Movie #284 The Magnificent Seven *1960*

Steve McQueen
Yul Brynner
Charles Bronson
Robert Vaughn
Eli Wallach
and James Coburn throwing knives.
What else do I need to say?

The Magnificent Seven is one of my all time favorite westerns.  Steve McQueen is my 2nd favorite all time man crush (2nd only to Saint Paul Newman).  The movie was based on the Japanese film Seven Samurai.  In these films a group of guns (swords) for hire are bought at a discounted price to help protect a farming village from the bandits.  In time they sympathize with the farmers and learn something about themselves in the mean time.  The farmers sell them out when the going gets tough, but they stick with the farmers, and their guns for the greater good.

It is a classic story that has been told a dozens times.  Including Pixar's A Bug's Life is basically the same story.  Of course Seven Samurai is one of the greatest movies ever made, so it is hard to compare the two.  But even having said that I think The Magnificent Seven stands its own ground.

This movie also has one of the most recognizable theme songs in it.  Google the trailer and I am sure you will be humming it all day.  I give The Magnificent Seven ★★★★1/2.

Movie #258 A Fist Full of Dollars *1964*

Prepare yourself for a shocking post.  I have never seen any of the Sergio Leone / Clint Eastwood spaghetti western films.  That is to say that I have never seen any all the way through or never seen them with a critical eye.  Surprised?  I feel like I know almost everything about them.  They are as ingrained in the American psyche as the Hula Hoop.  They are immediate and easy icons in an industry that struggles so diligently to create icons. 

First off you notice the legendary score from Ennio Morricone.  This score has been borrowed, sampled and flat out stolen hundreds of times for different films and other forms of media.  Then you see Eastwood in silhouette.  Tall and thin.  He is as gruff as they come.  Refereed to mainly as "The American" Eastwood in this film is the only competition John Wayne has for the iconic looking American cowboy.  From this point on the film deals with Eastwood as a stranger to a town of dueling families.  Neither with much of a morale compass.  Eastwood begins playing one family against the other in an attempt to loot both groups of their cash.  In doing so he does make money, but at the cost of a lot of people.

This is a retelling of a Kurosawa film called Yojimbo.  Second revel, I have never seen that movie!  There is only so much time in a day to watch movies.


My third and final confessional...I didn't love this movie.  If you were placing money on weather I would like a western based on a Kurosawa film, I would say that it would be a pretty safe bet.  However I am a fan of creative camera work and complex storytelling.  This film didn't strive for this.  There are a few set up's that drew my attention, but for the most part I found the camera work very utilitarian.  And the script was mostly straight forward.  The only twist in the film I felt was somewhat unearned.  I understand that the stranger isn't supposed to "make friends", but the lack of relationship between the characters caused me not to full understand the motives of those characters.  Maybe that is the point, but I found it distracting.

Woody Allen might enjoy this review.  His current film is all about the dangers of nostalgia.  The music and Eastwood's character will be in the popular lexicon most likely forever.  But I don't fully understand why.  I have seen far better Westerns in the same vein.

I give A Fist Full of Dollars ★★★1/2.

Movie #197 Django *1966*

Franco Nero - Django
Sergio Corbucci (Director)

Big news this week!  Quintin Tarantino announced his next movie.  He has written and is in the process of casting a Spaghetti Western called Django Unchained.  From the reports I have read it is going to be another masterpiece.  This film is set to star Franco Nero and Christoph Waltz.  I of course can't wait!

That movie is most likely going to take heavy influence from this western.  Django is about a drifter who was a former fighter from the north in the Civil War.  This stranger totes around a mysterious coffin behind him through all sorts of grime and muck.  Django stumbles across a hooker being beaten and fights off her offenders without ever even lifting the brim of his over sized hat.  He and she then make their way back to town to find that the only business is a house of ill repute.  The same one the woman worked at before she ran off.

Django finds himself in the middle of a war between the white Col. and the Mexican General.  With a vested interest in both sides losing Django plays both sides against one another in an attempt to get the better of both of them.

This movie follows the tradition of the westerns made by Italian directors.  It is shockingly brutal in its portrayal of violence and it's views on feminism.  Apparently this movie was banned in several countries for it's content.  I didn't find it to be all that gory.  Maybe I am just jaded, but I see worse than this quite a bit now.  The most visceral of the scenes is where a man's ear is cut off and fed to him.  A scene that QT would "borrow" for his film Reservoir Dogs. 

Many of this films scenes and themes would be borrowed for years to come.  Robert Rodriguez would almost focus the main character of El Mariachi after Django.  This film has a cult following and is shown in repertory  theaters all over the country if you can find one.  This movie also has one of either the greatest escapes in movie history, or one of the stupidest.  I'm not sure.

One part that I loved was the opening and closing theme music.  It sounded like a bad Elvis impersonator.  I also like it that Nero played what could have been a really campy role totally straight.  And that is why I think this film has such a following.  His performance should be ranked among some of films most bad ass.  I give Django ★★★.