A TASTE OF KILLING needs a re-release!

Tonino Valerii has directed about five Spaghetti Westerns in his day.  DAY OF ANGER aka GUNLAW is probably his best with the help of the two main stars Lee Van Cleef and Giuliano Gemma.  His most famous is MY NAME IS NOBODY which stars Henry Fonda and Terence Hill and may have been co-directed by Sergio Leone.  It is terrible and boring.  The ending is good but it belongs in a better film.  The movie as a whole is bad which is why I find it strange that so many critics familiar with Italian Westerns would often have it ranked somewhere in their top ten lists.  I guess they need to see more Spaghetti Westerns.  If they had then maybe they would have seen the far more satisfying A TASTE OF KILLING.

The film stars Craig Hill (A sort of cross between Eastwood and Bronson) as Lanky, a bounty hunter who has been tasked to protect a shipment of gold locked in the town's bank vault from a small army of bandits.  The leader of the bandits, Gus Kennebeck (George Martin) also just happens to be the man who killed Lanky's brother back in the day.  Time for some payback, right?  Well sort of.  Lanky may not be the hero we have been so accustomed to in other Westerns from Italy.

At the beginning of this tale of bloodshed and greed, Lanky is traveling on horseback watching a column of cavalry soldiers escort a shipment of gold through a valley in the desert.  From atop the valley Lanky has a birds eye view of the escort.  Through the scope of his rifle, he sees bandits waiting to attack.  Lanky sets his sights on the first leader of the bandits, Sanchez, played by Fernando Sancho.  Character actor Fernando Sancho always plays bandit leaders in Spaghetti Westerns.  I will just assume he dies in all of them.  With his sights set on Sanchez, Lanky waits.  Then the bandits begin shooting.  Lanky does nothing.  All the soldiers are murdered mercilessly and the gold is stolen along with some money.  This moment tells us everything we need to know about Lanky.  He is in it for the money.  Lanky's motivations are dictated by his plan to get more money.  He is just like Franco Nero's Django.  The only difference is that at the end Django redeems himself while Lanky continues in his amoral ways.

Before there was Quigly Down Under there was Lanky.  Lanky likes using a scope on his rifle to scout from atop and kill from a distance.  That doesn't mean he always kills from a distance and not adversed to shooting someone in the back.  Sanchez and two of his goons found out early on that Lanky is fast and deadly with a pistol too.  The scoped rifle is a symbol of Lanky being distant from humanity.  He kills bad guys but he lets innocent soldiers die too when he could have easily helped out.  Lanky is only interested in money.  I don't think this makes him one dimensional though.  His distance stems from his experience with loss.  Well at least I think so.  We learn that Gus, the new and more dangerous leader of the bandits, murdered Lanky's brother.  Lanky states that he would kill him for free even though he can wait while the bounty on Gus's head keeps going up.  Lanky is a man of simple motives.  He wants money and keeping things simple.  Surprisingly he is illiterate but he can read the amounts of money for bounties on wanted posters.  Reading is only important enough to read dollar signs.

The characteristics of a hero's story are dispersed to other characters in the film.  This makes the movie's characters a little more intriguing.  Just a little.  Gus has more noble intentions than Lanky does.  Gus wants to steal the towns gold so he can provide a better life for his wife who struggles raising their son in the criminal lifestyle.  The movie doesn't make us like him much though because every so often he gets upset and starts slapping the wife around.  I think the movie would have been stronger if Gus was actually more identifiable and sympathetic.  Being too interested in financial gain Lanky does not have a love story.  That story goes to a bandit who is in love with the wife of a former bandit who has changed his ways and now works for the bank protecting the gold.  Yeah, it's kind of confusing with all the subplots that form to stretch out the run time.  I don't even remember who any of these people are.

