Deserves Still Got Nothing To Do With It - Japanese Unforgiven Trailer Arrives!

I am utterly fascinated by this remake & its trailer.  As you may very well know, Unforgiven is my all time favorite movie.  The first Western I ever saw in the theater, and my first experience with the Clint Eastwood persona.  It lives in a very special corner of my heart.  The idea of a Japanese Samurai Western remake is incredibly appealing.  And I'm surprised (similar to Spike Lee's Oldboy do-over) at how similar this film looks to the original.  The fear being that it's too close to the source to be its own thing.  Whatever the case may be, this has just shot to the top of my most anticipated releases.



--Brad

A Fistful of Westerns! (Matt’s Picks)

    I’m a latecomer to this whole Western thing.  I grew up seeing those old White Hat/Black Hat movies on TV and I hated them.  I’ve always had a particular hatred for Country music, never liked cowboy hats, loath John Wayne, and dislike Texan accents.  For a long time, the only Western I liked was the Gene Autry serial The Phantom Empire, and I don’t think that counts.  Especially since I only really liked it once they got to the underground super-science kingdom.  But then I saw Unforgiven sometime after it came out on video.  That’s when things began to change, though it took a long time.  In fact, it was the meeting of co-Dork Brad that led me to more diligently explore the genre, and thus to find many more examples to enjoy.

    A couple years ago, I even enjoyed a Western month, which included a great many movies, some TV, and a surprising amount of time playing the video game Red Dead Redemption (I’m not really much of a video game guy).  And I enjoyed the heck out of the whole thing.  Sure, I saw some dogs.  But I also saw some very cool movies that have fed my hunger to find more good ones.  And, luckily I live in a time where Westerns may be a rare thing at the multiplex, but those few that do come along are typically quite good.

Video games have changed, man.

    So, with the release of this week’s The Lone Ranger, a new interpretation of a character that always represented exactly what I didn’t like about the genre, we’re looking at some of our favorite Westerns.  The shocking thing about The Lone Ranger is that I actually enjoyed the heck out of it.  It’s weird and action packed, without the annoying close-up shaky-cam crap that has become the new industry norm.  Anyway, here are five of my favorites.

5.  Appaloosa:  There have been a bunch of very cool Westerns made in the last few years.  Django Unchained, True Grit, even Open Range.  But Appaloosa captures a lot of what I love.  Yeah, it’s got the heavy, some shootouts, a shrill monster woman, and all that.  But at its heart is a great friendship.

4.  Jeremiah Johnson:  This is a Mountain Man movie, more than a Western, but whatever.  It also features one of my all time least favorite actors, Robert Redford.  Yet, this story of isolation and escape, of a lone guy on the very outer reaches of what could loosely be called civilization, is surprisingly captivating.  The only problem is the awful and out of place folk music soundtrack, which is extremely distracting.

3.  100 Rifles:  Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, and Raquel Welch are all in top form as they battle their way through Mexico (Spain) in this very cool movie.  It’s late in the days of the ‘Wild West’ and we see hints of the future in Dan O’Herlihy’s car.  But there are still bloody bandits, outlaws, and all the things you expect.

2.  Once Upon a Time in the West:  One of the great Western epics, it combines grand storytelling with the bent sleaze of Spaghetti Westerns.  Awesome cast, great music, nasty behavior, everything you want and need in this kind of thing.

1.  The Outlaw Josey Wales:  Along with Unforgiven, this was one of the first Westerns I really responded to, helping me to realize the genre wasn’t all John Wayne and Custer films.  Eastwood obviously has a rugged, tough-guy appeal, but the story and the side characters were good, too.  And the setting was captivating.

-Matt

A Fistful of Westerns! (Brad's Picks)

A couple days ago America celebrated another birthday with the release of the much maligned, and certainly under appreciated Bruckheimer/Verbinski Western extravaganza, The Lone Ranger.  It's been a long hard road to the silver screen, taking five years and over $250 million dollars, but the world has finally been assaulted by Johnny Depp's bird-hat wearing Tonto.  It is this year's John Carter, more attention has been given to its budget and the ballooning behind-the-scenes than the final product, but those that bothered to see it this holiday mostly seem to fall on the "Hated It" half.  I was pretty much ready to go in guns blazing, but I quickly found myself intoxicated by its oddity.  The Lone Ranger is weird, gross, violent, ugly, bloated, and perverted.  I thought it was amazing, and possibly my favorite Blockbuster of the Summer so far.  I am deeply perplexed by this reaction, and will certainly have to sit down for a second viewing to check my sanity, but as of right now The Lone Ranger is my favorite Bruckheimer production since the first Pirates of the Caribbean.

