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Johnny Guitar is definitely an outlier in a lot of ways, and it's been a darling of critics, scholars, and nerds forever as a result. There are just so many facets to its strangeness. You've got Joan Crawford in the lead, shoved into a Western because studios deemed her too old for bigger movies, but she's still the fuckin' acting queen of her time and completely slays the role. There's Emma Small, who's ripe for queer readings of the film; does she really want revenge, or is she just afraid of her own repressed attraction to Vienna? And Sterling Hayden, who's ostensibly the lead, barely does anything in the movie! And in spite of all its "wrong turns" it's an impeccable drama. My recent Western obsession has been another one of those, Ulmer's The Naked Dawn, written by a blacklisted screenwriter and made for peanuts. It's so outside the mainstream that its story feels completely liberated, with dialogue that just slaps you in the face with its truth and spirit. I think it's one of the greatest Westerns I've ever seen and I don't even know how to pitch it to folks, especially because the leads are white people playing Mexicans. It's from 1955 but it feels closer in spirit to stuff from the late 60s and 70s. It's all on YT if you want to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OoYkq9YsSA There's a scene about four minutes into the film that is so powerful in the way it makes you feel like the walls of the genre are crashing down around you. Kull the Conqueror fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Feb 6, 2020 |
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Feb 6, 2020 16:17
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e: oops.
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Feb 6, 2020 16:18
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Kull the Conqueror posted:Ulmer's The Naked Dawn, You mean Edgar G. Ulmer, director of the noir classic Detour? Sold. Thanks for the link!
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Feb 6, 2020 16:21
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Franchescanado posted:Check out Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country, with Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea. I need to watch more of Peckinpah's westerns. I’ve seen The Wild Bunch, which is a goddamn amazing movie. It’s a little obvious with the symbolism but I don’t mind at all, it’s a gut-wrenching, intense movie. I love the editing of the shootouts, they’re completely disorienting and give you just enough sense of what’s going on but they’re just confusing, unsatisfying, and overwhelming. It rules. Franchescanado posted:You mean Edgar G. Ulmer, director of the noir classic Detour? Sold. 
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Feb 6, 2020 16:23
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I just got done watching A Bullet for the General. What are some other good socialist/revolutionary spaghetti westerns?
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Feb 6, 2020 16:26
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Ride the High Country rules because it's premise:quote:An ex-lawman is hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. But what he doesn’t realize is that his partner and old friend is plotting to double-cross him. is established and fulfilled within the first 15 minutes or so. The rest of the film is two old friends who have turned into enemies, from time and distance and grudges, reconciling their differences, while faced with a final mission that seems insurmountable. It rules. Saw it on the Criterion Channel when it launched.
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Feb 6, 2020 16:29
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Franchescanado posted:You mean Edgar G. Ulmer, director of the noir classic Detour? Sold. The very one. They did a big Ulmer retrospective series near me this year and I thought, "Well, heck, I'll see whatever this Western is," and I was unexpectedly blown away. I ran into an old college buddy afterwards and he was practically catatonic he loved it so much. It's so hard to have diamonds in the rough in the film world anymore with the internet and all but this one just popped us out of nowhere.
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Feb 6, 2020 18:44
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Goddamn, The Ox-Bow Incident. Just, goddamn. I feel like it left a hole inside me. Incredible movie.
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Feb 22, 2020 17:46
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Kull the Conqueror posted:The very one. They did a big Ulmer retrospective series near me this year and I thought, "Well, heck, I'll see whatever this Western is," and I was unexpectedly blown away. I ran into an old college buddy afterwards and he was practically catatonic he loved it so much. It's so hard to have diamonds in the rough in the film world anymore with the internet and all but this one just popped us out of nowhere. I had no idea this existed, thanks for posting about it. I loved it
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Feb 24, 2020 01:46
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If anyone in this thread isn't already aware, The Mandolorian is pretty much a "Man with No Name" series set in the star wars universe.
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Feb 24, 2020 16:04
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It's also Lone Wolf and Cub
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Feb 24, 2020 16:12
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Hard to separate the Spaghetti Western influence in Star Wars from the Kurosawa influence, because obviously Lucas had all that stuff swirling around in his head when he made ANH. And of course Lone Wolf and Cub probably doesn't exist without the various Kurosawa/Mifune films of the 60s. And then you can trace Kurosawa back to John Ford, so when you combine Ford/Kurosawa/Lucas, you can account for a surprising large chunk of American pop culture of the last 100 years. Even moreso if you lump Spielberg in there with Lucas.
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Feb 24, 2020 16:23
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SimonCat posted:I just got done watching A Bullet for the General. Fistful of Dynamite aka Duck, You Sucker
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Feb 24, 2020 16:42
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X-Ray Pecs posted:Goddamn, The Ox-Bow Incident. Just, goddamn. I feel like it left a hole inside me. Incredible movie. This. That's how you make a movie with a message people.
