Year: 1965
Directed By: Sergio Leone
Written By: Sergio Leone, Fulvio Morsella, and Luciano Vincenzoni
RYAN’S REVIEW
Coming out right off the heals of its predecessor, A Fistful of Dollars, this movie was everything a good sequel should be. More of the same but better. This movie has more gun slinging, more at stake, and more Eastwood. As I continue this effort in realizing what I have been missing in all the years I avoided these movies I see more and more how foolish I was to wait so long.
I was confused as first because the villain, El Indio, is played by the same actor who played the villain in the first film, Gian Maria Volonte. Although I can’t argue with the decision to cast him again because the guy made such a great bad guy the first time around. I thought the addition of another bounty hunter in Lee Van Cleef was a good one but he took too much screen time from Eastwood. Eastwood didn’t get to be the ultimate hero in this movie but he is the guy that rides off into the sunset, with all the bounties and he grabs the extra loot out of the tree on his way out.
In haste to finish out this trilogy I’m going to wrap up this review as a simple one. I may have liked AFistful of Dollars a little bit more but I liked this one enough. In my opinion the best sequels are the ones that build on their story and get bigger. This movie did a great job at that and I look forward to seeing the next one. I have never been a fan of westerns so take my word for it when I tell you that this one is worth your time and you won’t be disappointed by it.
Year: 1964
Directed By: Sergio Leone
Written By: Several people are credited with both story and screenplay
RYAN’S REVIEW
Having just seen this movie for the first time in my life I’m ashamed to have had such a high opinion of myself as a movie fan. How is it that I see nearly everything for my entire life and make it 30 years without seeing this? I have always been aware of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western trilogy but never took the time to sit down with it. I have never been a big fan of westerns and I never really took to Clint Eastwood when I was younger. What a fool I was. Having seen this movie for the first time I now have a whole new perspective on all the movies that followed. This is an incredible movie, Clint Eastwood was a certifiable badass, and it set the bar high for the movies that would follow suit.
I have mentioned before that I was a late comer to appreciating Clint Eastwood. I grew up watching men like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone play the part of the hero and I never understood what people was in Eastwood. It was lost on me in my youth how this skinny man, who old even when I was young, was perceived as a badass. When I got older I remember watching Dirty Harry with inexplicable preconceived notions about Eastwood and not being impressed. It wasn’t until 2008 when I saw Gran Torino that I understood what everyone else already knew about. Older old man Eastwood was intimidating as hell in that movie and I grew a new appreciation for him. It lead me to decide that I would eventually watch his “Man with No Name” trilogy and I have finally gotten around to starting it. One thing I want to make clear, now I understand.
I understand now why everyone saw something in Eastwood that I did not. It all started here, 20 years before I was even born, back in 1964 when he and Sergio Leone started a three year journey together. This movie not only opens my eyes to what I was missing in Eastwood but it gives a whole new perspective for me to all the action movies that followed. How Eastwood’s drifter strolls into town and starts playing two sides against one another was awesome. It’s the type of idea and the kind of film that influenced everything that followed.
I have never been much of a western fan and probably never will be, but I admire what is awesome. This movie is really awesome and I hope I can encourage others to check out what I somehow missed for 30 years. I look forward to watching the next two installments of this trilogy. Thoughts will follow with each film.
Year: 1994
Directed By: Richard Donner
Written By: Roy Huggins (TV series the movie was based on) William Goldman (screenplay)
RYAN’S REVIEW
When I sat down to watch this movie for review I already had many thoughts about what I would write. Things along the lines of “really fun movie but not to be taken seriously” or something like that. However having finished it now I find myself wondering why we ever owned this movie to begin with. Yes it’s a fun movie to a degree but more of a product of its time than anything else. I don’t think this movie really has any lasting power and on top of that it is about 30-45 minutes way too long. This movie is light-hearted and fun but jumps between something silly and something serious far too often. I found the experience of watching it again to be painfully boring at times and I doubt I’ll watch the movie again for a long, long time, if ever at all.