That being said, this ain't your granddaddy's Saturday Morning Serial.  Those looking forward to a cartoony reinvention of their beloved characters should look elsewhere.  This is not Sam Peckinpah's West.  It's not John Ford's Monument Valley.  This is not tribute filmmaking.  It's a straight up Gore Verbinski weirdo picture, and there might be hints of the familiar, but the closest it gets to homage is the bonkers Spaghetti Western tone.  Not Leone or Corbucci, but The Lone Ranger has moments that dip into the painfully unfunny absurdity of Mario Bava's Roy Colt & Winchester Jack.  I am happy to report that there are a handful of whacko critics out there defending the film, and if you're curious to see other chipper reviews, click on over to IndieWire to experience the minority opinion.

At the very least, The Lone Ranger has reawakened the Westerns conversation.  People bemoan its demise, but even if we're not getting a dozen new Westerns a year, the genre is far from dead and I can think of at least a handful of films that made my Top Ten lists during the 21st Century (Django Unchained, True Grit, Appaloosa, 3:10 To Yuma, and The Proposition).  I am a dork for many things. I love Star Trek.  I love Planet of the Apes.  I love Hellboy & Batman.  But my all time love has to be the Western with its frontiers and outlaws, it's open ranges and the men determined to fence them in.  Picking my Top Five Westerns is a nearly debilitating challenge.  I can tell you that my Top Three have been set in stone for at last ten years, but the back two switched in and out a half dozen times before I just settled with the final result.  It really does pain me not to include Johnny Guitar, but I finally let it slide due to a lack of viewings.  However, give me a few years and 5 more rewatches, and I'm betting Johnny Guitar will fall into the number 3 or even 2 slot.  As it stands today, these are my true loves.

5.  The Proposition:  A revisionist Western (gah, it seems like all Westerns are revisionist Westerns!) set in the Australian Outback, The Proposition begins when one brother (Guy Pearce) is captured by the British government, and charged with the assassination of his eldest brother (Danny Huston).  If he refuses, the youngest Burns Brother (Richard Wilson) will be executed for the crimes he perpetrated under their demonic tutelage.  The Proposition has to be one of the angriest and meanest movies I've ever experienced.  It is absolutely unrelenting in its pessimism and critique of westward expansion (or in this case, Global expansion).  Danny Huston might as well be Satan himself, a murderous rapist so uncompromisingly vile that the audience forgives Pearce's obvious scumbag mantle.  The Duke does not ride to the rescue of the damsel.  There is only misery here.  But it's a hell of a heart-thumper, a real deal horror film minus the spooks and goblins.

4.  The Professionals:  Here is your classic adventure film.  A Texas millionaire (Ralph Bellamy) hires four tough men to venture down into Mexico to retrieve his young bride from a villainous bandit king (Jack Palance).  As is the case with most Westerns, the rich = bad men and the poor = brave revolutionaries.  Our heroes are the Man's Mans of yesteryear, real tough dudes that just don't appear in Hollywood these days.  Lee Marvin is the military might, a born leader of men aching to fight the good fight.  Burt Lancaster is his scalawag buddy, he cares less about the cause and more about the reward.  Woody Strode is the halfbreed Apache scout, a mean hombre with a bow & arrow.  Robert Ryan is the horse wrangler, and the man who struggles the most with the morality of their mission.  Directed by Richard Brooks, The Professionals very much has that Dirty Dozen vibe, but its smaller cast allows for Lancaster & Marvin to charm their way into your heart as they dismiss gold for glory.  Honor over wealth, the stuff of Legend.

3.  Once Upon A Time In The West:  Clint Eastwood's Dollars Trilogy was simply Sergio Leone practicing for this film.  As epic as anything seen in The Lord of the Rings or Lawrence of Arabia, Once Upon A Time In The West is an attempt to cram in every genre convention from railroad expansion to mysterious strangers, from saloon brawls to sunset sayonaras.  This is kitchen sink cinema at its finest.  Henry Fonda is a profit killer - men, women, children, whatever - but he's too cocky to be unstoppable.  Charles Bronson is Harmonica, the drifter who stumbles into town with an obvious agenda for death.  Claudio Cardinale is the hooker with the heart of gold, a woman who falls into the gunsights of American Rail.  And Jason Robards is the bandit with delusions of domesticity.  Over the course of three hours these four characters butt heads and get their Spaghetti Western extreme closeups.  Ultra melodrama done right.  

