Page 1
Standard

western #26, 'duck, you sucker.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 1 min read

Duck, You Sucker, also known as, A Fistful of Dynamite, is more Leone. Sadly, it is the first time in my brief relationship with him when he completely let me down.

This movie was nonsensical. Rambling and at times incoherent, it was missing much of what I normally love about Leone.

Also, can anyone explain to me why two guys were watching as the other made out with the same girl? Those flashbacks were just inane, far too long, and mostly pointless since they never really explained how the girl played into the whole thing. I guess we are supposed to guess.

This one left Brian and myself scratching our heads that Leone could make something like this.

more
Standard

western #25, '3:10 to yuma (2007).' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 1 min read

I know I’ll lose the movie fan version of street cred for hating The Wild Bunch and loving this, but that’s just the way it is. I really enjoy this one. I own it actually.

The performances are all strong, but more importantly, the filmmakers do a great job paying homage to the great shots and views of the classic Westerns. You can see Leone, you can see Eastwood, you can see Peckinpah’s better moments. It certainly isn’t a perfect movie, but that would be a silly thing to hold against it.

It’s a tight, well-crafted Western for the double zeroes.

more
Standard

western #24, 'the wild bunch.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 1 min read

This film is another uberclassic. Another one of those ‘greatest movies of all time’ type films. I have a confession to make… I pretty much hate it.

I know, I am in the minority, which is odd, because I have seen it twice, with three different people, and all of us hated it. I get that the editing for the action scenes is a big deal, but the editing for the rest is just absurd. I sat there thinking, “Ok, why is this scene so long? We get it, their horses are falling down the hill, are we going to move on with the story at some point today?”

I also didn’t understand why I was supposed to care about any of these characters. Was it just because they were the main characters? I’m supposed to want them to succeed and survive even though they let innocents die for profit, and use women as human shields, etc? I didn’t want to spend 2.5 hours with these guys.

Also, most irritating of all, the bizarre fits of laughter that ends about half the scenes in this movie. I’m not kidding, at least ten times all the character laugh raucously at something which isn’t really that funny, and they fade out on that to end the scene. In addition to that, the film ends with a montage of laughing scenes from earlier in the movie, in case we missed it early on. For those of you who haven’t watched it, I’m not kidding, that really happened.

I must be missing something that others love. Some reviews I read said it takes a genre which was ‘morally simplistic’ before this, and uses loads of violence to turn that on its head. Whoever feels the genre was morally simplistic before just isn’t watching closely enough, and they are missing the messages of ambiguity and confusion concerning violence , morality and corruption that fill so many of the Westerns I have watched so far.

I guess I’ll just have to be in the minority on this one, I tried to like it, and failed.

more
Standard

western #22, 'once upon a time in the west.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 1 min read

It is debated by many whether this or The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly should be considered Leone’s masterpiece. That all comes down to preference, because they are both masterpieces.

The opening scene is long, and brilliant, but after that there’s some time where it’s too slow and even a bit melodramatic. Fortunately, once it gets going, it’s pretty fantastic. More of the typical Leone artistry.

It’s long and epic, with multiple stories which interweave nicely. Yet, the visuals and score are where it’s really at. With so many absolutely stunning shots, and Morricone up to his old tricks, I could probably watch the movie without the dialogue track and be just fine (also, Claudia Cardinale doesn’t hurt in that regard).

Just Kurosawa and Leone are more than enough reason to be glad I did this!

Here is six minutes from the opening sequence.

more
Standard

western #21, 'the outrage.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 1 min read

Another punch for punch American adaptation of a Kurosawa movie. It takes the subtle musings about truth in Rashomon and instead works the word ‘truth’ into as many lines as possible to jam the concept down our throat. Most of the writing is pretty weak. Although, Shatner’s last line is pretty great. (That’s right, William Shatner is in this movie!)

The majority of the great moments lost their effect on me because they were just lifted directly out of Rashomon.

So far, Leone is the only guy who could adapt Kurosawa in a way that felt like art in its own right, as opposed to art translated to the big, dumb masses. Adaptation can still be a wonderful artistic medium, even Kurosawa was adapting novels much of the time. The problem is when all you are doing is refilming each scene in a different language with different actors, stealing shots and themes, while never offering anything new, offering nothing of yourself. That is what most filmmakers seemed to be doing when they adapted Kurosawa for America.

