for 'black fella' instead."
Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice
"I’ve never really understood overtures in movies. When they include them on the home media releases of classic epics like 'Lawrence of Arabia' or 'Spartacus' it always seems arbitrary to the point of silliness; if they existed to push an audience into their seats during the 'roadshow' engagements of old, they end up an excuse to run to the bathroom or check your email one more time at home. But now we have a real novelty, a new movie that opens with an overture, and it finally makes some sense. The film is 'The Hateful Eight,' the eighth feature from writer/director Quentin Tarantino, a film that runs just over three hours in its initial, 70mm roadshow engagement, and as the auditorium filled with the rousing sounds of Ennio Morricone’s delicious new score, I finally got it. The sequence, which patiently invites us into the world of this film, is encouraging us to relax and settle in. 'Not so fast,' intones a key character, later in the picture. 'We’ll get there. Let’s slow it down, let’s slow it way down.' That’s not just dialogue in 'The Hateful Eight;' that’s a guiding principle. There are plenty of other pleasures: the magnificence of Robert Richardson’s snow-swept photography (glorious and gorgeous in 70mm), the delicious eccentricity of Tim Roth’s performance, the way Jackson spins a yarn that may or may not be true (it doesn’t matter either way), Kurt Russell and Michael Madsen communicating in grunts and growls, the blood-soaked giddiness of Leigh’s work, the racially charged imagery of the closing scene, and that rousing Morricone score, which makes promises Tarantino has to scramble to keep 'Hateful Eight' falls around the middle of the filmmaker’s oeuvre, lacking the restless energy that propels a 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Django,' or the lived-in resonance of a 'Jackie Brown.' But it shows him reaching into the darker corners of the genre, where Sam Peckinpah and Anthony Mann dwelled, stretching his legs across the wide screen and expansive running time to come up with a gloriously unhinged, wildly unpredictable, yet subtly existential piece of work. Even if it’s not your cup of tea (or coffee, as the case may be), it’s certainly something to talk about."
Jason Bailey, Flavowire
"Tarantino wrote 'The Hateful Eight' as such a conscious throwback to the epic westerns of the 1950s that it opens with an actual overture: a title card dominates the screen while Ennio Morricone's score unfolds. It's pretentious, but strangely relaxing, inviting the audience to surrender to a languid experience that's as much about ambience as it is about plot. The power of Morricone's composition certainly helps -- his music is insinuating at first, then driving and urgent. The soundtrack was partially recycled from bits of his score for John Carpenter's 'The Thing' and 1977's 'Exorcist II: The Heretic,' but it still works perfectly against Tarantino's Old West backdrop. If western-movie cred can be bought, hiring the composer behind Sergio Leone's greatest classics is the way to do it. But while Morricone's music, the ultra wide-screen mountain vistas (shot in Ultra Panavision, in the format's first outing since 1966), and deliberate pacing evoke historical westerns, Tarantino's modern impulses catch up with him fast."
Tasha Robinson, The Verge
"Toss a classic Western, a Miss Marple mystery and gobs of gore into a big-screen crockpot and you get Quentin Tarantino’s weird, wild and way-too-long new movie, 'The Hateful Eight.' Set en-route to and inside a snowed-in cabin in Wyoming a few years after the Civil War, the film is a visual stunner packed with majestic landscapes and moody close-ups that make the best use of the old-style 70 mm format. Tarantino indulges himself, too, offering an old-school overture by Ennio Morricone and an intermission."
Joe Dziemanianowicz, New York Daily News
"Like the characters on screen, I found my convictions shaken by each new plot development. I thrill to the robust strains of Ennio Morricone’s first original Western score in over three decades (which also samples his themes from 'The Thing' and 'Exorcist II: The Heretic'). I’m in awe of Tarantino and cinematographer Robert Richardson for reviving the Ultra Panavision 70 process used on 'Ben-Hur' in 1959 and defunct since 'Khartoum' in 1966 -- curiously dispatched in service of what is essentially a filmed play, most of which takes place indoors. I marvel at what is likely the most formidable cast the director has assembled since the Nineties, though some members are distinctly underutilized. And as much as anyone, I enjoy his dialogue, even as it exists strictly to ratchet up tension between bursts of apocalyptic violence."
