I liked it a lot. Looks really stunning in Ultra Panavision. Worth going to the movies for that alone, especially if you are younger than 50 and never had the opportunity to see a film shot with this lens and presented in this format. Also really cool to leave the theatre with a program book, they went all out for this and crafted a genuine event. I may still need to marinate on it, but out of the three period films he's done so far, this one might have worked the best for me or at least felt the most "Quentin" and the least Hollywood. The film is filled with small moments and little details that harken back to his earlier work. The score worked perfectly and was a nice departure from QT's usual mix tape approach. As far as the actors are concerned, Samuel L. Jackson & Jennifer Jason Leigh stole damn near every scene they were in. Hopefully they both get nominations come award season.

The political statements in the film were very overt but appreciated nonetheless. While Django was more of a straight-up revenge flick set during slavery, The Hateful Eight is Tarantino taking a magnifying glass to race relations and racism in post-Civil War America and showing how little things have changed in 150 years. Tarantino's flippant use of "the n word" in his scripts has never turned me off from enjoying his films but they do rub me the wrong way at times depending on the context. This film, despite even giving Django Unchained a run for it's money in that department, is justified in it's choice of language. As the original poster pointed out: "really though, QT's obsession with the N-word doesn't bother me 'cause, to be fair, it is probably the most charged word in the english language, carrying the most history, importance, nuance, etc., at least to americans. and the way he weaves it through his dialogue-- finding the subtle meaning in it even among the frivolity-- is fairly genius. the way characters use it, the context they use it in, immediately gives you a full page of backstory on them without even getting into it.".

If I had to rank them, I guess The Hateful Eight would be somewhere in the middle of his filmography for me:

1. Kill Bill
2. Pulp Fiction
3. Jackie Brown
4. The Hateful Eight
5. Django Unchained
6. Reservoir Dogs
7. Death Proof
8. Inglorious Basterds

Again, just for the presentation, it's worth going to see before the 70MM engagement is finished. See this film as intended, it's gorgeously detailed and no frame is wasted. Quentin must have had a blast shooting it.