It probably comes as a surprise to any younger person out there but there was a time when Mel Gibson was the darling actor of this country. In the 1990s, and for a while after, the man could seemingly do no wrong. America has always loved Australian actors and before the days of Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, and the like Mel Gibson was that guy. He had inspired us all with his “brave heart,” stole the heart of our famous Native American with his voice (despite how wrought with inaccuracy that Disney film was), and he….”knew what women wanted.” In truth, his popularity at the time is specifically why we own this movie and why I enjoyed it so much when it came out. The mere fact that this movie was so successful is specifically because everyone loved Mel Gibson. The movie brought in over 100 million in the US box office and that was nothing to sneeze at in 1994. That’s crazy, trust me. You might remember this movie fondly, just as I did, but this is no longer the era of “Mel Gibson is the greatest” and it really isn’t that good of a movie. It’s cool to see Mel Gibson and Richard Donner reunite for something fun and the moment between Gibson and Danny Glover during the bank robbery is quite funny. However that doesn’t make it a good film and as much as I liked this movie when it came out I still found it unbearable to watch this time around.
This film is specifically one of my favorite roles from Jodie Foster. Foster has had a terrific career and has made many notable films but in this film I just thought she was smoking hot as the southern belle. I am not saying this is her best movie, it does not even come close. Speaking in purely acting terms this movie isn’t even on the list of her best parts, but I just thought she was so good-looking in this movie. To think that she made this film the same year she made Nellis crazy because the exact opposite can be said about how she looked in that film. I am not really a Jodie Foster fan but she is such a fascinating person. She recently officially came out as a lesbian and I think I may have been the only person surprised by that news because everybody else seemed to already know. When I think of Jodie Foster I always instinctively think of John Hinckley Jr. How insane it must have been to be her after that man shot the President. For those who don’t know Hinckley was a crazy man who was in love with Jodie Foster and for some reason thought shooting Ronald Reagan would gain him the attention he wanted from her. Seriously crazy guy that she had absolutely nothing to do with but still that realization must have affected her in some way or another.
The coolest thing about this movie, aside from the moment between Gibson and Glover, is that James Garner was cast in a significant part. The film was based on the television show by the same name from the late 50s in which Garner starred as Bret Maverick. I have never seen an episode of the show and don’t know how it correlates with the movie but having the original star involved gives it a certain level of credibility. Beyond that I think there is little to say about this film. It’s way too long at 2 hours and seven minutes. After the big card game the film specifically drags out too far in an effort to set up a sequel that ultimately never happened. As I said in my intro the tone of this film is all wrong as well. It seems lighthearted and silly throughout most of the film but occasionally people are killed and it gets real. It’s always confusing to “get real” during this type of film and I think it sullies the whole thing. Granted it is only the bad guy and his associates that are killed but still, you can’t be silly when you are killing people even if they are the bad guys.
Having said all of that I don’t think this movie is worth your time and I wouldn’t bother seeing it if I were you. It can be fun with all the card playing and the parts that are humorous but it’s not worth the time it takes to watch it. This movie could have been cut by at least 45 minutes and been better. It was all good in the Mel Gibson hey day but that day is over and now it has little to offer. It does not even belong in our collection and I only took the time to actually review it because otherwise the time I spent watching it again would have been a complete waste.
AMBER’S REVIEW
I was not interested in this movie. I didn’t even know we owned it. Mel Gibson is not my favorite nor Ryan’s so I still don’t really get why we own this movie. I paid attention, somewhat to the movie, but I didn’t really like the plot, or the actors roles in the movie. Having said that, I really didn’t pay that close attention to it, so what I say isn’t really fair. It had a hard time capturing and keeping my attention.
There is just so much going on this poster. It has no focal point whatsoever. There is a background that fades into the skyline of the mountains? The are posed like they are in a photo featured on awkward family photos. They too are faded at the bottom into a mountain scene. There is nothing really good about the typography of the title. I don’t even want to give this one any more time. The poster does for me about what the movie does and that’s not much.