Steven Mears, Film Comment
"Quentin Tarantino’s 'The Hateful Eight' arrives strutting and fretting with cinematic significance: Now playing in its big-screen 'roadshow' version, it’s been lovingly photographed on archaic 70mm film stock, its presentation preceded by a breathtaking overture by spaghetti-Western maestro Ennio Morricone and interrupted midway through by an intermission."
Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
"'The Hateful Eight' is a sprawling film with an intimate core and too much necessary material to trim. More so than most marquee movies and tentpoles claiming to be 'epic,' 'The Hateful Eight' actually lives up to the word. There’s a pomp and grandiosity to the weight of the film, and to Tarantino’s ambition in making it his way, that’s hard not to admire: Select U.S. cities will be able to experience 'The Hateful Eight' in a 70mm roadshow format, complete with overture and intermission. (Which raises a slew of questions before the movie even begins. Why include an overture, anyways? Is it essential to the viewing experience? Is it required for establishing tone and atmosphere?)"
Andy Crump, Paste Magazine
"No one's better at raising hell at the movies than Quentin Tarantino. And no one's creative motor runs hotter than the man whose eighth feature aims to up the ante on his own previous magnificent seven. Tarantino always swings for the fences. He doesn't connect with every wild pitch thrown here. At three hours, this Western whodunit can feel like too much of a good thing. But Tarantino writes like a flamethrower. His incendiary dialogue feels like profane poetry. And the dude thinks big. 'The Hateful Eight' is available in select theaters in large-format 70mm, with an overture from the film's iconic composer Ennio Morricone, and an intermission that lets haters get riled up about gore, misogyny, the n-word, and the usual bugaboos that make Tarantino a target. Hang on. Even if you think 'The Hateful Eight' is something swung at and missed, you never doubt the cunning and commitment of the wiz behind the curtain."
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"The first act of the film slowly ratchets up the pressure -- imagine the deliciously meandering, threat-laden dialogue of Inglorious Basterds’s opening scene, teased out to two hours -- and at the intermission, I still had next-to-no idea what the film would do next. (The tension is heightened even further by a superb Ennio Morricone score, full of furtive contrabassoon and mounting music-box dread.)"
Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph
"The movie is filled with playful and curious surprises: not just of the plot twist or character-revelation variety, but what might termed 'formal violations' that make 'The Hateful Eight' feel more experimental than classical. This is a director who hires the Mahler of spaghetti Westerns, Ennio Morricone, whose work he's sampled many times, to create an original score, then ladles it onto a film that is not a typically sumptuous revenge Western about characters' relationships to the land they're battling to claim, but something more like a crisply photographed stage play -- think of Tarantino's debut film 'Reservoir Dogs,' most of which took place in a warehouse, but with Stetsons and dropped g's, or a prairie rat cousin of Eugene O'Neill's tailbone-busting four-hour barroom fable 'The Iceman Cometh' ('The Iceman Curseth'?), but with torture; rape; point-blank gunplay; multiple, possibly false identities, and gallons of blood...'Eight,' in contrast, is half-assed, but carries itself like another masterpiece, swaggering and stubbing its toe and swaggering some more. It has superb photography, music, set design and performances (particularly by Russell, Goggins, Leigh and Jackson), but no fervor, no framework, no justification for its nonstop insults, provocations and atrocities. It has a bully's mentality."
Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
"It’s ironic that Tarantino actually considered transforming the screenplay to 'The Hateful Eight' into a novel, after a copy was leaked to the Internet last year. What he has created is not just a movie, but a full-blown, old-fashioned extravaganza -- shot in 70 millimeter and featuring an overture and an intermission. As in the classic era, the credits play over the theme music (by Ennio Morricone) before anything happens. We just watch as, from a distance, a stagecoach rides through thick snow, struggling to get ahead of a storm."
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
"Still, the film opens atmospherically enough, first with a striking pre-credits placeholder -- an 'Overture' card that depicts a six-horse stagecoach racing from right to left in silhouette against a bold red screen -- before cutting to a long shot of the same vehicle riding into frame as a snow-covered cross looms in the foreground. Tarantino’s use of music, like his choice of shooting formats, marks a dramatic break from the rest of his oeuvre, in which the control-freak director has creatively recycled existing songs and score, while giving them such currency that they may as well have been written for him. Here, by contrast, he relies on Ennio Morricone to set the tone, and gets a stiff, synthesizer-driven horse kick of anticipation from it. While Tarantino excels at slow-build suspense (and word is out that a bloodbath awaits), Morricone’s eight-minute mood-setter indicates the violence is coiled and ready to strike."