Also, Paul Newman was the worst Mexican ever. I love the man, but he should have never, ever played a Mexican. Plus, the decision to make the bandit a Mexican really can’t be seen as anything but racist. If people suspected an innocent man as guilty because he was Mexican, then you would have something, but simply making the infamous, treacherous bandit Mexican is lazy and racist.

Oh yeah, one more thing, that poster at the top of the post, with the line ‘was it an act of violence or an act of love?’… yeah, that wasn’t even kind of  a question asked in the movie. Throughout the course of Hollywood history, I often wonder if those who create ads for films have ever seen the film in question.

more
Standard

western #20, 'rashomon.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 1 min read

Rashomon was a story of an apparent murder and rape, told after the trial in which four people tell four different versions of what happened, and who each person blames for the murder isn’t who you’d expect.

It was more proof that Kurosawa was amazing. I could say the same things about this movie that I said about the others.

After the 30 days of 30 Westerns is over it won’t be long before I’ve watched all the Kurosawa I can get my hands on.

He was making movies in the 50’s, for mainstream Japanese cinema, filled with beauty, wisdom, and ambiguity; movies that challenged the assumptions and ignorance of his time, his movies even questioned themselves.

He also worked a lot with the same cast members, which is fun both because you get to see characters take on such different roles, and it also feels like seeing old friends again.

Rashomon made fun of sexism, but in a way that for most of the movie it just made you wonder if he was being sexist. And, in a brilliant “fight” scene Kurosawa also made fun of men pretending they are far tougher and stronger than they are.

The movie was subtle and perfect.

Americans, get over your aversion to subtitles and watch some damned Kurosawa!!

more
Standard

western #19, 'the proposition.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 1 min read

It’s probably getting tiring, me writing about how amazing so many of these movies are, but this was another example of amazing filmmaking.

Written by Nick Cave (yes, THE Nick Cave) and Directed by John Hillcoat, it moves the Western to Australia, which is about as apples to apples as a comparison can be.

The film is dark, brooding, violent and disturbing, it is also beautifully shot and stunningly acted. If Oscars were based purely on merit, and everyone had a fair shot, there were at least four performances, plus direction, cinematography, and perhaps screenplay, that would have at least gotten nominations.

Stunning, deeply affecting storytelling, I have a feeling I’ll be carrying this one around for a while. It wrestled with morality in a way that was relentless in taking the ordinariness of human depravity seriously.

There is a scene in the final minutes of the film, where the combination of wonderful direction and amazing acting by Emily Watson create a moment as arresting as any I’ve seen. The full reality of the moment is so palpable, you could choke on the horror and tension of it. I’ve never wanted to reach through a screen and intervene more in my life.

Utterly brilliant filmmaking.

more
more
Standard

western #16, 'butch cassidy and the sundance kid.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 1 min read

Like Unforgiven, I already owned this one. It’s one of my favorite movies. Even with Redford’s occasionally wooden acting, the movie would be perfect if it weren’t for the few scenes when the director apparently lost his mind for a bit.

William Goldman’s screenplay on the other hand is perfect.

Perfect!

I think William Goldman might be a cyborg sent from the future to write awesome shit, like this screenplay and the novel and screenplay for The Princess Bride (although I am still one of the few humans who feel lukewarm about that movie, just because the book is soooooo much better).

The rapport between Butch and Sundance, the foreshadowing, the amazing dialogue, the brilliant ending… I love this movie!

more
Standard

western #15, 'hombre.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 1 min read

Paul Newman is a white guy who was raised by Apaches until some other white guy found him and brought him to live with other white people. He wasn’t a big fan of white people, so he moved back with the Apaches. White people hated him, they wouldn’t even ride in the coach with him. That is, until bandits came and they needed him to save their sorry asses. He has a chip on his shoulder, and gloriously, the moral of the story was not that he needed to lose it, but that he should have had it all along.

The movie was a far more successful than The Searchers as an engagement of how ugly and stupid racism is. It just would have been nice if this engagement of racism toward Native Americans could have had some characters who were, you know, Native Americans.

more