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Finally Tarantino delivers us a real Western. Yet, "The Hateful Eight" is much more than just that. The multiple homages to that and to other genres are more than the wet dream of cinephiles, is the opportunity Tarantino takes advantage of to recreate the type of cinema that's hardly ever done anymore.

What was his singular cinematographic language in the 90's has almost become stereotypical nowadays, that's why he takes his particular subtleties (which to him can include blowing up heads) and includes them in a theatrical and operatic period piece. It's almost a literary type of cinema, that dares to take its extensive time and space to sufficiently develop its characters and story. It's a cinematographic novella in which its inevitable violence isn't just strong (or, even worse, unnecessary, like in some of other titles from his repertory), it's powerful, and gracefully it never overpowers the themes of justice, ethics, morality, race, gender and politics, that give this epic essential content. This is where "12 Angry Men" meets the first scene of "Once Upon a Time in the West", with all which that could mean.

"The Hateful Eight" is magnificent; it isn't a tribute to great films, it is one.

When William Harrison made the short story that influenced the making of this film he had to have read Plato's "Criton", since this movie is the exact contradiction of that masterpiece. In "Criton", Socrates is unjustly in jail, where he awaits the death penalty, when Criton comes to tell him that he should escape, Socrates tells him that he can't do that because then everything he preached all his life, to obey laws, would mean nothing, hence the estate of Athens would fall to the ground, and it would make it okay for other citizens to break laws. And Athens gave everything to Socrates, hence Socrates owes everything to Athens. Now how Jonathan E. contradicts Socrates: In Rollerball there is a fascist state where every social accomplishment is a result of collectivity (team-play) not individualism. The game has been designed to make these collectivity values real and apparent. Jonathan E. is refuting the purpose of the game, which is a political purpose. The game has a political aspect in its structure, and the paradox is that in order to keep the game, they prefer to take away all the rules to show that there is no individual success in rollerball, only collective success. In Rollerball, there is the conflict between the citizen and the state. The state maintains the subordination of the individual when it destroys all history and information. Also, the state denies all decision making. The equilibrated ideology of Bartholomew is that all dreams and aspirations are capable inside the system, hence he talks to the team in the beginning saying that the players want to be executives, and the executive players, which is possible for everyone. In Ella and Jonathan E.'s conversation, she tells him that all former history was to find a comfortable style of living, which is something people have now, where all vital things and necessities are covered, so Jonathan E. asks himself what is he giving up in exchange for commodities, where liberties are taken away. You see, Socrates would have just been thankful to the state for everything that they have provided for him, and even if it was unjust he would have retired when asked for, yet Jonathan E., isn't only not thankful, but also challenges the state by not retiring and ::::::::SPOILER::::::::: making the final goal in the final game, where even without rules nor TEAMMATES, his individualism destroys the state's point of collectiveness and corporate society....

Puerto Rico's greatest director, Jacobo Morales, creates a film which mixes neo-realism with surrealism creating this modern foreign masterpiece. You can compare this film with the theme of "About Schmidt" with Jack Nicholson, when his character retires from work and his life suddenly shrinks, well, the same thing happens in this film with Santiago, yet it is up to him to keep living because life is not over after 65. It was too bad this film was Oscar-nominated the same year as "Cinema Paradiso", because if not it would have definitely won Best Foreign Film. With a wonderful cast made up of Puerto Rico's finest like Gladys Rodriguez, Rene Monclova, Johana Rosaly and, of course, Don Tommy Muniz, "Lo que le paso a Santiago" is a film for those who love foreign films, but above all, for those who love life.