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The Searchers (1956)
THE ORIGINAL STAR WARS SET IN MONUMENT VALLEY
As a lover of movies and especially Westerns I have seen The Searchers many times including on the big screen. Maybe a dozen times I've thrilled to it in different stages of my life. I watched it again last night and was floored by all the powerful unspoken adult themes throughout this masterpiece.
Why didn't Ethan come home after the Civil War ended? 3 years later he comes home loaded with gold. Maybe an outlaw scarred by the war? The tension with his brother and the beautiful scenes with Martha imply that Debbie may not be his niece but his daughter? The time line fits.
Did Ethan kill Lucy with his knife after finding her raped by Comanches? "Do you want me to spell it out for you?"
When the door closes on the family at the end is Ethan doomed to a life of searching for what he has lost due to the war? A home, a wife and kids?
Watch this again. Maybe twice in one sitting. It's brilliant.
The Max Steiner score is epic. The cinematography is breathtaking. Acting and directing off the charts. A dozen supporting characters shine. Definitely one of the greatest films ever made. No wonder George Lucas basically changed the setting from the West to Space keeping the characters unchanged. John Ford had already done all the work for him.
Dances with Wolves (1990)
BEAUTIFUL WESTERN ELEVATED TO MYTHIC STATURE
I watched this again last night after many years. My fourth time including opening night at a packed theater. This viewing was just as fulfilling. A great film that takes great pains for historical accuracy while simultaneously displaying many strong subplots. A love story. A coming of age of a disenchanted combat veteran. The inevitable march of Manifest Destiny and it's tragic results on almost childlike natives.
Filmed beautifully with a great score and thrilling action scenes I never consider it's three hour length as excessive. In fact I would gladly watch any ten part mini-series about the daily struggle of this proud group of Sioux in the 1860s.
A few things that used to bother me before I realized this is the American film western being presented as myth. The Civil War standoff scene where a Christlike Costner rides back and forth before Rebel sharpshooters without getting a scratch? Maybe the director was establishing that his destiny is to be gained without injury against incredible danger. A metaphor for Manifest Destiny?
The scene where the Sioux encircle the Pawnee Chief and simultaneously shoot without bullets hitting anyone on the other side of the circle? Shot from above maybe the circle represents the tribes unique interdependence that makes possible it's survival against nature and even mankind itself? Nobody on the other side of the circle is shot because of that metaphor?
Anyway you look at it a great movie and one of my favorite westerns.
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
KILLERS OF THE AUDIENCE BLADDERS
Much like the book this film has dozens of characters to keep straight which is hard. You really have to pay attention. But the book was about the very early days of the FBI and the heroic squeaky clean Agent White who unraveled this tragic disturbing true story. I was looking forward to this story but was given another angle on the tale.
Maybe because of Leonardo's $30 Million dollar payday the movie is about him and his uncle King Hale. Oh, and a few dozen Indian victims. Also added the Tulsa racial murders in case we had forgotten that white people are bad.
Great performances of course but what is wrong with this picture is it's extreme length of 3 1/2 hours. With coming attractions and commercials this was a 4 hour sitting without an intermission? Before the film officially ended without watching the credits seemingly the entire audience rushed to the rest room. The talk in the rest rooms and lobby was about the lack of an intermission and stressed bladders. No one was talking about the movie?
Sorry Marty. I think you missed an opportunity here at a great film about the FBI.
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
HORSE HOCKEY AT THE OK CORRAL
I remember thinking this was a bad film when I was ten years old. I watched it again last night because I've been revisiting Kirk Douglas. Spartacus, Paths of Glory, The Big Show, Lonely are the Brave, etc. A great great actor. He was excellent in this messy movie playing western anti-hero Doc Holiday.
But this historically inaccurate film has an unnecessary love story. (Why is Rhonda Fleming the only female in the film not required to wear Victorian clothing?) Why does she put on sexy clothes and go on lonely rides thru the countryside? A town to town travel plot is silly. Dennis Hopper AGAIN plays the troubled weasel son. Bad shot bad guys can't seem to hit men five feet away? Earl Holliman takes two bullets to the chest at point blank range but shows up next scene in a sling? And I know because the water was bad that people drank alcohol ... A LOT! But in this movie it's nonstop shot after shot after shot of whiskey? It just isn't realistic for a person living in the Southwest (maybe 100 degrees daily) in a full wool suit and hat to drink 30 shots of whiskey and engage in strenuous activity in the sun. It's laughable.
I wasn't expecting Shane or Liberty Valance but this movie is bad.