All the subplots and the stupid plan of Lanky's hiding the gold as the front steps of the bank to fool the bandits don't really take away from the film.  The movie is full of enough gun play to keep everyone entertained.  In fact I think this might be the first movie where someone is shot in the eye while they are looking through the scope of a rifle similar to what happened in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and HEROES SHED NO TEARS.  My favorite moment in A TASTE FOR KILLING is at the end when Gus tries to shoot Lanky with his own scope rifle.  Lanky shoots him through the scope with his pistol killing Gus instantly.  Then Lanky picks up the now broken and grimaces.  Its a quick and funny moment.  Lanky showed more emotion over his ruined rifle scoped than he did for the dozens of soldiers left behind to become vulture meet.  At the end Lanky follows the gold he just rescued and once again watches from a distance as another band of outlaws gun down the new cavalry detail and begins to steal the gold.  Lanky's true intentions are revealed.  He makes money chasing gold shipments. That is when you realize he let all those soldiers die on purpose at the beginning of the film and he let it happen again so he can make some money.  You have to wonder how Lanky gets his own hero theme song.

A TASTE OF KILLING needs to be better known.  Its good.  Maybe it's not as great as I think it is but with lots of bad guys to shoot and some good dialogue from time to time the movie never gets boring.  I like Craig Hill.  He is a great alternative to Eastwood or Bronson without coming across as generic.  Despite some choppy editing this is a pretty slick film with a story that doesn't follow the typical 'Stranger comes to town and starts trouble' formula.  Usually it is the rich bankers and business men that the hero fights.  In this movie the hero works for them and they are played by Franco Ressel and Piero Lulli!  These two actors always play the main bad guys in Spaghetti Westerns and they always die by the end.  In A TASTE FOR KILLING they don't suffer a scratch.  Its rather refreshing.  If this film was made a few years later Lanky and Gus would team up to take on the greedy bankers and rich land owners.

Unfortunately the DVD is out of print and rather expensive to buy.  I can only hope that someone out there puts this movie that plays to a different beat out on Blu-ray soon.  PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!  I am not above begging.  If you are in to Italian Westerns this is a must watch especially if you are looking for something outside of Leone.  Director Tonino Valerii was a student of sorts under Leone if that peaks your interest.  This was Valerii's first film in the director's chair.  Also Lanky's theme song by Nico Fedinco is catchy.  I need the soundtrack which is probably out of print too.  Ugh!.

Jason

THE BIG GUNDOWN is finally here!!!

There are THE STAR TREK nerds.  There are THE STAR WARS nerds.  I am a Spaghetti Western nerd.  I have a bunch of them.  I have books written about them including an encyclopedia which I have read cover to cover to learn about as many as I can.  What I learned from my extensive research is that there are not too many good ones.  Let me tell ya something, folks.  THE BIG GUNDOWN is one of the good ones.  It is a must buy!

First off I just want to thank Grindhouse Releasing for putting out a comprehensive package for the THE BIG GUNDOWN.  You get the American version.  You get the European longer cut plus the soundtrack.  There is also a DVD of the movie in case you don't have Blu and a booklet explaining the film's past.  The transfer is near perfect.  I seem to recall some blurry shots here and there but not too many and barely noticeable.  Maybe I am just losing my eyesight.

The movie is about Lee Van Cleef a bounty hunter who is on the trail of Tomas Milan for a crime he didn't commit.  Milan's character is a peasant who we know nothing about the except that he has been accused of the rape and murder of a young girl.  We meet his character, Cochillo playing in a pond trying to convince a young girl to join him in the water.  Cleef shows up and tries to capture Cochillo but is shot in the back by the young girl thinking he is a bandit.  Whoops.  The movie plays out like a cat and mouse story where the two join forces at the end to take down those who are really responsible.

