Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'The Hateful Eight' And Theatrical Experiences

Enlarge this image toggle caption The Weinstein Company The Weinstein Company

Sitting down to talk about a Quentin Tarantino movie — particularly in his modern incarnation in which he puts all kinds of gnarly material on the screen that wrestles, with varying degrees of success, with aspects of identity and politics and identity politics, not to mention history, sociology, and (perhaps most enthusiastically) film and filmmaking. This week, we sat down with Chris Klimek to talk about The Hateful Eight, Tarantino's latest, which finds a collection of folks — tense ones, to say the least — waiting out a blizzard together. There's a lot to unpack. (This piece was recommended to me on Twitter, and I found it a very interesting one to contemplate.)

Because several of the panelists were able to see the film in its 70mm "roadshow" presentation, our second segment this week is about aspects of the theatrical experience, from the film/digital divide to seating to crowds and comfort levels.

As always, we close with what's making us happy this week. Stephen is once again happy about the fruits of his Oscar-film binges. Glen is happy about a novel he enjoyed that plays with time and point of view and about a history of comedy that "filled in a lot of the gaps" in his understanding of connections between threads of comedy. Chris is happy about some hires about which news recently broke and about a book (which I will tell you I also love), and about a delightful news item. I am happy about — yes, it's a theme this week! — a book, and another book, and another book, and then a comedy that's returning to Amazon.

Find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter: the show, me, Stephen, Chris, Glen, producer Jessica, and producer emeritus Mike.