2:  Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid:  It's impossible to watch this film and not also witness the breaking of Sam Peckinpah's heart.  This is the end for the director.  He would have a couple of films after this one (even one great one), but Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid is his last hurrah in the genre he reinvented.  Couple that with the already emotionally devastating plot, and you have one of the most sombre films ever produced.  Kris Kristofferson is The Kid, the last of a dying breed.  The railroad has connected America, the Wild West is forever gone.  James Coburn is Sheriff Garrett, a former outlaw who knows when the show's over and takes the Government's money in exchange for his best friends capture.  Both men are trapped by destiny, or at least their perceptions of it.  During the last moments of the film you can sense Peckinpah's unwillingness to adhere to history (his tiny undertaker cameo is the silent scream), and I sometimes fantasize for his Inglourious Basterds revision.  Alas, death is there.

1.  Unforgiven:  For me, and a lot of people, Clint Eastwood is the Western.  The Good The Bad and The Ugly, The Outlaw Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter.  How can you pick one above the other?  Well, personal nostalgia gets part of the credit for this film's placement at numero uno; Unforgiven was the first Western I ever saw in the theater.  At the time, I remember thinking the film was a little boring and my Dad was verbally abusive towards it upon exiting the theater.  However, when I rediscovered the picture in college, after having consumed everything by Sergio Leone and John Ford, I deeply responded to the climactic switcheroo.  For nearly all it's runtime, you are on Clint Eastwood's side.  He's an old widowed gunfighter who picks up a bounty to put supper on his children's table.  But the killings he commits along the way reawaken the bad man inside.  He's not the noble High Noon white hat of the 1950s.  He's William Munny, the killer of women and children.  He's damned.  And he knows it.

--Brad

Two Fistfuls of Oscars! (Brad's Picks)

Tomorrow's the big night, and I find myself really excited for the main event.  Why is that?  It probably has to do with the fact that this is the first year I've seen the most nominated films (just missing a few technical awards, one documentary feature, and most of the shorts).  And as stated in my Predictions & Desires, the 2013 Best Picture race is one of the strongest - these are some solid flicks, only a couple I really have no mind for (Les Miserables & Life of Pi) and even those flicks are not the bottom of the barrel.  I've seen worst films take home the bald gold guy -- see my Top Five least favorite Best Picture winners just below, but just when I start crying in my beer I find some hope in my Top Five favorite Best Picture winners cuz even an awards ceremony as incestuous and pretentious as The Academy Awards gets in right every once in while.

5.  The Greatest Show On Earth:  This is not a terrible film.  It's just long winded, lifeless, and empty.  This represents that era in filmmaking when if you made it long enough and packed enough stars into the frame than you had a hit on your hands.  Great gobby melodrama centering around Charlton Heston's circus manager, his trapeze artist girlfriend, and escaped convict Jimmy Stewart as Buttons the Clown - in what has to be one of his most annoying performances.  Cecil B DeMille pads the movie with endless tent raising sequences that are pornographic in their circus people enthusiasm.  Only die hard fans of Heston or Stewart need apply.

4.  Rain Man:  Another not terrible movie, but Rain Man paved the way for sentimental tripe like Driving Miss Daisy and Forrest Gump.  Tom Cruise definitely excels at playing the douche bag brother of autistic method man Dustin Hoffman, but his smiley jerkhole transformation into the kind hearted lover of Valeria Golino is eye-rollingly saccharine.  A supposed message movie?  Yeah, don't think so.

3.  Titanic:  Now here is a movie I hate.  In 1996 James Cameron was the king of genre fanboys.  The man was responsible for the brutal time travel violence of The Terminator, two of the greatest science fiction sequels (Aliens & T2), Arnold Schwarzenegger's last badass film (True Lies), and the Michael Crichtonesque CGI wizardry of The Abyss.  And I was one of his blind followers.  But by the end of 1997 the Emperor was revealed to have no clothes.  And I was lost.  Titanic might have captured the passions of teenage girls everywhere, and confused a couple of critics, but hindsight has certainly been unkind to this epic pile of Teen Beat blather.  Two appalling poor boy stereotypes con their way onto the doomed cruiser and before they meet their watery demise, the pretty kid falls madly in love with the painfully cliche snooty girl.  It's all just biding time until Cameron's magicians unleash holy hell upon the damned and the audience is granted nearly an hour of beautiful devastation...and Billy Zane stumbling about firing his limp pistol.  But somehow James Cameron would fool us all again with Avatar, but at least that Fern Gully abortion never took home Oscar.