THE BIG GUNDOWN is excellent.  It is well filmed with creative angles and camera movements when needed which is a trademark of the really great Italian Westerns.  The director, Sergio Sollima recognizes Cleef's strong presence in the film shaping his sleek sharp profile into many dynamic poses.  Just check out that poster and the one on the bottom.  Very few westerns took advantage of his strong form.  See the horrible SABATA films for example.  Unlike the SABATA films, THE BIG GUNDOWN doesn't have annoying funny sidekick characters for comedic relief or acrobat circus hijinks.  The film has a sharp wit with any comedy being delivered through dialogue and not simple silly loud characters to deflate the film's quality.  This is a violent film with a good amount of shoot'em up scenes.  You won't get bored.  Cochillo himself doesn't carry a gun.  He uses a knife when he duels which is very unique for it's time.  You can see how this film tries to do different things with it's characters to stand out from the flood of Italian Westerns that were flooding the theaters at the time.

I have waited a long time for this film to come out on Blu.  Now if we can only get a version of DAY OF ANGER with the same care that Grindhouse Releasing gave to THE BIG GUNDOWN.  It would also be nice to get the same for BANDITOS and THE GREAT SILENCE.  One could hope.

Jason

He was the "Bad" not the "Ugly", Morons. 

DJANGO UNCHAINED is BALLS-BLASTINGLY GREAT!

True story time, folks.  So I saw the 9:45 showing of DJANGO UNCHAINED the Sunday after Christmas.  I asked for two tickets for 'DJANGO UNCHAINED'.  Upon receiving my tickets the teller informed me that I was the first person not to pronounce the 'D' in 'Django'.  All I can say is that the town I live in is a black hole of culture.  I do thank Quentin Tarantino for making the name 'Django' a household name.  Maybe I will name my first born son Django and give him the permission to punch anyone in the face who pronounces the 'D'.  Now I am just being a jerk.

So obviously DJANGO UNCHAINED is another masterpiece by the acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino.  That was expected.  What I didn't expect was how the story never goes the way you expect it to go.  For instance you expect the story would be about Django getting revenge on the Brittle Brothers and how he dispatches them one by one throughout the film leaving the worst of the worst till last.  But that doesn't happen.  Instead Django shows up and he and his new partner Dr. Schultz who freed him from slavery kill the brothers right away in one scene near the beginning of the film.  That means all you have left is getting Django's wife back.  Seems simple enough.  But it is not.

Dispatching the main villains right away leaves DJANGO UNCHAINED free to explore the western genre by depicting scenes, imagery and music from Blaxploitation and Italian Westerns.  Most notably westerns directed by Sergio Corbucci who directed DJANGO.  I guess this is why I love the movie so much.  I love Italian Westerns and I love that this film takes a director who never got noticed on American shores and pushes his films into the public spotlight.  The middle part of the film takes place in the snow covered mountains with Dr. Shultz riding around with this huge fur coat similar to the one Klaus Kiniski was wearing in THE GREAT SILENCE.  At one point a character gets shot through the flower on his jacket which happens to Jack Palance in THE MERCENARY.  Music from DJANGO is used a couple of times throughout the film and there is a muddy street in one of the towns.  Maybe the muddy street is just a coincidence but I doubt it.  One of the goons who happens to be female (Zoe Bell) wears a red sash just like the goons in DJANGO did.  Near the end there is a nod from THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY directed by the other Sergio with Samuel L. Jackson's last line.  I'm sure there are more homages to Blaxploitation westerns but I haven't seen many of those so I wouldn't pick up on them as much.

DJANGO UNCHAINED is an extremely violent film with over-the-top blood effects similar to the ones used in PLANET TERROR.  The violence is memorable to say the least.  One guy gets his fully exposed unmentionables shot off.  Don't worry, folks.  He was a bad guy so its okay.  Often blood erupts like small volcanoes all over the body.  Other times though it is small and realistic looking.  In one scene where Dicaprio gets angry and smashes a glass it is completely real.  I like the different uses for the blood for the different tones of the film.  Sometime the violence is horrifying while other times it is comical and extreme.  The suffering of slaves is kept realistic while the shoot-em up stuff blood all over the place.  You won't forget the first two shots fired in the film that is for sure.

