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western #4, 'sanjuro.' [another day, another movie.]

Okay, so this wasn’t really a ‘Western’ at all. It was more of a ‘Samurai Comedy.’ It is the sequel to Yojimbo, and after loving the first film so much, I couldn’t help myself. I assumed some of the themes and feel would carry over from film to film, but they didn’t. This had nothing to do with the John Ford, American Western aesthetic that Kurosawa used for Yojimbo (among others).

It still had plenty of enjoyable moments, and was certainly worth my 90 minutes… especially closet guy, I loved closet guy.

However, not a Western. Maybe I’ll add a day onto the end to make up for it.

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western #3, 'stagecoach.' [another day, another movie.]

Film #3 was the genre classic, Stagecoach. The film was #63 in the original AFI list of the greatest 100 films of the first 100 years of cinema.

Personally, I’m not really a fan.

I’m not challenging its appearance on the list by any means. I understand that the film was important in film history, if for no other reason than because it was John Ford’s first western with sound. I just find it uninteresting at best, and downright offensive at worst.

The uninteresting part of it was writing more than direction, the characters were simply all two-dimensional. The happily drunk doctor, the tough as nails marshall, the heroic outlaw who really hadn’t done anything wrong when you think about it.

The offensive part was spread all around.

There were two primary women, each fit into the mold of Madonna and the Whore, although the Madonna was closed off and kind of a bitch, while the whore had a heart of gold, the filmmakers still only had two places to put young women. That is until John Wayne rolls onto the scene and saves the poor latter woman from a life of whoredom.

I understand that when engaging film, or any art, we need to view it within the lens of its time, understanding that it was a product of a different era. That’s just not really what I am interested in doing here. I certainly want to learn about film history through all of this, but at the end of the day I am also hoping to find movies I love watching. This movie just made me sad most of the time, especially pertaining to the depiction, unsurprisingly, of Native Americans.

It wasn’t enough that we killed off entire civilizations of people, taking every part of their homeland. We also had to turn them into punch lines and story props. A Native American character didn’t have a single line of dialogue. Wait, except for the wife of a Mexican character they meet along the way, she sings in perfect spanish (inexplicably), and she is Apache.

A cheap, insincere way to pay lip service to the idea that not all ‘Indians’ are bad right? Wrong, she took off in the night and stole her husbands horse to warn Geronimo about the Stagecoach. As it would turn out, all Indians are bad. The only hope the white man has is using their tribal divisions to get them to work for you. Sort of like the Cheyenne from the opening scene who stands around like so much set dressing, while a white guy reports on his behalf that he found out Geronimo is going to attack soon. They choose to trust him, not because he is actually trustworthy, but because the Cheyenne “hate the Apaches even more than we do.”

Then, there is the climactic stagecoach chase scene where a bunch of natives chase after them shooting rifles and bows, clearly just malicious for malice’s sake. I guess we are supposed to cheer as John Wayne sits atop the coach and picks off Apache after Apache. How dare they defend their own fucking land, we’re white, we should be allowed to take a stagecoach wherever we damned well please.

It would have been a little easier to swallow if the film offered even the slightest bit of ambiguity, the slightest hint that perhaps they understood that maybe this wasn’t all ok. As it stands, I just couldn’t enjoy it. The attitudes on display are just too shameful and tragic for that.


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western audacity.

Well, another day, another movie is hitting the next level. We’ve done horror movies. We’ve done time-travel. The plan was that all of these type things would be 10-14 days long.

Not so any longer.

The Western film extravaganza is going to be a full month long.

30 Days. 30 Westerns.

During that time, I will also be watching the complete series of Deadwood. And, if Gamefly cooperates, I may be playing through Red Dead Redemption as well.

Right now, the plan is to post a short post for each day, rather than waiting until the end and posting a huge long post that no one will actually read. Any ideas on a better format?

I’m looking forward to this, while also worrying a bit that I will hate Westerns by the end.

I’m going for it, because I think there is something beautiful about endeavors which are at once audacious and pointless.

For those in the Seattle area, company is always appreciated for any and all of these films.

June 1st, Western month begins!