2.  Chicago:  I don't really have much to say on this one.  I just don't get it.  Sure, musicals have never been my thing (unless we're talking The Blues Brothers), but even in 2002 when cinema seemed to be at its most bleak, there were far superior films compared to this shallow glitz.  About Schmidt.  The Quiet American.  Adaptation.  Swimfan....uh...  The only reason I can think that this took home Best Picture is because Academy voters were saddened by the previous year's failing to award Moulin Rouge - another film I don't quite get, but recognize as a far greater achievement in originality than this bland broadway adaptation.  And Richard Gere?  You must never sing again.  You too Catherine Zeta Jones.  And let's just gag Renee Zellweger while we're at it.

1.  Crash:  When I think Oscar bait, I think Crash.  A film manipulated with both literal and metaphorical crashes of humanity.  Whites.  Blacks.  Latinos.  Rich.  Poor.  All racist.  And when forced to interact with each other they must face the best and worst of themselves.  Just gross writing.  In a year that also saw nominations for Capote, Goodnight & Good Luck, Munich, and Brokeback Mountain the win for Crash was a slap in the face of good taste.  A heinous, condescending picture populated with struggling stars of yesteryear.  This win in 2005 pretty much cemented my contempt for award shows, and I stayed away from the Oscars till 2011 - the year Matt & I started this blog.

So yeah, that's the suck of Oscar.  But when you look at the previous 84 films labeled Best Picture, the majority of them are damn fine movies.  Sure, maybe not the best films of their chosen years, but most of them are not Crash.  Most of them are Out of Africa, perfectly crafted dramas worthy of attention and some of them are Lawrence of Arabia, genuine masterpieces.  Warning:  Lawrence of Arabia does not appear in my Top Five Best Picture winners, it's genius, but it's also not my personal favorite David Lean film.

5.  The Godfather:  What can I possibly add to the Godfather lovefest?  It's a brilliant picture.  Obviously.  And it's melodrama, like Titanic.  Only expertly written and brimming with traumatic surprises inflicted upon it's characters.  Some pick the sequel over the original, but for my money, the first film is just a cleaner, crisper fall from grace.  Al Pacino was never better and would never be better than he was as Michael Corleone, the youngest son desperately trying to stay free from the family business and eventually succumbing to a world of violence.

4.  The French Connection:  Gene Hackman is a bastard.  His pitbull detective nearly destroys everything and everyone around him as he chases the trail of a narcotic ring, his victory seeming meaningless next to the hunt.  It's an extremely pessimistic tale, but quintessential of 70s filmmaking and it represents an attitude sorely missed in contemporary Hollywood.  Although, fingers crossed, mean movies will retake their hold on American audiences.

3.  The Bridge on the River Kwai:  Like the age old battle between Beatles & Stones fans, you're either a Lawrence of Arabia guy or a River Kwai man.  Obviously, I appreciate the necessary destruction of pride and the jungle horrors of Japanese death camps.  William Holden is the definition of dogged determination as the escaped GI willing & ready to lead a commando deathsquad back into the horrors of Thailand.  But it's Alec Guinness' stubborn S.O.B. officer that steals the show, and I'm always struck by his righteous realization in the last few moments.  This is pain.  This is regret.  This is madness.

2.  Casablanca:  I saw Casablanca late in life.  About six years ago.  Due to its "classic" status I had always avoided the film as not possibly living up to its reputation.  I was wrong.  Casablanca is a classic for a reason.  It's a love story.  But not really.  It's a love-long-gone story.  And as such it's all about loss.  Humphrey Bogart manages to ooze anger and anguish while still looking badass in a white suit.  Claude Raines is the ultimate lackey.  And when I think Nazi I now see Conrad Veidt instead of the palm scarred Toht.   It might have spawned a dozen catchphrases, but Casablanca earns every soundbite sting.

1.  Unforgiven:  I'm not sure if Unforgiven was the first Western I ever saw, but it most certainly was the first Western I remember seeing.  I was 13 at the time.  The perfect age.  Not only does it cast off John Wayne types, but it goes for the throat on characters that Eastwood himself had portrayed - Josey Wales, The Man With No Name - these are murders, not heroes.  Unforgiven reminds us of this fact; it's a film disgusted with violence and violent characters.  It tricks you into sympathizing with a killer and pulls the rug out from you in its final saloon shootout.  Just as Reservoir Dogs sent this budding film fan into VHS stores to collect Hong Kong actioners, Unforgiven sent me diving into Howard Hawkes and Sergio Leone.  For that alone, it will remain a personal treasure.