We finally made it out to see this film yesterday. I had been anticipating the film for some time and went in with really high hopes. I can thankfully report that I walked away more than satisfied and if I had the opportunity to do so would have turned around and went right back in to see it again. This movie was so satisfyingly violent and savage throughout and I couldn’t have loved that more about it. I think the script was clever and well written, probably one of the best Tarantino has written but that is hard to say. What surprised me the most is how funny it all was. His movies have always had an element of wit to them that could make you laugh but this one was all out funny. The humor seemed to balance out all of the obscenity and ferocity of the situation in my opinion.
I have heard much said about the controversial nature of the film both with how slavery is so brutally covered and how the “N-word” is so pervasive in the film. Why though? What so many have seen as offensive I have only seen as necessary to the film he was trying to make. I despise all racial slurs, and the people that make them but this was a movie set in 1858. That word was used then with a frequency that not even modern rappers could keep up with today. I don’t see a problem with how Tarantino used it, or how he didn’t make any effort to sugarcoat slavery. Slavery was awful and brutal in this country and there is no way to truly make a film about it without getting your hands dirty. I studied history in college and my senior seminar class was specifically about slavery. Slavery happened all over the world and every race was enslaved at one point or another. The difference here is that it developed in this new country as the rest of the world was giving up on an outdated practice. Not only that but the most significant difference in this country is how it became a specifically racial issue with one specific race being subjugated into the role of slave. It was awful and unfair but it was done and what is done is done and can’t be changed. All we can do now is to learn from it, prevent it from being that way now or in the future but that has never happened. There are too many conflicting feelings from people in regards to the topic. The memory of slavery invokes anger, disappointment, shame, rage, pity, and unfortunately there are always going to be those awful people out there that get satisfaction out of it. Most of the feelings invoked by that memory are understandable but still lead to deepening the divide among us all. As for the movie I will admit I don’t think it is entirely appropriate for a white man to be the one behind camera doing all of this, but I don’t think he did anything disrespectful or outlandish.
I think the cast of this film did an excellent job. I think Christoph Waltz may have been a bit better in Inglourious Basterdsbut only because his performance as Colonel Hans Landa was so good I don’t think it can be topped. I think he was great in this movie and I think he has so much to offer us in the future, he is an outstanding actor. I think Jamie Foxx was great in the lead role. Leonardo DiCaprio was awesome as the vile and violently unpredictable Calvin Candie. Samuel L. Jackson was really good, as always, but I really didn’t like the role that he played despite how well he did it. Walton Goggins fits these kinds of roles a bit too well but I am a big fan of his work on The Shield and Justified. There are great cameos from Jonah Hill, Don Johnson, Tom Savini, and probably a few others I am forgetting. The one awful decision Tarantino made in this film was inserting himself into it. I think he is a great filmmaker but leaves far too much to be desired as an actor. I liked his part in Reservoir Dogs but it should have ended there. I don’t know why he is still doing this but he shouldn’t. This time around he reaches far too much and goes for an Australian accent; I shook my head at that point. He had a perfect movie in the works progressing right before my eyes and he stumbled there for a moment.
I thought this movie was absolutely incredible and I can’t wait to buy it and watch it again down the road. I’ll say the only thing that I didn’t like about the movie was the experience we had watching it in the theater. The movie has been out for a while now but there was still a good crowd for the first showing on a Saturday afternoon. However the audience was so unique. It was practically a split between African-Americans and full blown rednecks garbed in overalls, hunting camo, and aggressive beards. That kind of division really gave off an awkward vibe that we may have felt more because we somehow ended up literally sitting on a row with differing groups sitting in the opposite rows before and after us. The Rednecks made me uncomfortable, specifically because I assume they took very different things from this movie than I did. Wrong to assume I know, but those people were more like the white people in the movie and that’s unfortunate. It will better to watch the movie in the privacy of my own home or with whoever I choose to watch it with.
If you are on the fence about this one I obviously strongly recommend it. However if you aren’t cool with violence in movies or profanity this is not the movie for you. To say the very least it is about ten steps past extremely graphic and it is not for the tender-hearted. The violence is part of what make this movie great though, and in so many ways it is practically Tarantino’s calling card. This movie is long as hell with a running time of 2 hours and 45 minutes but I can say with certainty that it is well worth that time.
The Movie Snobs 