The Hateful Eight (Anchor Bay, Blu-ray, DVD, VOD), the eighth feature by Quentin Tarantino, is something strange and audacious even for a filmmaker whose films are rarely short of either. It’s a vivid widescreen western epic that runs nearly three hours yet plays like a chamber piece, largely contained within the intimate quarters of a stagecoach stopover during a blizzard where the characters so succinctly described in the title find themselves in very close quarters.
Title aside, more than eight characters make an appearance in the film, and even among those eight central figures all is not as it seems. John Ruth (Kurt Russell rocking the bushiest mustache you’ve seen in ages) is a bounty hunter known as The Hangman and his latest bounty, the ferocious, foul-mouthed Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is chained to his wrist as they try to outrun a blizzard in a stagecoach racing through the Wyoming hills. Along the way his picks up Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), former Union officer turned fellow bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a former Confederate loyalist who claims to be the new sheriff of Red Rock. The other four await at Minnie’s Haberdashery, the nearest stagecoach stop: Bob the handyman (Demián Bichir), cowpuncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), professional executioner Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), and General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), a Confederate officer heading west to find his son. Or at least that’s who they say they are, and it’s soon clear that at least one of these folks is not who they say they are. They are, however, violent and at times sadistic people. It’s not just the world they live, in it’s the life they choose to lead.
The Hateful Eight is a mystery along the lines of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians” but far less genteel. The language is strewn with racial epithets and colorful figures of speech, and characters will die, many in gruesome, bloody, and unexpected ways because this is, after all, a Tarantino movie. It’s also a western, a thriller, and a chamber piece, and it is grounded in talk of vengeance and anger and history and hate. And race. While the Hangman’s bounty is at the center of the story, Major Warren—the sole black man in this company—is at the heart of Tarantino’s concerns. It’s 1870 and the wounds of the Civil War—not to mention the prejudices that have been festering long before the war—are still oozing, at least for some. Major Warren included.
It’s not exactly a culmination of Tarantino’s work to date but it echoes themes and storytelling ideas we’ve seen him play with since Reservoir Dogs. There are flashbacks and chapter titles and revelations and surprises and it has the distinctive Tarantino mix of the crude and the crafty and the cinematically ingenious. Some will find it slow going—it’s 168 minutes long—and others simply too brutal and profane to enjoy. That’s Tarantino for you. He’s not one to temper his instincts, especially with something that is personal to him.
The Hateful Eight earned an Academy Award for the original score by Ennio Morricone—a first for Tarantino, who has always built his scores from a patchwork of pop songs and favorite soundtrack cuts—and Oscar nominations for Robert Richardson’s rich and textured cinematography (which was shot in the Ultra Panavision 70 format on 65mm film and presented in the widest widescreen format ever used by Hollywood: 2.76:1) and Jennifer Jason Leigh’s gleefully unhinged performance. Tarantino’s dialogue gives actors opportunities to run with wonderfully expressive characters and they make the most of the opportunity.
Blu-ray and DVD, with two featurettes: “Beyond the Eight: A Behind-the-Scenes Look” with the cast and crew in soundbite-sized interview clips and “Sam Jackson’s Guide to Glorious 70mm,” which is a fine introduction to the 50-year-old technology that Tarantino chose for his western. Each runs under 10 minutes. The Blu-ray also includes bonus DVD and Ultraviolent Digital HD copies of the film.
The Primary Instinct (Kino Lorber, DVD) – Actor Stephen Tobolowsky has been in hundreds of movies and TV shows, from Spaceballs to Groundhog Day to Glee, a familiar face if not exactly a famous name. In the past decade, however, he has embarked on a second career as a storyteller through his podcast and NPR radio show “The Tobolowsky Files.” The Primary Instinct is his first concert film. Neither stand-up comedy nor traditional one-man show, it plays like an extension of the podcast performed for a live audience. He tells a couple of seemingly unrelated anecdotes and then eases into the theme of the performance—why do we tell stories?—with ruminations on life, death, and the idea of sacred time in true stories drawn from his life, without ever losing that easy, conversational engagement. The title comes from his mother’s motto, “The primary instinct is self-preservation.” By the end of the evening, he comes to a different conclusion.
David Chen, who produces of the podcast, directs the film simply and effectively, bringing the audience into Stephen’s stories by paring away clutter. The added dimension of Tobolowsky’s physical presence brings a different kind of immediacy and an element of imperfection you don’t hear in the audio incarnation. Those stumbles and saves don’t just humanize the stories of his life, they embody the themes of this piece, which was prepared and performed specifically for the film.
On DVD with additional interviews with Stephen Tobolowsky and deleted scenes.
Also new and notable: 
Concussion (Sony, Blu-ray, DVD, VOD) stars Will Smith as the real-life forensic pathologist who discovered the life-threatening effects of repeated head trauma on professional football players and fought the NFL to act upon his findings. Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin, and Albert Brooks co-star. Features commentary by director Peter Landesman, the featurettes “Crafting Concussion” and “Inside the Story,” deleted scenes, and an Ultraviolent Digital HD copy of the film.
Classics and Cult:
Bicycle Thieves (Criterion, Blu-ray)
The Hidden Fortress (Criterion, Blu-ray, DVD)
A Poem is a Naked Person (Criterion, Blu-ray, DVD)
Murders in the Rue Morgue / The Dunwich Horror (Shout! Factory, Blu-ray)
The Sicilian (Shout! Factory, Blu-ray)
Cherry Falls (Shout! Factory, Blu-ray)
The Gong Show Movie (Shout! Factory, Blu-ray)
Mystery Science Theater 3000 XXXV (Shout! Factory, DVD)
Code 7… Victim 5 / Mozambique Double Feature (Blue Underground, Blu-ray, DVD)
TV on disc:
Humans: Season One (Acorn, Blu-ray, DVD)
More new releases:
Point Break (Warner, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD, VOD)
Exposed (Lionsgate, Blu-ray, DVD, VOD)
Forsaken (eOne, Blu-ray, DVD)
Confession of a Child of the Century (Cohen, Blu-ray, DVD)
The Winter (IndiePix, DVD)
Cartel Land (Paramount, DVD)
Censored Voices (Music Box, DVD)
Dreams Rewired (Icarus, DVD)
Natural Born Pranksters (Lionsgate, DVD)