Peter Debruge, Variety
"The most minute details of production designer Yohei Taneda's central set and costume designer Courtney Hoffman's work are shown off in 70mm. Although Tarantino has borrowed excerpts from Ennio Morricone's work for his soundtracks in the past, this is the first time the now-87-year-old Italian great has ever written an original score for the director. It would be nice to be able to say that his first soundtrack for a Western since his Leone heyday ranks with his best, but it's of a somber, emphatic nature and is put to relatively limited use."
Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter
THE NEXT TEN DAYS IN L.A.
Screenings of older films, at the following L.A. movie theaters: AMPAS, American Cinematheque: Aero, American Cinematheque: Egyptian, Arclight, LACMA, New Beverly, Nuart, Silent Movie Theater and UCLA.
May 12
BORN IN FLAMES [Silent Movie Theater]
BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA (Wojciech Kilar) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
GRINDHOUSE: DEATH PROOF [New Beverly]
HOUSE (Asei Kobayashi, Mikkî Yoshino) [New Beverly]
LEATHERFACE: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III (Jim Manzie, Patrick Regan) [Silent Movie Theater]
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (Leonard Rosenman), THE GENE KRUPA STORY (Leith Stevens) [New Beverly]
May 13
THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES (Basil Kirchin) [New Beverly]
GOOD FELLAS [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT (John Scott) [New Beverly]
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (Leonard Rosenman), THE GENE KRUPA STORY (Leith Stevens) [New Beverly]
TEN [UCLA]
TOKYO CHORUS [Silent Movie Theater]
May 14
AKEELAH AND THE BEE (Aaron Zigman) [UCLA]
EXODUS (Ernest Gold) [New Beverly]
MOMMIE DEAREST (Henry Mancini) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT (John Scott) [New Beverly]
May 15
BAMBI (Frank Churchill, Edward Plumb) [AMPAS]
DR. STRANGELOVE [Silent Movie Theater]
EXODUS (Ernest Gold) [New Beverly]
THE IRON GIANT (Michael Kamen) [Arclight Hollywood]
YOU AND ME [UCLA]
May 16
EVERYONE ELSE [Silent Movie Theater]
EXODUS (Ernest Gold) [New Beverly]
HANNA (Chemical Brothers) [Arclight Sherman Oaks]
IN CALIENTE (Leo F. Forbstein) [LACMA]
May 17
ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (John Barry) [Silent Movie Theater]
A PRIVATE'S AFFAIR (Cyril J. Mockridge), THE YOUNG DON'T CRY (George Antheil), SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME (Bronislau Kaper) [New Beverly]
May 18
DR. STRANGELOVE (Laurie Johnson) [Silent Movie Theater]
NIXON (John Williams) [Cinematheque: Aero]
A PRIVATE'S AFFAIR (Cyril J. Mockridge), THE YOUNG DON'T CRY (George Antheil), SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME (Bronislau Kaper) [New Beverly]
May 19
GRINDHOUSE: DEATH PROOF [New Beverly]
JOYSTICKS, PINBALL SUMMER (Jay Boivin, Germaine Gautier) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
THE SALESMAN [Silent Movie Theater]
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (Howard Shore) [Silent Movie Theater]
SUPERMAN III (Ken Thorne), UNBREAKABLE (James Newton Howard) [New Beverly]
TWIN PEAKS FIRE WALK WITH ME (Angelo Badalamenti) [Nuart]
U TURN (Ennio Morricone), NATURAL BORN KILLERS [Cinematheque: Aero]
May 20
THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES (Basil Kirchin) [New Beverly]
DIARY OF A LOST GIRL, BEGGARS OF LIFE [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
HEAVEN & EARTH (Kitaro), SALVADOR (Georges Delerue) [Cinematheque: Aero]
INHERENT VICE (Jonny Greenwood) [New Beverly]
OMAR [Silent Movie Theater]
SUPERMAN III (Ken Thorne), UNBREAKABLE (James Newton Howard) [New Beverly]
May 21
THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES (Basil Kirchin) [New Beverly]
CHEYENNE AUTUMN (Alex North) [New Beverly]
REAR WINDOW (Franz Waxman) [Cinematheque: Aero]
VATEL (Ennio Morricone) [Cinematheque: Egyptian]
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