The horrors of slavery are on full display in this film.  The characters mindset on slavery are very authentic.  To many slavery is just a part of the world they live in no matter how terrible it is.  For instance Dr. Schultz believes slavery is wrong but he isn't compelled to spend his life ending it.  In fact at the beginning he frees Django from slavery yet still gets a bill of sale to keep things legal.  But when he sees a slave that tries to escape get torn apart by dogs it moves him to take action.  I was never a Jamie Foxx fan but he is terrific in this movie.  His performance is small but detailed compared to Christoph Waltz's attention grabbing and charismatic Dr. Shultz.  There are small moments that reinforce the films authentic feel for characters in that time like when Django tastes beer for the first time.  He was a slave so he never was allowed the pleasure.  Just him being on a horse and everyones' reaction serves the film in its depiction of people's view on racism.  The realism is kept in perfect balance with the cartoon violence, comedy, and stylish editing and homages to other films that DJANGO UNCHAINED offers.  Remember Tarantino's films are about other films.  They are all post-modern.  They are not to be completely realistic.  This is not a period piece drama.

DJANGO UNCHAINED is probably Tarantino's best film ever.  I recommend it highly especially if you want to educate yourself in obscure westerns from the past.  By the way Tarantino said in an interview that DEATH PROOF was his worst movie.  I could not disagree more.  In my humble opinion JACKIE BROWN is his worst.  I'm just saying.  Maybe one day I will sit down and write a review on it.  But I would have to sit down and watch it again.  That is a little hard to do.  I have only watched JACKIE BROWN once when it came out in theaters back in the day.  Yea, I'm old.  What of it?


Jason

DJANGO KILL!...IF YOU LIVE, SHOOT!

With DJANGO UNCHAINED coming out soon I figured I would give you guys a review of a "DJANGO" film.  Director Guilio  Questi's DJANGO KILL! is not a true "DJANGO" film.  To cash in on Sergio Corbucci's popular film the studios or whoever decided to change the title and add the name "DJANGO" to the film so fans of the original could flock to the theaters and scream "WTF" at the screen.  I guess in Italy there is no such thing as copy right infringement.  You could call your movie whatever you want with the names of other characters from other movies with the same likeness and there is nothing anyone can do about it.  In the case of films like DJANGO and SARTANA there are several films with the popular characters' names in the titles but have nothing to do with the originals.  It is kind of a neat experiment to see the many different versions of the same film but from other directors.  DJANGO UNCHAINED seems to be more like an homage to those films rather than the original DJANGO even though Franco Nero makes an apperance.  Before you cry 'Foul' remember that Sergio Leone's best film (In my opinion) A FIST FULL OF DOLLARS is a complete ripoff of YOJIMBO.  Of course you all knew that to begin with.  I was just trying to sound smart.

Thomas Milian stars as some guy who is half Mexican and half white type person.  After helping a gang of outlaws rob a gold shipment he discovers that they are all a bunch of racist bastards and decide to kill all the Mexican robbers that helped with the heist including Thomas.  The Mexican bandits are forced to dig there own graves and then are massacred and buried.  Thomas is the only survivor.  He is helped by two Native Americans who think he came back from the dead.  They nurse him back to health and create gold bullets for Thomas to get revenge with.  The bandits however are murdered themselves after entering a town that is more corrupt than they are.  A couple of the town leaders discover the bandits have gold and they convince the town to string them all up.  Thomas shows up and guns down the leader of the gang who was the only survivor from the town's lynch mob.  With nothing better to do Thomas just moves about the town staying one night each with the three factions who are tryng to get the gold.  There is the hotel owner and preacher and a gang leader who has a whole gang of homosexual men who are dressed in black fetish cowboy outfits.  I think it is safe to say that DJANGO KILL is a little homophobic.  Probably should times that last sentence by 100.  Is Thomas's character after the gold?  I really don't know. 

After the revenge part of the film is over DJANGO KILL! kind of plays out like some kind of morality story about the destructive power of greed.  Thomas's character seems like nothing more than an observer to the events that lead to everyones downfall.  He does get involved at the end but just to kill the gang leader and his gang.  Everyone else dies by there own plans to keep the gold for themselves.  The movie feels like it meanders about unsure of what kind of film it wants to be.  Is it a revenge film?  Is it a get the gold film?  Meh, its whatever you care for it to be.  If you care at all.

