QT8: The First Eight is a misleading title for this documentary, which feels more like an admiring portrait of Quentin Tarantino than anything else. Aside from the awkwardness of having two "eights" in the name—even if it's meant as a nod to the Crazy 88, it’s still not great—a better description would be The First Three That Truly Matter and the Six (including Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) Overlong, Self-Indulgent, and Overhyped Projects that Followed. There's a clear distinction between Tarantino's work before and after *Jackie Brown*. His descent from brilliance to something akin to erratic behavior started with *Kill Bill* and culminated in what seem like pointless attempts at rewriting history, such as *Inglourious Basterds* and *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood*. Normally, I’d dismiss a film about a living person that doesn't feature that person—especially when they're noticeably absent—as a complete waste of time. However, in this case, I’ll consider it worthwhile because of what its absence achieves. Ironically, the best aspect of this movie is that Tarantino isn’t seen or heard. The second-best thing about the film comes from the contributions of Michael Madsen, Samuel L. Jackson, and Christoph Waltz—and to a lesser degree, Tim Roth, Bruce Dern, Kurt Russell, and Jamie Foxx. Their comments are both entertaining and insightful, and they seem credible. However, when someone makes a statement like "Watching *Reservoir Dogs* with enough audiences...[Tarantino] realized he needed to give the audience permission to laugh," I find it dubious; at best, they’re sharing their interpretation of what Tarantino thought—which is typical for a documentary where everything is based on secondhand accounts, regardless of the source's reliability. As a result, Tarantino isn’t present to explain how he nearly injured Uma Thurman and apologize for it—though perhaps that’s unnecessary; given the celebratory tone of this film, the responsibility gets shifted to Harvey Weinstein, which seems like an unwise move, even if Weinstein deserves criticism. Criticize him for what he did (and there's certainly plenty of that), but not for things he didn't do, particularly when it serves to protect someone’s reputation. At one point, Waltz uses a comparison—saying "It's like going to a whore house to get infected with the syphilis"—to illustrate Tarantino’s enthusiasm. I suspect it sounded better in his mind, but this poorly chosen analogy actually makes a valid point. It reminds me of *Doctor Faustus*, a novel by Thomas Mann, Waltz’s fellow countryman, whose protagonist willingly contracts syphilis because he equates madness with artistic genius; the resulting illness reduces him to a childlike state and he spends the rest of his life under the care of his family. I'm willing to bet Tarantino doesn't have syphilis—but then, what's his explanation?

Source on TMDB