At the Drive-In (2017)
KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE
Wonderful documentary film about a group of nostalgic movie lovers that become a family while saving a local landmark. All of their hard work pays off in nonmonetary ways. They work for free and sleep in the snack bar but their sheer joy of film fandom and mom and pop small business theater nostalgia shines in this beautiful little documentary.
How hard it is to get films and keep the machinery working while fighting the weather is balanced by the sheer love of camaraderie of this motley crew of loveable misfits. It's a joy to watch it grow as the group adds some very colorful characters.
If I lived closer I would be a regular. Hell, I would work there! How lucky this community is to have this fantasy land survive.
The Long Ships (1964)
IMPROBABLE VIKING COMEDY WITH SWISS CHEESE PLOT
I saw this at eight years old and thought it was terrible. Hard to figure who it was aimed at? I guess the reality is that working actors maybe take on a film project for a vacation or a payday.
Vikings that don't look like Vikings. Stereotype rowdy feast complete with implied rapes and constant one slap knock outs and ceramics broken over heads. Modern hair styles. Three Stooges type harem raid is ridiculous. Don't bother subtracting dead Vikings from the crew of 50. They get killed over and over but are back in action the next scene.
The Moors have great costumes and horses that fall down constantly. I wonder how many broken legs and dead horses occurred? Sidney Poitier with bad dialect and a James Brown hair style is terrible in this mess.
Dozens of plot mistakes. A deadly maelstrom that you must go thru to get to the bell but can go around on return trip? A deserted super loud golden bell covered with concrete? Who is ringing it? How does the raft hold it up? How are all of these escapes possible? If the oars get broken how are they immediately restored? Why is the sail up during a storm? Did Richard Widmark really swim from Morocco to Norway?
They should have made the writers and the casting person ride the Mare of Really Sharp Swords thing!
Malaya (1949)
BIG STAR STUDIO WWll FILM NOIR MESS
After watching this because of the stars in the cast I thought it strange that it contains film noir elements in an early 1940s WWll propaganda movie. Then I see that it was made in 1949? So it's a B action studio film stocked with numerous stars? Maybe? I don't know.
Lot's of heroes and stereotype villains. Fist fights a plenty. Silly plot twists. Man the Japanese soldiers are stupid.
James Stewart seems miscast but I loved his scenes with John Hodiak. JS spends the whole movie bumming and lighting cigarettes that he doesn't smoke? At times he lights them and then puts them out? Constant making and pouring of coffee that isn't drank? The rest of the film he plays the abused actor victim of Spencer Tracy who does incredible tricks to steal every scene. During one JS monologue Tracy removes his neck tie with great difficulty! In another he belches! Tracy walks around while looking at the floor playing with things in his hands or scratching his face and ears. Very distracting. Hard for me to watch most Spencer Tracy films.
The large cast of misfits clown for the camera in typical 1940s fashion. Not quite a Bowery Boys movie but silly to watch. Unattractive bad girl plays prostitute with a heart. Why not have a pretty girl in this role?
In closing a good watch for a fan of Hollywood studio 1940s films but except for the big stars a waste of time.
Far and Away (1992)
IRISH STEREOTYPE NEVER ENDING SILLY MELODRAMA
Ron Howard's laughable historical soap opera starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman is filled with silly dialogue and never ending mini stories. The stars are acting hard but can't save this pooch.
Another love story between the pauper bad boy and the spirited little rich girl. Hollywood loves this basic plot (Wuthering Heights, Titanic, Gone With the Wind, etc) complete with the upper class boy friend that provides the adversary/villain. Starting in 1890s Ireland with bad sound and bad accents in between constant fist fights and guzzling of booze(What? No corned beef?) we learn of Nicole Kidman's dream of giving up the millionaires life style to be a dirt farmer in Oklahoma? Later we get to see her parents gain the same dream! They give up their massive Irish estate to get that 160 acres of American dust and dirt?
Never ending mini plots of revenge assassination, stalking, duels, boat trip to Boston, street scenes, brothels, factory work, boxing, exploitation, homeless in Winter, shootings, railroad work, going West, buying a horse (twice!), Oklahoma land rush, on and on.
The entire film is an over the top stereotype of everything it contains. Hard drinking emotional Irish who's first impulses are long brutal fist fights. We get to watch 140 pound Tom Cruise defeat a parade of 250 pounders because he can duck (!) and is able to take a dozen haymakers to the face and ribs with little effect. The Oklahoma land rush is silly too. Full gallop for TWENTY MILES while people are crushed by falling horses and tumbling wagons?
The sub plot of his Father having the ability to die then return to say something profound (The land Scarlet! The land!) then die again is really stupid. Then you get the pleasure of watching almost three hours of this slop to see it repeat with the son at the end? Haha. Ahh, the luck of the Irish. And I'm being kind.