DJANGO KILL! is without a doubt the most bizarre and somewhat gruesome film to come out of the Italian Western genre.  Questi's experiences in war influenced a lot of the death and grotesque imagery you see in the film.  There is a guy that gets scalped, and the bandit leader who is severely wounded by Thomas is torn apart by men digging the golden bullets out of his wounds like greedy zombies.  There is a strong focus on death in the film.  But there is also the strange inclusion of the the gay fetish cowboy gang and the scene of Thomas tied up looking like Christ on the cross being tortured by separate footage of bats, armadillos and iguanas.  The movie implies that they are torturing him but you never see any of the animals touch him.  The silly stuff makes the whole film look stupid like a very violent episode of the old sixties Batman show.  The director is trying to make something more meaningful with all the dark/strange scenes and imagery hoping the audience will think more instead of just watch.  This is a thinking mans western.  The problem is that despite a great performance from Thomas Milian the story is rather boring.  I found myself disinterested with the main characters and never felt like Thomas was a meaningful badass. 

The thing that bothered me most about DJANGO KILL!  is the gun play.  A really good western will have those moments of badass where the hero does something super cool with his gun like Eastwood gunning down four guys in three seconds.  You get the sense that he really is that good with a real gun and that he shot real bullets from that gun judging by how believable the bad guys fell over and died.  The pistols fired in DJANGO KILL! however come off more like toy guns with blanks.  Every single character fires wildly not bothering to aim with seemingly endless shots fired from six shooters.  There seems to be no consequence to the guns.  Men run around out in the open unarmed for several seconds while several guns are fired at them from a few feet away.  The stranger at one point is shooting at the Cowboy Fetish Gang from a window.  The villains are out in the open.  Not one of them is killed or even wounded.  What was he shooting at then?  One of them was even laying on the ground for some reason making him an even bigger target who was also army crawling backwards!  I could even shoot that!  It was a mindless pointless scene that did nothing but extend the running time of the film.  Boring. 

I think the strangest thing of all his how many Italian movie critics list DJANGO KILL!  in there top ten Spaghetti westerns of all time.  If the gun play in the film was more substantive then maybe I would recommend this film.  But, alas, DJANGO KILL! is an unsatisfying mess.  I like that it tries to be different but the film is too weird and slow to be taken seriously despite coming from a man who has experienced the horrors of real war.  A western would be a great opportunity to express those experiences.  Unfortunately none of these horrors which are shown come across as nothing more than something weird to see for those looking for something weird to see.  If you are looking for something weird to see then I can recommend DJAGO KILL.  If you are looking for something more badass then I don't.


Jason

SAMURAI AVENGER: THE BLIND WOLF

I do believe if you took the top row of my DVD collection and smashed them together to form one ultimate movie the result would be SAMURAI AVENGER. Prominently displayed on my top shelf are all my Samurai, Kung-fu, and Italian Westerns DVDs. These films are all very violent, very colorful and very fun. They appeal to my more adolescent side wanting nothing more to see than bloody revenge carried out on wave after wave of well deserving bad guys. Though they come from different countries with different visual styles these films all tap into the same themes. Most of the time they are stories of a stranger showing up somewhere who is highly proficient when it comes to killing. They usually have the fastest draw with the gun or the sword and always have the right thing to say at any given situation. These are the heroes. Usually they are drifters out to to seek revenge. Like KILL BILL, SAMURAI AVENGER is a celebration of these films blending swords and guns together perfectly but with a much lower budget. The film makers call it a "Sushi Western".

