Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)
Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) – Sergio Corbucci’s Django is one of the classics of the spaghetti western genre. It’s been hailed for its style and brutality and its enigmatic main character. More than thirty unofficial sequels and spin-offs and homages have been made to it. I have seen next to none of them, but I … Continue reading
Django (1966)
Django (1966) – The American West. It’s been endlessly romanticized in film, with the likes of John Wayne and Gary Cooper showing us how men should act. It’s American as apple pie. Truthfully, the legend of the Old West like so many other parts of American history was written in blood. The Italians (perhaps being … Continue reading
Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
Cowboys & Aliens (2011) – It has cowboys… fighting aliens… and James Bond and Han Solo are in it. What more do you need to know? Well, it’s not quite as awesome as all that. It is still an entertaining movie but it’s not the early-George-Lucas-style classic we all hoped it can be. Nor does … Continue reading
True Grit (2010)
True Grit (2010) — Well it doesn’t happen often that a remake is better than the original film (though with The Maltese Falcon, The Wizard of Oz, & The Thing it is not unprecedented) but here we have it. That doesn’t diminish my love for Henry Hathaway’s film featuring the always-iconic John Wayne, but as … Continue reading
True Grit (1969)
True Grit (1969) — So this is the movie that won John Wayne an Academy Award for Best Actor. There’s a pretty widely-accepted belief that it was a “career Oscar” given more for his iconic body of work rather than the merits of the specific performance (see also Al Pacino). That may be the case … Continue reading
The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008)
The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008) — The Good, the Bad, the Weird, as the title might imply, is a pretty strong homage to Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Both films are about three men pursuing the same goal (buried treasure). But South Korean director Kim Ji-woon’s movie has its … Continue reading
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
3:10 to Yuma (2007) — My half-assed James Mangold film festival wraps up with the best film of his I’ve yet seen: 3:10 to Yuma. The film tries to find a sort of balance between John Ford and Sergio Leone. The nobility of characters in the Old West of Ford’s films is there but so … Continue reading
The Proposition (2005)
The Proposition (2005) — So I recently finished reading The Road and read that John Hillcoat directed the forthcoming film adaptation so I therefore opted to revisit Hillcoat’s previous film, which I saw a couple years ago and purchased on Blu Ray a few months ago (at a very reasonable price, as far as Blu … Continue reading
Persistence of Vision 