Donovan's Reef (1963)
FIST FIGHTS IN AN UNFUNNY COMEDY
This John Ford comedy (?) has quite a cast that ham it up when the camera points their way but who's laughing? It's not funny. Silly plot with a silly love story kept moving by physical comedy like constant fist fights, throwing people off balconies and thru windows, and falling out of boats and back firing jeeps.
Beautiful music and incredible island scenery but they forgot to come up with a believable plot. It seems Jack Warden doesn't go home after the war to check on his wife and child. Instead he marries a hot Polynesian Princess and has three kids. One Polynesian. One Asian. And one 100% American Caucasian boy that loves baseball! Big problem in casting and the polygamy is accepted.
What a waste of the great Lee Marvin. His character pounds down massive amounts of booze in between throwing punches. Of course he makes faces too.
I get the feeling watching all these John Wayne movies again that John Ford and the Duke would gather up some drinking buddies and get paid to get hammered in beautiful locals with beautiful women. Just work on the story later.
The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959)
I WONDER WHAT SNOOP DOG WOULD DO?
1959 Science Fiction love triangle in beautiful black and white. I realize you have to just accept some things to enjoy the genre but where are all the dead bodies? It's never addressed.
In the 1950s Hollywood would put singers in movies to add box office. Then they would have them sing and dance. Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Debbie Reynolds. And now Harry Belafonte. Silly isn't it?
This new world contains a kind (black) man, a horney mean spirited killer white man (what else) and one beautiful dizzy blonde white woman. Who gets the goods? I don't know. After a silly gun battle by two really bad shots the (kinky?) threesome skip down the Yellow Brick Road! Interracially group sex in 1959 implied. Hot stuff back then.
After the first half hour the SciFi turns into dirty movie lite. Thank goodness Harry can sing.
Women Talking (2022)
NOMINATION FOR BEST PICTURE?
I was looking forward to a female version of "TWELVE ANGRY MEN" but got 104 minutes with my ex-wife. I stopped listening.
Based on a true story set in Bolivia I guess being set in the US in 2010 would draw comparison to the plight of the American woman? This film addresses lots of female issues. It contains new age themes that are anti male. Understandable due to the subject matter but the message is clear. Men are the enemy. They are holding women back and inherently evil. Girl power. Organize. March! Life without men! Hurray! Even a transgender character to give it a modern look.
Beautiful cinematography and score.
The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
SOMETIMES WORKING ACTORS NEED A PAYDAY
I really love movies. Sometimes I watch a terrible film just because it's really bad. Maybe I like an actor or director. This work of art fits into this silly pastime.
Full of big actors this film tells the story of a German plot to kidnap/kill Winston Churchill while on vacation (?) in a quaint little village (with a dozen inhabitants?) in Southern England. Led by good Nazi (?) Michael Caine the bad guys boat to England (?) unchallenged and dress up as Polish Allied soldiers with their full Nazi uniforms underneath (?). Their plot is discovered during another Nazi good deed (?) and the Americans come to the rescue (?). It seems that there aren't any British soldiers in Britain (?). Larry Hagman thinks it's a comedy. Treet Williams can't act.
Surrounded in a church the good Nazis discover an ancient secret door but only two decide to escape leaving the rest to die in a shootout? The Yanks don't notice Michael Caine walking out the back door or walking into Churchill's room to assassinate him. Good thing it's a body double! Probably why he was left unprotected with a team of Nazi killers on the loose?
Donald Sutherland plays a stereotype Irish rebel (Let's have a drink!) that prefers Nazis to Brits. He and a local girl fall madly in love at first sight? Duvall and Pleasance miscast as bad Nazis because there are very few real Germans in this film. British and American actors with bad accents play Nazis.
This really is a bad TV movie with a terrible implausible plot. The action is unbelievable. This is a really stupid movie. I hope everyone got paid.
Rio Bravo (1959)
STEREOTYPE B-MOVIE WESTERN
I love John Wayne. And Dean Martin. And Walter Brennan. And Howard Hawks. Sometimes you make art. Sometimes you make a payday. This film is a way too long silly exercise in boredom. It has the trait that most JW films have in silly improvised dialogue between characters. Leads to needless strange conversations that add nothing to the story.
The characters continually put themselves in dangerous situations so something can happen. How many walks through town do you need? Why put Dean Martin at the edge of town alone to disarm large groups of bad guys alone? Why have the Duke sleep at the unprotected hotel? They could wait it out in the jail but it's strange that the door has no lock. Just walk in anytime!