SAMURAI AVENGER pretends to be a lost exploitation grindhouse film from the seventies that has been restored with scratches left in the film that were unavoidable. At the beginning of the film an up tight narrator explains that this is a directors cut and when possible the excessively violent scenes have been restored using the best source material available and that we should excuse the poor quality of certain shots in the film. If you ever watched DJANGO on DVD they have a similar notification at the beginning of the movie minus the narrator. So what we have here is a GRINDHOUSE clone but with Samurai/Italian Westerns instead of horror movies. Hey, at least they don't do that whole "missing reel" thing that other wannabe directors do.  That only worked in GRINDHOUSE.  Dear young film makers of today, please stop making GRINDHOUSE inspired rip-offs.  We get it.  We all love Tarantino.  You don't need to make movies that do nothing more than copy his style to show your love.  Thank you.  SAMURAI AVENGER is an exception.

Kurando Mitsutake plays the Blind Wolf who is on a journey to kill the man responsible for murdering his wife and daughter and forcing him to poke out his own eyes with a stick.  What a bastard.  But he must kill the seven assasins that stand in his way.  A mysterious drifter shows up and helps him on his journey.  Kurando Mitsutake does a fantastic job playing the playing the Blind Wolf which was heavily inspired by the Katsu Shintaro version of Zatoichi.  He has Katsu's facial mannerism down perfectly.  Kurando really does look like Zatoichi.  The Drifter isn't too bad but nothing too special.  Played by Jeffery James Lippold I think his character is suppose to represent the Clint Eastwood mysterious stranger from Leone's "Man with no name" trilogy.  He looks more like an underwear model......Acts like one too.  The main bad guy played by Domiziano Arcangeli is way over the top but in a good way.  He kind of looks like the demon offspring of Klaus Kinski and the Devil assuming that the Devil is really a woman.  He is intense and all over the place with his performance savoring every vile and deplorable act.  He bites the ear off of Wolf's wife for crying out loud!......Really good stuff.  A couple of times they film him with a "fish" lens to distort and widen his psychotic looking grin.  I didn't think this was necessary since the actor does a better job of looking crazy without gimmicky camera tricks which do nothing more than distract from his performance.  I really liked him a lot.

The film itself is full of cheesy highly exaggerated gore effects.  Like the LONE WOLF & CUB movies and other Japanese samurai films from the seventies there is blood spray everywhere.  Every wound is a fountain of red stuff.  Don't be surprised to see exposed intestines, decapitations, severed limbs, and major impalement issues galore.  This film has it all even though some of those shots are made to look damaged to make the film look old and poorly restored.  The fights are kind of non-existent with the good guys merely swinging their sword once then cutting to the bad guy spraying blood everywhere.  Quick sword fights aren't really a bad thing since in LONE WOLF & CUB Ogami Itto takes down his enemies usually in one or two moves but at least those scenes were better filmed.

The greatest enjoyment I got from the film is recognizing all the nods and homages to the old classics I love so much.  You can tell that Kurando who not only starred but directed and partially wrote SAMURAI AVENGER truly loves these movies too.  This film is a love letter to them.  There is a great scene between Wolf and the Drifter where they get into an argument about killing a witch that is also pregnant.  Not caring about losing his honor by killing an evil woman who is the expectant mother of an innocent Wolf wants to kill her right away.  The Drifter stops him causing a little bit of conflict between the two.  With the swing of the sword the Drifter slashes open the witch's stomach allowing the baby (played by a painfully obvious gore covered plastic doll) to fall into Wolf's arms.  A little bit later Amanda Plummer shows up in a van and the Drifter gives her the baby.  I guess that is the homage to Tarantino since she was in PULP FICTION.  Hurray?  Anyhoo Wolf thanks Drifter and tells him that he was right for not allowing him to kill the child and that revenge isn't the only thing left in this world.  It's a really great character developing moment that strengthens the friendship of these two master swordsmen and sets up for some greater drama in the last act.  Good stuff.

But......SAMURAI AVENGER has some problems.