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Feb 24, 2020 20:39
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ruddiger posted:Fistful of Dynamite aka Duck, You Sucker I'm well familiar with that one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd3JrFXLrA0 A Bullet for the General is amazing, it ends with the bandit/revolutionary telling a peasant not to spend money on food, but on dynamite to continue the struggle. It also has one of my favorite things, finding out the kettle drums on the soundtrack are actually one of the characters playing them to harass their prey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsbzC6fMjZo
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Feb 24, 2020 21:09
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Kull the Conqueror posted:Johnny Guitar is definitely an outlier in a lot of ways, and it's been a darling of critics, scholars, and nerds forever as a result. There are just so many facets to its strangeness. You've got Joan Crawford in the lead, shoved into a Western because studios deemed her too old for bigger movies, but she's still the fuckin' acting queen of her time and completely slays the role. There's Emma Small, who's ripe for queer readings of the film; does she really want revenge, or is she just afraid of her own repressed attraction to Vienna? And Sterling Hayden, who's ostensibly the lead, barely does anything in the movie! And in spite of all its "wrong turns" it's an impeccable drama. I watched Johnny Guitar because of this post and drat, what a great movie. "Strangeness" is a good word for it, so many things that set it apart but it all worked. Early on there's a 4th wall breaking shot where one of the workers is talking to the camera as he walks and it pulls back from a kitchen window to show who he's actually talking to, and that shot grabbed me. I'm glad you brought my attention to it as the name "Johnny Guitar" sounds so generic I never would have given it the time of day.
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Feb 24, 2020 22:30
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PlushCow posted:I watched Johnny Guitar because of this post and drat, what a great movie. "Strangeness" is a good word for it, so many things that set it apart but it all worked. Early on there's a 4th wall breaking shot where one of the workers is talking to the camera as he walks and it pulls back from a kitchen window to show who he's actually talking to, and that shot grabbed me. I'm glad you brought my attention to it as the name "Johnny Guitar" sounds so generic I never would have given it the time of day.
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Feb 25, 2020 22:09
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These posts make me excited for Johnny Guitar, it is coming up in our list soon. Well, we’ve finished John Ford’s & John Wayne’s Calvary Trilogy (Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and Rio Grande). The second film was the first in color and the visuals, not just in color but in props, setting, etc, were excellent, that had to be quite the movie in its day. Regarding Rio Grande, it seemed much worse by comparison, and I heard somewhere that John Wayne was sort of phoning it in, any truth to that? Next up is High Noon, which I’ve never seen, though I always liked the Frankie Laine song that I think is related to it. I’m making sure to introduce the song to my friends, because I want to try to work up some context for his singing in Blazing Saddles once we get there. I’m looking forward to High Noon; I enjoyed the “slice of life” elements of the Calvary Trilogy, and the character actor Ward Bond was a delight in all three films, but I’m ready to change gears away from the military and into some other setting. Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Mar 10, 2020 |
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Mar 10, 2020 13:46
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I’m gonna be that guy and pint out that it’s the “cavalry trilogy”, as in horse Mounted military units, not “Calvary”, the place where Christ was crucified
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Mar 10, 2020 14:17
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Paddyo posted:This. That's how you make a movie with a message people. It’s not subtle at all, but it’s exceptionally well-made. I love that it’s a sub-90 movie with about a dozen main characters that all have their own personalities, motivations, lives, and reasons for why they act the way they do. It also struck me how The Ox-Bow Incident was made in 1942, but it was a takedown of vigilante justice in Westerns, and I thought metatextual Westerns only started in the 60s and 70s. Westerns are a genre I, and many MANY others, have really taken for granted.
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Mar 10, 2020 14:18
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Did anybody else only watch Johnny Guitar because of that drat song in Fallout: New Vegas?
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Mar 10, 2020 14:30
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I watched it because it was on some list, but the F:NV song was definitely all I knew of the movie before I saw it. I really don't think it's a good song, even after the movie.
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Mar 10, 2020 14:56
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Jack B Nimble posted:I watched it because it was on some list, but the F:NV song was definitely all I knew of the movie before I saw it. It's certainly no Big Iron or Jingle, Jangle, Jingle, for sure.
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Mar 10, 2020 15:03
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Jack B Nimble posted:Well, we’ve finished John Ford’s & John Wayne’s Calvary Trilogy (Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and Rio Grande). The second film was the first in color and the visuals, not just in color but in props, setting, etc, were excellent, that had to be quite the movie in its day. Regarding Rio Grande, it seemed much worse by comparison, and I heard somewhere that John Wayne was sort of phoning it in, any truth to that? The only thing I remember about Rio Grande is the dudes singing Bold Fenian Men for the general, a scene I have since rewatched on youtube many times because it's a Ford masterclass in visual storytelling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvOn1mkU8Sg Everybody in the scene is given something to think about from the song, and they're emoting so well you feel like you're in their heads.
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Mar 10, 2020 15:37
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I'm really stoked about the possibility of Criterion releasing Winchester 73 and (hopefully) the rest of Anthony Mann's westerns. I haven't seen them since my college days, but I remember both Winchester 73 and The Man From Laramie being amazing.