Angie Dickinson is hot but her character is silly and put there to add a little romance side story that is really bizarre.
Ricky Nelson was cast to sell tickets to teens but embarrassingly can't act.
John Wayne, Dean Martin, and Walter Brennan.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
MELENCHOLY MISSOURIAN MASTERPIECE
My people are from this part of the country. They survived the horrors of our Civil War and its terrible aftermath. Growing up in the early 1960s I spent a lot of time with older family members and remember the stories of hard times and harder lives. I heard stories of the James Gang exploits both good and bad. A few years ago an older Italian man I know was asked to respond to Godfather and Soprano movies. He said "You have no idea what life was like then. As a people we did what we had to do to survive." The narrator in this film states basically that Jesse James was the product of a guerrilla war that he believed had really never ended. All of these things occupied my mind for days after rewatching this amazingly disturbing riveting beautiful work of art.
I know that "THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD" was filmed mostly in Canada but this beautiful film has accurately captured EXACTLY the Missouri countryside of my youth. The muddy bleak farmland surrounded by wooded hills are spot on.
It also captures just how hard life was then. Can you imagine leaving a warm Winters bed to walk to an outhouse privy? Or traveling by horseback for 100 miles with no roads in the snow? Even bathing and cooking are realistically depicted.
Brad Pitt amazingly depicts a very disturbed Jesse James that is a loving family man and a depraved mass murdering paranoid criminal. Incredible. Pitt's best work ever.
Casey Affleck is equally superb as the troubled hero worshiping Bob Ford. A masterwork performance. Again incredible.
This is a long film but the intense drama and remarkable work by the supporting cast make it enjoyable.
This film is a great work of art that is a realistic historical study in human behavior while at the same time depicting the stark realities of daily life in the late 19th century.
The Green Berets (1968)
MISTER SULU QUIT STAR TREK FOR THIS CRAP?
Please don't let John Wayne direct again. I just sat through THE ALAMO and now this? Both stupid long with stereo type characters with needless side stories. I get the idea that the Duke would bring in old friends relatives and drinking buddies and have a "let's make a movie" party.
I love John Wayne. I've seen all of his movies. Most are really bad. You have to remember when they were made and never forget that it was a job he had to make money.
I saw this when it came out. I was 12. I remember then thinking isn't Vietnam in a tropical jungle? It looks like a fun scout camp.
I remember the political climate and the media blitz then. It took real balls to support our troops. Too bad it's such a bad movie.
The Omega Man (1971)
O (Mega) Man! Is this bad.
This movie is bad. Real bad. Bad story with bad acting. The dialogue is so bad it's laughable. But the music is TERRIBLE! It doesn't fit. Like one of those really bad 1970s TV shows with the hip dialogue and (not so) hip music. Did they pay a zombie $50 to throw this slop together? The zombies are playing one of those fake hippy cults in bad TV shows. What a waste of Heston.
Cool black people that play the cool black people stereotype. Really hip little kids playing their hip little parts. When the fake hip black lady says "Give me a prick" as CH is giving the fake hip black kid an injection I became overwhelmed with the strength of this monster of a mountain of crap. I really hated this bab bad film.
Mogambo (1953)
GRANDPA GABLE HUNTS SEX KITTENS IN AFRICA
Remake of RED DUST with Hall of Fame director John Ford. Great cast but Clark Gable is in his later years. He comes off as an old geezer chasing hot young chicks. I think that was possible and very real in the 1950s. Lucky guy. I think Grace Kelly gets paid for her looks again. Silly accent and poignant stares into the jungle. But Ava Gardner is smoking hot and makes a really stupid script enjoyable to watch. She steals the movie.
Film has Hollywood cliche Africa footage edited in for realism. Plot mistakes repeat with Ava Gardner's luggage reappearing when necessary. And why do beautiful women go for reflective walks in the African bush alone? Maybe so Gable can pick them up and carry them in his big strong arms. Just like in Gone With the Wind? And why are they wearing high heels? It's laughable. I'm glad the bugs, and snakes, and vermin took the filming off.
Interesting reads out there about bad boyfriend Sinatra on the set, Gable's bad breath, and Grace Kelly's active libido on a set with lots of booze around.
Big star love triangle in African setting. Hollwood fable. Watch it for Ava Gardner.
Yellow Sky (1948)
BEAUTIFUL B&W PHOTOGRAPHY IN A BAD WESTERN
Great director and big time cast must have cost a fortune to put together. Maybe that's why they ran with a bad script and awful plot mistakes. Characters jump from good to bad or from loyal friends to hateful murderers and back again. Bank robbery in the beginning is laughable. Half the gang is in the bar drinking. How silly to have them return the money at the end. Did Harry Morgan stand in a hole? I have never seen Apache's depicted as friendly compassioned people who are your friends? They even will work in your gold mine because they like you!
