The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

8/10
I stewed on this one for a while before finally bringing it up to an 8 from the 7.5 or so I had in mind when I saw it. It is certainly the most interesting movie Tarantino has made in almost a decade, since Death Proof I would say. Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained were cartoony throwaways. The Hateful Eight isn't perfect, and it probably riffs on Reservoir Dogs a little too much to stand on its own as a dazzlingly unique Tarantino creation. But it did feel, at the very least, like QT was challenging himself with this script. These are some of the most interesting characters he's written in a long time, and his knack for storytelling is as sharp as ever. As a theatre-style, locked-room mystery, it's very interesting. As a movie, well you probably could have shaved 20-30 minutes from the runtime, and I don't think it really says much despite the presence of the superficial racial politics that Tarantino is eternally obsessed with, but I liked it more than I thought I would. I was expecting a big action movie and it's quite a different beast indeed. So, not "perfect" but I'll happily settle for "interesting" at this point in Tarantino's career.