In Reel Deep

View Original

A More Tempered Enthusiasm for 'The Hateful Eight'?

Update: Complain about a good thing, and reap the karmic rewards. Quentin Tarantino is apparently no longer going to make The Hateful Eight after the script was leaked. I should be more excited.

Quentin Tarantino's next film may have a script and even a name. His new project will supposedly be a(nother?) Western called The Hateful Eight, if you choose to believe a report from Deadline. Not only will he revisit the same genre he mined to great effect in 2012's Django Unchained, but Tarantino will also reportedly reunite with Christoph Waltz as well as work with Bruce Dern, apparently revitalized by his role in Nebraska, for the first time.

Assuming this is true, I love this news. Westerns are my favorite genre. Tarantino is one of my favorite directors. Waltz was born to deliver lines written by his now-frequent collaborator. I can see Dern's unkempt visage tucked under a dusty hat, gruffly delivering lines in Monument Valley.

So, why don't I love it more? Why am I sitting down as I write this, instead of pacing excitedly about my apartment?

I think it's rooted in this niggling little feeling that we may have been here before with Tarantino.

From SlashFilm's story on the report:

Tarantino has long spoke [sic] of doing a film in the mold of The Dirty Dozen or Magnificent Seven and while Inglourious Basterds took that idea to World War II, maybe The Hateful Eight will finally see Tarantino take his band of misfits idea to the Old West.

We've seen Inglourious Basterds. We've seen Django Unchained. Now we might get a mashup of those two concepts? Yeah, that's definitely the source of my (very, very, very mild) trepidation about this alleged project. (In case I haven't qualified my statements enough, I'm still REALLY excited.)

That doesn't mean I think Tarantino is going to churn out an unwatchable piece of crap. It doesn't mean I think he's in danger of becoming as one-note as the similarly talented Wes Anderson. And it's not to say he hasn't repeated himself at the most superficial of all levels -- genre -- before. But if I criticize Anderson for this sort of thing, well, I have to at least express a little reservation at the same type of news about another acclaimed director.