AVClub: Stubbornly theatrical, Quentin Tarantino’s three-hour snowed-in Western The Hateful Eight is a difficult movie by a director who’s not known for making them. Slow in the early going, it withholds almost all overt action until just before the intermission, at which point it explodes into the meanest, most gruesome and nihilistic violence of Tarantino’s career, only to conclude on a disquieting note of hope. Shot in 70mm, but largely set in one room, this is the writer-director’s take on the betrayed promise of America: a perverse vision of sadistic men comforted by false causes. The American ideal was only ever a lie, says The Hateful Eight, but in the end, when the floorboards are slicked with blood and brain matter, and the fatally wounded have enacted a ritualistic parody of justice, it looks toward that same ideal with the hope that one day, someone will be suckered by it hard enough to make it come true. Who could have predicted that Quentin Tarantino, director of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, would eventually turn into a political filmmaker?
Get in, loser, because Regina George isn’t the baddie she’s made out to be in Mean Girls.
The Invisible Raptor stretches a single concept into a full-length feature film, and it doesn't work.
TNS: "Wicked is a funny movie with great performances and musical numbers, but it isn't without a fair share of issues."
