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Reviews
3 pistole contro Cesare (1967)
This spaghetti western is just a bit too gimmicky and goofy.
The bad guy is named Julius Caesar Fuller, wears togas, stocks his palace bath with concubines, and commands dozens of henchmen clad in black. A lost episode of the Batman TV show? No, a bizarre spaghetti western. One of our three heroes is American, carries an array of trick guns, and never misses a shot. The second is Japanese and practices kung fu. The third is French and has magical magnetic powers. The three discover soon that they are half-brothers. If you're a spaghetti western completist, it's good for a hoot. Otherwise, you probably shouldn't bother.
Il grande silenzio (1968)
Sergio Corbucci's spaghetti western masterpiece
Like Corbucci's mudbound gem "Django", the snowbound "The Great Silence" is an imaginative spaghetti western *not* set in a dusty desert. The film's greatest asset is its gorgeous scenery and cinematography, which are so outstanding as to make it hard to go back to watching run-of-the-mill Eurowesterns. Jean-Louis Trintignant is brilliant as the virtuous title character, a mute gunfighter who only shoots in self-defense (but who is not above provoking an enemy to draw first). Klaus Kinski, in a co-starring role for once (unlike the dozens of spaghettis where he mailed in a five-minute cameo), is very good as the antagonist. The implied political message may or not be to everyone's taste, but it is at least thought-provoking. I would rank this above "Django" and "Navajo Joe" as Corbucci's most fully realized western, and among the five best spaghetti westerns ever.
Navajo Joe (1966)
One of the great spaghetti westerns
As in Django, Corbucci has here created a memorable loner anti-hero who dispenses his own brand of justice. Great job by Burt Reynolds as Navajo Joe; great soundtrack by Morricone (recently sampled as the "shock music" in the movie Election).
The Iron Giant (1999)
Touching story of a boy and his giant outer-space robot
Yes, the boy-and-giant-robot theme has been done before (Gigantor, aka Tetsujin 28), but here the plot is new and well-constructed. It even has a message or two. It's pitched to the younger set, but adults will enjoy the cold war jokes (the film is set around 1960). Good characters, especially the robot; a very good mix of laughs, pathos, and explosions. The animation is Disney-like, blending in computerized effects seamlessly. The mix of art styles is interesting: the giant robot is art deco; one character (Dean the beatnik scrap dealer) looks like he came from Eightball; the rest look like they came from The Little Mermaid.
Django (1966)
Everything you could want in a spaghetti western
Django has everything you could want in a spaghetti western (a genre it helped define): atmosphere, absurdity, and gratuitous violence. The unshaven anti-hero, who enters dragging along a small coffin, is a man of few words and fewer clear motives. Ditto the beautiful female lead. One flaw: the mystery of what's in his coffin is revealed in a climactic scene about 3/5 through the film, leaving the last 2/5 somewhat anti-climactic.