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"Sometimes the Spanish teenagers frighten me a little bit …"

This is the kind of art I would like to be a part of …

La Blogotheque is a French based music video/blog project of independent film maker Vincent Moon. He records bands on the streets of Paris, in cafes, in moving vehicles, in people’s living rooms. There are similar things out there, but I knew of Mr. Moon’s work first. These performances are called Take Away Shows or Les Concerts à Emporter. It is really awesome. Really awesome guerrilla-style art. The Shins, Andrew Bird, St. Vincent, Beirut, Of Montreal, Sufjan Stevens (covering the Innocence Mission!), Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, Sigur Ros, Phoenix, Essie Jain, Cold War Kids, My Brightest Diamond, Islands, Grizzly Bear, Vampire Weekend, Okkervil River, Menomena, and Jens Lekman are some of the artists featured. Read that list again. Read it again, and get going. Most, if not all of the videos can be found on youtube. Go. Now.

La Blogotheque

La Blogotheque’s Youtube Channel

If you’ve stuck around, shame on you … but here are three of my favorites:

I can’t imagine how cool it would be if I was walking down the street and heard one of my favorite bands playing a song, turning a corner, and seeing one of my favorite bands performing on the street. How awesome would that be?

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the adjustment bureau. [trailer park.]

I’ve been waiting for this trailer for a while, and finally, here it is!

Sadly, the trailer presents lots of text which is formulaic, but trailers do that regardless of what the film has in store.

I am so there the weekend this comes out.

Granted, adaptations Philip K. Dick stories can be pretty terrible (i.e. Paycheck), but they can also be pretty fantastic, (i.e. Blade Runner, Minority Report).

Damon, Blunt, Roger Sterling… C’mon!

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another day, another movie.

For those of you who have been reading what I write for a while, you probably remember last year’s Halloween Moviefest. If not, you can check it out here, but basically it was just me trying to learn a bit more about the world of horror(ish) films by watching one every day for over a week.

It was even more fun than I had anticipated, and it made me want to do the same thing again next Halloween, while also doing the same with different genres. It will feed my film-nerd tendencies by familiarizing me with genres I am less familiar with, like the Western, or by getting me even more experience with genres I know and love, like Post-Apocalypse Sci-Fi.

I plan to call the posts, “Another Day, Another Movie.” Now, in preparation, I could use your help in two ways.

1. What genres do you think I should do? I already have some planned, but I would love the input!

2. The first genre on the docket will be the aforementioned Western genre. Classics like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Unforgiven will be included, as well as many others. I was going to go see Jonah Hex for this, but then the trailer came out and made it look like Wild, Wild West 2. The last thing the world needs is a sequel to Wild, Wild West.

Anyway, what Westerns should I include in the first Western themed ‘Another Day, Another Movie’ series?

Holla back homies.

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will avatar be the engine that drives blu-ray to the next level?

There has been plenty of talk of all the money Avatar has made, both in theaters and in home-viewing formats. Yet, while Avatar is the ‘highest grossing film of all time’, that is only due to the fact that those figures never adjust for inflation. Were actual attendance the only criteria, leveling the playing field regardless of the value of the dollar, then the highest grossing film of all time is and always will be Gone with the Wind, which by today’s standards would have made over $1.5 Billion (numbers courtesy of Box Office Mojo).

No, the place where Avatar is truly making history is in Blu-ray sales. So far, James Cameron’s little movie has sold, oh, only twice as many copies as any other Blu-ray.

This has had me thinking lately about whether or not Avatar and all its visual treats might be enough to power Blu-ray into everyone’s living rooms, ending forever the days when Blockbuster employees need to check to be sure you know what a Blu-ray player is before you leave the store with a Blu-ray disc.

The reason I am wondering this is because back when we were all making the switch to DVD, it was The Matrix that finally got everyone to cough up the money for a DVD player. It was a perfect storm of DVD players finally lowering in price to the point of affordability, and a movie that was visually thrilling enough that people wanted to be sure to see it in the best possible format. The result was that for some time, based on sales figures, more than half of the people who owned DVD players also owned a copy of The Matrix.

Could Avatar be the straw that finally breaks the proverbial back of the camel that is America’s apathetic attitude toward Blu-ray? Will the idea of watching all that high-tech sexiness on anything less than High-Def, combined with lowering costs for Blu-ray players finally get people excited about the wonderful world of 1080?

I sure hope so. The difference between Blu-ray and DVD is considerable… considerably awesome. It is high time we finally fully enter the era of Blu-ray. DVD is sooooo 1998. C’mon! Get with the times, Grandma.

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