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FreudianSlippers posted:Best Eastern:At Home Among Strangers, A Stranger Among His Own White Sun of the Desert is an amazing Eastern. 
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Aug 26, 2015 20:49
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I like the other two films in the trilogy plenty, but I just can't watch Fistful without seeing it as a pale, inferior imitation of Yojimbo.
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Aug 26, 2015 21:07
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I really enjoy Fistful of Dollars just because its much simpler than Leone's other famous Westerns. Its just Blondie loving people over for the entire movie, I laugh my rear end off the whole time.
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Aug 26, 2015 21:19
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Basebf555 posted:I really enjoy Fistful of Dollars just because its much simpler than Leone's other famous Westerns. Its just Blondie loving people over for the entire movie, I laugh my rear end off the whole time. "My bad, four coffins."
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Aug 26, 2015 22:18
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Watching Cheyenne Autumn. Not a bad effort by John Ford, not as good as the Searchers, but a lot more sympathetic to the Cheyenne. Watching Karl Malden playing a German captain using "I was just following orders" as an excuse to commit an atrocity is a bit uncomfortable, but Ricardo Montalban works really well as a Cheyenne war chief. He really does that vaguely ethnic, "I've lost my entire family to government fuckery" character really well. Sal Mineo appears wearing a rainbow colored set of beads, lol, and there is a long extraneous sequence with Jimmy Stewart as Wyatt Earp that John Ford apparently put in in place of an intermission.
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Sep 8, 2015 03:38
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Huh, I wasn't aware Stewart worked with Ford outside of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (And How the West Was Won I guess but he's not in Ford's segment).
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Sep 8, 2015 04:09
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It's some severely broad stuff and Stewart is far too old to be playing Earp at the time. I mean, the movie starts out with a fairly serious and somber tone, and has a great little bit where one newspaper cynically starts writing pro Cheyenne stories in order to sell papers by being different than the rest of the press who are selling anti-Cheyenne hysteria, and then you get this extremely silly business with Stewart and the townspeople of Dodge City who go out to find the Indians, and some whores who follow along and end up in their knickers. It's jarring to say the least.
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Sep 8, 2015 04:44
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Raxivace posted:Huh, I wasn't aware Stewart worked with Ford outside of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (And How the West Was Won I guess but he's not in Ford's segment). They did three films together. Two Rode Together The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Cheyenne Autumn And a TV show.
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Sep 8, 2015 07:09
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precision posted:It has to be either Dead Man or the remake of True Grit for me. I've watched both maybe a dozen total times and they never get old. Agreed on all counts. I adore the remake of True Grit, from the cinematography to the performances of each of the actors.
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Sep 8, 2015 07:50
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Watching The Three Godfathers. Nice to see John Wayne as a regular old outlaw. Did John Ford not know how to make a movie under 2 hours though?
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Sep 9, 2015 04:30
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Armyman25 posted:Watching The Three Godfathers. Nice to see John Wayne as a regular old outlaw. Stagecoach and My Darling Valentine are an hour and a half if I remember. And The Searchers and Sergent Rutledge both squeak in at just under 2 hours.
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Sep 9, 2015 07:00
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precision posted:It has to be either Dead Man Dead Man is probably Crispin Glover's best performance. The whole story is encapsulated in his short part. "Look out the window. And this is to remind you of when you were in the boat... and then later than night, you were lying, looking up at the ceiling... and the water in your head was not dissimilar from the landscape. And you think to yourself, 'Why is it that the landscape is moving, but the boat is still?'"
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Sep 10, 2015 19:42
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Haha, somehow I never knew until now that Alex Cox turned down Three Amigos to do Straight To Hell. I'm both very glad and also very sad that happened.
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Sep 10, 2015 19:59
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Not the greatest by any stretch, but I remember really enjoying The Professionals (1966) with Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Claudia Cardinale, Woody Strode and Jack Palance. It's almost a hybrid of The Magnificent Seven and The Wild Bunch if that makes any sense.