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Mar 10, 2020 20:51
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My western watching hasn't survived social distancing, so tonight, the traditional night, I'm going to stream High Noon on a discord if anyone is interested, that isn't considered "files" is it? Edit: does it break the piracy rule of the subforum? If it does I won't do it, it's just that none of my irl friends seem much up for watching right now. Edit2: Watched High Noon. I guess the Director is Fred Zimmerman, who I've never heard of, but the tone and themes were a lot different than the run of John Ford pictures I've mostly been watching. I liked it, Gary Coopers increasing dread/panic culminating in that long rising shot above the empty town's gonna stick with me. Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Apr 1, 2020 |
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Mar 31, 2020 17:09
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My partner and I started watching Gunsmoke because The Rifleman started to feel a little stale, and so far it's been worthy of its reputation. The other night we watched "The Pest Hole," which was about a typhoid outbreak in Dodge City. All the businessmen want to keep everything open against the marshal's wishes, and they even go and randomly murder some dude because they think he's the cause. The more things change, man
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Jul 2, 2020 21:04
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Sorry to double post but I decided to do a quick Western streaming audit. This is a list of everything to stream in the US right now that I would call decent at minimum: Amazon Prime Stagecoach (1939) Angel and the Badman (1947) Rio Grande (1950) Johnny Guitar (1954) Vera Cruz (1954) The Magnificent Seven (1960) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) Hud (1963) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) True Grit (1969) Comes a Horseman (1978) Meek’s Cutoff (2010) True Grit (2010) Criterion Channel Stagecoach (1939) Vera Cruz (1954) Dead Man (1995) Hulu The Furies (1950) Johnny Guitar (1954) Hud (1963) Blazing Saddles (1974) The Good, the Bad, and the Weird (2008) Meek’s Cutoff (2010) True Grit (2010) The Sisters Brothers (2018) Kanopy Stagecoach (1939) Dead Man (1995) Meek’s Cutoff (2010) Netflix The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) Django Unchained (2012) The Hateful Eight (2015) The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) I knew Netflix was trash for classics but drat.
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Jul 2, 2020 21:28
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I can confirm I've also been very disappointed in the Criterion Channel (for westerns). They used to have a commentary version of Stagecoach that was very, very good, which is the kind of thing I want from Criterion Channel, just not enough offerings like that imo. Edit: the last western I saw in my huge list was The Searchers and now, after just finishing a rereading of Blood Meridian and being halfway through Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee, the movie is really suffering from comparison to those two books. Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jul 2, 2020 |
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Jul 2, 2020 21:57
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Jack B Nimble posted:I can confirm I've also been very disappointed in the Criterion Channel (for westerns). I think they’re putting a bunch of Anthony Mann westerns up next week, as well as Fritz Lang’s buckwild Rancho Notorious.
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Jul 2, 2020 22:05
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Kull the Conqueror posted:Sorry to double post but I decided to do a quick Western streaming audit. This is a list of everything to stream in the US right now that I would call decent at minimum: Prime has Duck You Sucker
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Jul 2, 2020 22:30
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Posted this in Couch Chat, but this is a bizarre story of Hollywood business practices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmpFypaGkKE 4 goddamn seasons, never intended to be aired.
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Jul 2, 2020 22:37
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DeimosRising posted:Prime has Duck You Sucker Definitely a Western classic, but I about lost my poo poo when 30 minutes into the movie a motorcycle shows up My Name is Nobody is also on Prime, and slaps. Slow West is on Netflix, short and good. married but discreet fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Jul 2, 2020 |
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Jul 2, 2020 22:48
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Prime also has the new Arrow transfers of the Sartana movies and they’re classic goofy spaghetti westerns.
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Jul 2, 2020 23:10
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Prime has The Proposition which is one of my favorite movies ever. In keeping with the Australian theme, Hulu has The Nightingale which has some western elements and is a fantastic movie.
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Jul 3, 2020 22:29
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Ennio Morricone has passed away at age 91
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Jul 6, 2020 09:11
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l33tfuzzbox posted:Ennio Morricone has passed away at age 91 Raxivace fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Jul 6, 2020 |
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Jul 6, 2020 10:44
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Raxivace posted:RIP. His music will eternally intertwined with the West to me forever.
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Jul 6, 2020 10:52
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The king is dead long live the king https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6IJKSsJVds
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Jul 6, 2020 14:54
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Last night I watched Rancho Notorious, a western directed by Fritz Lang. (Criterion just put a bunch of “noir westerns” up on their streaming service fyi.) It’s alright. I wouldn’t have pegged it as a Lang picture if I hadn’t known beforehand. The weird thing is that the story would have been both more believable and more immediately understandable if the casting of the lead men had been switched such that the super hot guy was seducing the lead woman away from her normal, older-looking boyfriend rather than the other way around. They put a little streak of grey in the handsome guy’s hair to signal that he was meant to be older, but it just made him look more hot.
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Jul 6, 2020 15:48
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