--Brad

Two Fistfuls Of Favorites! (Brad's Picks)

Where Matt might not have been a List Guy until I forced him to put his favorite films together, I've always obsessed over what films are better than the other.  What are the best horror films?  What are the best crocodile movies?  What's the best use of a cigarette in cinema?  (Answer, Dan Aykroyd's butt in Ghostbusters).  When I was a kid my favorite movie was The Empire Strikes Back.  And then for a little while it was Predator.  The Top Ten I have now has not changed much in the last ten years or so.  But recently, after seeing a couple of these flicks on the big screen at AFI Silver and E Street Cinema, I've had to do quite a bit of rearranging.

10.  Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979):  Late last year I finally rewatched the Alien saga on blu ray (thanks to the Wife and her Egg purchase) and I came away thinking that 1) Ridley Scott's Alien is the scariest damn slasher movie ever made and 2) the reason this film kicks so much unholy ass is the crew of The Nostromo.  These Space Truckers are real.  They know each other.  They love each other.  They hate each other.  And they are gonna get home once they get their credit.  Too bad about that whole HR Giger beastie stalking about the gothic corridors.

9.  Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957):  Never has a film been filled with so much rank and hate and it's both hilarious and terrifying.  Burt Lancaster is a monster as JJ and Tony Curtis is the best little weasel...poor sucker.  There really isn't a nice character in the movie and that's what is so damn wonderful about the whole experience.  If you haven't picked up the Criterion Blu from last year than do yourself a favor and bask in its horror.

8.  The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (W.D. Richter, 1984):  Peter Weller as Buckaroo Banzai is the coolest, most badass Rock 'n' Roll Scientist on the planet.  Thank God we have him on our side to battle John Whorfin's red aliens freed from The 8the Dimension.  And like the crew of the Nostromo, his Regulators are a bunch of cool cats you need to party with.

7.  Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967):  Lee Marvin's Walker wants one thing, his money.  Do not get in his way.  If you're his wife, forget it.  If you're his lover, forget it.  If you're revenge, forget it.  Just give him his money.  And John Boorman directs the Hell outta Richard Stark's The Hunter splashing his insanity all over the script in bright psychedelic colors.

6.  Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan (Nicholas Meyer, 1982):  I don't even know what to say.  I love Star Trek.  I love Shatner.  And I love them so much I can't even talk about them with the slightest bit of rationality.  Wrath of Khan is the ultimate statement on these characters, it's a great reverse revenge film and, the ending...no matter how much the later film's negate its greatness, still packs a heavy emotional wallop.  "I feel young." I can cry just thinking about Kirk looking at the Genesis planet.

5.  Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975):  The First A Budget B Movie Summer Blockbuster and it rocked (destroyed?) cinema.  But it's a damn fine time out at the movies.  However, for all its creepy John Williams score and Hitchcockian shark attacks, Jaws is all about the relationship between Scheider, Dreyfuss, and Shaw--singing "Show Me The Way To Go Home/I'm Tired And I Want To Go To Bed." Plus, it doesn't get much better than Shaw's monologue on the USS Indianapolis.

4.  Miller's Crossing (The Coen Brothers, 1990):  I love the Coen Brothers.  And I love their pornographic lusting for gangster lingo.  What's it all mean?  Something about a hat.  Sure, okay.  Gabrielle Byrne is a cold mutha, and really just loves Albert Finney more than his moll.  He'd go to war with anybody and everybody to keep Leo on top.

3.  The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982):  Put simply, the greatest monster movie ever made.  Everything works.  The cast.  The direction.  The effects.  The Score.  The climax.  I could watch this movie every month for the rest of my life and never get bored...okay, that might be hyperbole but I watch it at least four times a year.

2.  An American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981):  Beware The Moors.  John Landis' love letter to the hirsute Universal Monster is darn funny...but it's mostly scary and sad.  Honestly, it doesn't get more tragic than the relationship between David & Nurse Price (va va va voom, Jenny Agutter...excuse the Tex Avery wolf tongue) and even though I chuckle throughout at the naked American man stealing balloons and Griffin Dunne's zombie I finish the film feeling pretty damn melancholic.

1.  Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992):  Is there a better Western?  Sure.  Is there a better Clint Eastwood Western?  Maybe.  But this was the first Western I ever saw in the theater and it was one of the first "Grown Up" movies to rock my tiny 13 year old mind.  Eastwood is just a good guy who was once bad...uh, no.  He's a horrible human being hiding from his nature and Unforgiven takes two hours to reawaken the beast within.  An amazing bit of scripting from Blade Runner's David Webb Peoples and Clint Eastwood has never been better as director, even though he keeps trying.  Oh, and Gene Hackman at his monstery best.

--Brad