This movie must have thrilled little boys back then. Constant rape talk. Anne Baxter is hot! Mining gold in death valley while waiting for six men preparing to get it on. Really over the top for 1949.
The western cliche of people whose lives depend on gunplay shooting at each other for days but can't hit a stationary target from twenty feet away? I found myself counting the bullets. Weren't these six shooters? And why will a one inch plank of wood you're hiding behind stop a bullet?
This is a beautiful film to look at with a director and actors that you love but it really is a stupid horny mess.
Shooter (2007)
WAHLBERG GOOD! GOVERNMENT BAD!
Over the top action film with incredible special effects. Two hours of killing and mayhem without conscience. Only when you here the dog is gone is there any value put on life. All government on all levels are corrupt here? That's new.
Director Antoine Fuqua is very good at making action films. It looks like he spent a fortune shooting all over the globe.
Silly long scene where a third grade teacher becomes a skilled surgeon using grocery store goodies to save the hero who recovers in 48 hours to go on a killing rampage.
Levon Helm of the Band is surprisingly good here. If you want to watch hundreds of shootings here you go. I hope the sequel isn't called Stabber.
Licorice Pizza (2021)
Beautiful Journey Back to 1973
Mirror image of being a teenager (chronologically or mentally) in 1973 to my experience. I knew people like this just not in Hollywood. A kid growing up in the 1960s and 1970s grew up quick. Our parents knew nothing about what we were doing. We spent most of our time away from home learning how to navigate in dangerous situations and sometimes creepy adults. I knew kids that were great with making money and making financial decisions. I signed contracts for thousands of dollars before I could drive with adults because it made them money!
Most of these reviews I read here are from people that are putting their current perceptions of life on this time period. I hate to shock you but there just weren't that many cops around. If you did get caught doing something off color you generally could talk your way out of things or just plain outsmart them. You could buy alcohol anywhere. I have great memories of drinking at VFW halls as a 15 year old. Age of consent was never discussed or as I could tell observed. I can't remember my age ever being any restriction on anything we ever did.
Incredible soundtrack on a nostalgic look back on life in 1973. People were tougher then.
Zardoz (1974)
STONER MOVIE FROM MY HIGH SCHOOL YEARS. DON'T SEE IT STRAIGHT!
We had a saying in the early 70s. "Always go forward. But never go straight!"
Getting buzzed and going to the movies was a huge part of our lives then. I remember hearing about this film from the major stoners at school. My circle of friends did what teens did then. We got blasted and went to see it. I remember nobody understood it except the seriously high. People laughed out loud in the theater. But then it was at the local Drive In for a week. It was packed every night! Saw it 3 or 4 times.
Watched it again last night after almost 50 years. Still can't tell you what it's about but it's a thrilling laugh out loud pretentious mess of a movie and I loved it. Maybe I'll search for my Holy Man bong and watch it again.
Jerry & Marge Go Large (2022)
Show this Sappy Halmarkesque film at Nursing Homes
Hate to say bad things about this feel good small town true story but way too many fake characters. My 85 year old Mother would love this and what's wrong with that? Nothing wrong with moral people that love each other and do good things for others. Frank Capra could have made this a classic.
The Talk of the Town (1942)
The Town is Talking about how Bad this Film is.
Cary Grant miscast. Jean Arthur fidgits and whines and cries as usual. Ronald Coleman as a SCOTUS nominee? Haha. Isn't he very very British? Silly plot.
Operation Pacific (1951)
What Stinks in this Submarine? This Movie!
Ridiculous scene after scene. A US sub picking up a group of children that have free run of the sub? Big tall guys that never duck in the sub? Is it really cool for everyone to smoke in a closed sub? John Wayne purposely grounds the sub and sends a raft full of sailors (while under enemy fire) to rescue a single flyer but when they get shot up he dives off the sub and swims out to rescue them? Swims back and takes a bullet but battles on? Entire film is a silly cliche for bad war movies.
The High and the Mighty (1954)
What a Strange Film?
Dozens of troubled characters whine and cry their way through this long mess. One guy gets his gun out and shoots up the plane? No charges! Copilot Duke slaps the pilot around and he liked it? Lots of women who hate their looks? One guy walks off the plane and slugs a reporter? And the worst part is JW with the dubbed whistling? Watch for the newlyweds who have sex with their clothes on in the crowded plane full of over actors! I love the wise cracking stewardess that hands out downers? Wow.