The Cold, Wild West of the North

Rating: 8/10 (26 December 2015)

8.25 of 10. Like a sequel to Django Unchained (2012) that takes place in the wild west about, fittingly, 8 years later. It's also better largely because it is not a literal sequel.
Set during a harsh Wyoming winter a bit more North than the easy-to-film grounds of the Southwest, we get a look at the bounty hunters and the people with bounties on their heads - sometimes they are both. This serves up the cold, hard setting of accidental and intentional meetings that provide the base for the film and its characters. It also helps, outside of the exaggerated and excessive intro, make the length of the film feel less like walking for 2 hours naked through the snow.
Despite complaints about the length, it does go swiftly, when it's not narrating, with the combination of satire, mystery, and gore-horror-like scenes. Whether it's skill, luck, or Tarantino's recent affection for seemingly expired actresses.
Oddly enough, when I saw the good, but not nearly as great, Gun Woman (2014) last year I was thinking that was a film Quentin would like to make, but definitely not a western. It makes me think that inspired him to feature Jennifer Jason Leigh, who is definitely the star in this.