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Sep 10, 2015 21:02
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Kull the Conqueror posted:The miniseries is good. The book, in fact, is the best thing ever. Yeah, I named my son Augustus because of the book. Welp, that's my cool story for the day.
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Sep 10, 2015 22:11
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precision posted:Haha, somehow I never knew until now that Alex Cox turned down Three Amigos to do Straight To Hell. I'm both very glad and also very sad that happened. He made the right decision.
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Sep 10, 2015 23:29
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Would Dune be considered a Western? I kinda think it is.
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Sep 11, 2015 01:23
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precision posted:Would Dune be considered a Western? I kinda think it is. Not really. Lawrence of Arabia isn't a Western just because there's sand dunes.
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Sep 11, 2015 01:24
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precision posted:Would Dune be considered a Western? I kinda think it is. It's a Messiah story, so while it has sorta similar imagery it draws from an older pool. Plus typically in a Western the natives are unambiguous bad guys (Dances with Wolves doesn't count).
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Sep 11, 2015 01:32
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computer parts posted:Plus typically in a Western the natives are unambiguous bad guys (Dances with Wolves doesn't count). I think this is approximately as true as saying that white people are the good guys, which is to say not very. Like, it happens a lot but is hardly definitive.
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Sep 11, 2015 01:38
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A mysterious stranger (Paul Atreides) rides into town (Arrakis) and becomes embroiled in freeing the locals (Fremen) from a corrupt authority (Baron Harkonnen) and has a mid-day showdown with the Baron's most skilled gunman (Sting). I mean I think it's almost there.
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Sep 11, 2015 01:41
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precision posted:A mysterious stranger (Paul Atreides) rides into town (Arrakis) and becomes embroiled in freeing the locals (Fremen) from a corrupt authority (Baron Harkonnen) and has a mid-day showdown with the Baron's most skilled gunman (Sting). Paul was the face of the corrupt authority (i.e., Emperor) until fairly recently, and the book ends with him marrying into the corrupt authority.
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Sep 11, 2015 02:02
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computer parts posted:Plus typically in a Western the natives are unambiguous bad guys (Dances with Wolves doesn't count). The Sons of Great Bear computer parts posted:Paul was the face of the corrupt authority (i.e., Emperor) until fairly recently, and the book ends with him marrying into the corrupt authority. The Padishah Emperor sent the Atreides to Arrakis because he feared that Duke Leto was getting too popular with the Landsrad. He then conspires with the Baron to slaughter the Atreides with 10 legions of Sardaukar. Paul falls in with the Fremen, leads them to victory over both the Emperor and the Harkonnens. Paul then challenges and bests the Emperor's champion, and consolidates his power. So, the analog to that would be something like the plot of Once Upon a Time in the West. Mr. Morton (the Emperor) wants the McBains (Atreides) out of the way for his rail line. Sends Frank and his goon squad (Harkonnens and Sardaukar) to kill them. Jill McBain (Paul), a non-native of the West, "survives" the slaughter. Enlists the help of Harmonica and Cheyenne, who are rough and tumble gunmen, (the Fremen) who then kill Frank and his gang. Morton ends up losing his empire and dream of seeing the ocean, and Jill becomes crazy rich, due to having the station and town being constructed, giving her a very large amount of wealth in the Age of Rail (The usurpation of House Corrino and the rise of House Atreides as the Imperial House.)
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Sep 11, 2015 02:42
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computer parts posted:It's a Messiah story, so while it has sorta similar imagery it draws from an older pool. Only some kinds of Western. The genre is big enough to have subgenres.
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Sep 11, 2015 03:32
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computer parts posted:It's a Messiah story, so while it has sorta similar imagery it draws from an older pool. There are a lot of films even in the classic era that have much more nuanced portrayals. Broken Arrow comes to mind. And I've never read them as the bad guys of Fort Apache but rather Henry Fonda's character as the villain.
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Sep 11, 2015 05:10
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DeimosRising posted:I think this is approximately as true as saying that white people are the good guys, which is to say not very. Like, it happens a lot but is hardly definitive. Which is why I have an appreciate for neo-Westerns (the TV show Breaking Bad is a marvelous example) because it asks the question "are there any heroes, then?" when the true facts are shown and become something probably more true than anything John Wayne depicted. As in, a bunch of people in territory and circumstances neither side comprehends and things just happen with the absence of law and order for any side. Got off on a tangeant there, but I love me neo-Westerns.
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Sep 12, 2015 02:36
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That just made me realize that in most movies about morality there's usually the assumption that you already know what's good/bad because there are police around to enforce that moral code. Are there any movies where people are exploring how to treat strangers? I guess some alien movies might be like that since it's a visual shorthand for totally foreign.
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Sep 13, 2015 05:28
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effectual posted:That just made me realize that in most movies about morality there's usually the assumption that you already know what's good/bad because there are police around to enforce that moral code. Are there any movies where people are exploring how to treat strangers? I guess some alien movies might be like that since it's a visual shorthand for totally foreign. You might say this about El Topo, since the movie starts with the protagonist toppling the only rule of law in the area, which is a corrupt reign of terror, and claiming to be God, only to go on a journey of self-discovery and enlightenment which proves what a sham that is. Notably, he has a fundamental misunderstanding of each guru that he works with and bests them through trickery and dumb luck.
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Sep 13, 2015 06:13
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The Blueberry movie is loving garbage, which is sad because the comic is the ebst wetern comic in existence. Created by Michel Charlier and legend Jean Giraud (aka Moebius), the Blueberry comics follow a rough cavalry lieutenant's adventures (and misadventures) in the post-Civil War west. Friend to Cochise, he gets involved in the Indian Wars on both sides at different times, searches for lost Confederate gold in Mexico, gets involved in the revolution, gets framed for attempting to murder the president, saves the president from the real conspirators, and so on and so forth. A very realistic look at the west, with it's beauty and ugliness, with a very three-dimensional main character. So of course the movie tries to be all artsy with a pseudo-chamanistic bent that makes no sense, butchering the characters and story completely without even managing to be good on it's own.  
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Sep 14, 2015 02:50
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effectual posted:That just made me realize that in most movies about morality there's usually the assumption that you already know what's good/bad because there are police around to enforce that moral code. Are there any movies where people are exploring how to treat strangers? I guess some alien movies might be like that since it's a visual shorthand for totally foreign. This is one of the non-bad things about TWD, at least for a while.
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Sep 14, 2015 03:10
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MonsieurChoc posted:The Blueberry movie is loving garbage, which is sad because the comic is the ebst wetern comic in existence. Created by Michel Charlier and legend Jean Giraud (aka Moebius), the Blueberry comics follow a rough cavalry lieutenant's adventures (and misadventures) in the post-Civil War west. Friend to Cochise, he gets involved in the Indian Wars on both sides at different times, searches for lost Confederate gold in Mexico, gets involved in the revolution, gets framed for attempting to murder the president, saves the president from the real conspirators, and so on and so forth. A very realistic look at the west, with it's beauty and ugliness, with a very three-dimensional main character. 
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Sep 14, 2015 03:24
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david_a posted:And, like any other Moebius comic, in the U.S. it seems doomed to a handful of out-of-print books steadily creeping up in price I'm sorry. I wish awesome franco-belgian comics got better known in the states: they deserve it. I got lucky: living in Quebec we get a lot of european comics along with the american oens, so we get to taste both worlds. My father used to own a book shop, so I grew up with a poo poo-ton of cool and rare books to read. The original print run of "Ballade pour un cerceuil" (Ballad for a Corpse), one of the great Blueberry books, came with a fairly extensive fake history of Blueberyy, complete with Civil War photos and poo poo.
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Sep 14, 2015 03:33
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MonsieurChoc posted:I'm sorry. I wish awesome franco-belgian comics got better known in the states: they deserve it. I got lucky: living in Quebec we get a lot of european comics along with the american oens, so we get to taste both worlds. My father used to own a book shop, so I grew up with a poo poo-ton of cool and rare books to read. The original print run of "Ballade pour un cerceuil" (Ballad for a Corpse), one of the great Blueberry books, came with a fairly extensive fake history of Blueberyy, complete with Civil War photos and poo poo.
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Sep 14, 2015 04:44
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david_a posted:Not having to spend money on translating them probably does wonders for the return on investment of releasing them in Canada. I never considered that they might be popular up there; it makes me somewhat happy that at least one part of the continent gets it. The only Moebius book I have was bought in Stockholm (I am originally Swedish so I grew up reading Tintin, Lucky Luke, Asterix, etc). Here in Montreal at least, everybody knows Asterix.
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Sep 14, 2015 05:28
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To bring it vaguely back on topic, there have apparently been three live-action movies of Lucky Luke, including two in English. Lucky Luke is a gunslinger hero who famously "draws faster than his shadow." The comic series is a comedy-drama incorporating real historical elements like the Pony Express, the expansion of the railroads, tensions between cattle ranchers and homesteaders on the Great Plains, etc. Unfortunately all the movies seem pretty bad judging from the RT scores. There's not that many Western parody movies so it seems like there's a niche the films could have filled.
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Sep 14, 2015 15:34
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Terrence Hill played Lucky Luke which is about the most perfect casting you could do. I've always considered My Name is Nobody to be a Lucky Luke movie in spirit though.
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Sep 14, 2015 15:47
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david_a posted:To bring it vaguely back on topic, there have apparently been three live-action movies of Lucky Luke, including two in English. Lucky Luke is a gunslinger hero who famously "draws faster than his shadow." The comic series is a comedy-drama incorporating real historical elements like the Pony Express, the expansion of the railroads, tensions between cattle ranchers and homesteaders on the Great Plains, etc. Sounds a little like The Shakiest Gun in the West, starring Don Knotts and Barbara Rhoades. It's ok. It's a film about a dentist with severe hand tremors who bumbles into being thought of (and imagining himself) as an expert gunslinger because the female lead is secretly sniping her enemies out with his buffoonery as a cover.
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Sep 14, 2015 15:51
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That reminds me. If the idea of a lighthearted episodic western appeals to you, it might behoove you to check out The Rifleman. It plays on AMC pretty regularly, I believe. It's a show that usually takes a mystery format, with a sheriff and his son solving wild west crimes. Episodes range from being extremely goofy (check the one with the samurai) to being surprisingly cutting and well-written (the one with the industry magnate orchestrating a race war to bring down wages comes to mind). I watched a ton of it while I was in the hospital, it's pretty good overall.
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Sep 14, 2015 15:59
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Since this seems to be a catchall Western thread, I watched The Salvation this weekend. It was a fairly by-the-numbers revenge story, but I enjoyed it. Jeffery Dean Morgan was pretty good as the heavy, and Mads Mikkelson played the silent protagonist pretty well. I think he had 7 lines in the entire movie.
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Sep 14, 2015 16:10
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Anonymous Robot posted:That reminds me. If the idea of a lighthearted episodic western appeals to you, it might behoove you to check out The Rifleman. It plays on AMC pretty regularly, I believe. It's a show that usually takes a mystery format, with a sheriff and his son solving wild west crimes. Episodes range from being extremely goofy (check the one with the samurai) to being surprisingly cutting and well-written (the one with the industry magnate orchestrating a race war to bring down wages comes to mind). I watched a ton of it while I was in the hospital, it's pretty good overall. It blew my mind when I found out Sam Peckinpah had a part in developing The Rifleman, since I always though of it as being pretty corny compared to some of its contemporaries like Gunsmoke. Apparently he envisioned it as a grittier coming of age tale for the son before studio interference kind of softened the final product.
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Sep 15, 2015 03:22
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