The writing is probably the weakest aspect of the film with most of the best lines lifted from other movies as homages.  While the film gives us unique scenarios and scenes it tries too hard to make our hero sound like a badass.  Sometimes a hero should be seen and not heard especially when the hero's wit isn't as sharp as his sword.  The film falls a little short when it comes to the Wolf trying to sound tough.  He doesn't sound too intimidating when he says things like "Tell me something I don't already know" or "I don't even fear bullets."  For a mysterious stranger he sure does like to talk a lot.  Kurando should have relied more on his own strong presence in the film and the actions his character takes to emphasise how badass his character is.  Remember a badass doesn't have to prove himself to anyone and he sure as heck doesn't have to explain with words how badass he really is.  Bad guys should learn how badass a hero is by getting themselves dead by his actions not by being bored to death by bragging.

SAMURAI AVENGER kind of falls into nerdy HIGHLANDER territory focusing too much time on simply sliding a sword into it's sheathe.  It doesn't happen throughout the film but it does happen enough for me to complain about it.  When a bad guy is dispatched the film just stops to show a slow motion Wolf or Drifter sliding their dang Samurai sword into it's sheathe.  It's like sword porn for Nerdos that watch too much Anime.  It makes me think the film believes a hero is only as badass as the sword he carries.  Just because you are holding a sword in a mean pose does not make you a tough guy.  It makes you look like a nerd especially when you are practising your "sword techniques" in the backyard.  The only thing you are going to scare off are the ladies.

The narrator's voice could put a meth addict to sleep.  From time to time throughout the movie he stops the film to explain what is going on.  It is a good addition to the film especially since there is a lot of cultural stuff that needs explained but I do wish the narrator was a little more energetic.  The voice itself has a tendency to kill the momentum of the film.

ZATOICIHI, LONE WOLF & CUB, THE WILD BUNCH, DJANGO, THE OUTFIT and one of my favorites THE GREAT SILENCE are all referenced in SAMURAI AVENGER along with many other films I can't recall or just never seen.  There are zombies (Luci Fulci?) too with a small touch of science fiction added in at the ending.  Stay past the credits is all I can say.  Some of the sets are cheap looking but I think that isn't really a negative.  I think it adds to the fantastical artistic side of the film.  SAMURAI AVENGER isn't meant to be a realistic movie.  It is a post-modern film about the many different genres of films.  I know there are a lot of films you need to see first before you can fully appreciate SAMURAI AVENGER.  If you really really liked KILL BILL then give this one a chance.  You won't be disappointed...............probably.


Jason

DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN

Is this suppose to be MAD MAX?

DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN is the only true sequel to the original DJANGO.  I put that in there because I think it is required by law or something to state that fact since just about every review I have read puts that disclaimer in their review.  Director Nello Rossati does a fantastic job of reclaiming the classic Italian Western style going so far as to set the film in the west (technically Mexico) but film in Columbia and to give director credit to his alias Ted Archer.  A whole heckola of Spaghetti Westerns gave European actors and directors English names to trick American audiences into believing they were watching an American western.  There are still a lot of people out there that don't even know that  A FISTFULL OF DOLLARS, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE,  and THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY are Italian westerns.  FOOLS!  Even though its not a better film than the original I think DJANGO STRIKES BACK is better than what it is given credit for.  You can't go wrong with a dude running around with a Gatling gun shooting bad guys in the face, is all I am saying.

Franco Nero returns as the title character for the first time in a long time.  Django has buried his past and has become a monk.  When he discovers that his daughter has been kidnapped by some bad dude on a boat Django digs up his trade mark Gatling gun and sets out on a crusade to save his daughter.  He replaces the coffin for a hearse.  I thought that was kind of neat.  The body count is high and the characters are interesting so you shouldn't have too much trouble enjoying this one.  The main villain is Orlowsky a military officer who captures tribes people in Mexico and uses them as slaves in his silver mine.  He is a similar character to Col. Jackson in the first DJANGO.  They are both racists who kill for fun with no morals whatsoever.  Orlowsky is so bad that the people call him 'El Diablo'.  In English that means 'The Devil'.  I bet you didn't know that.  I didn't.  Anyhoo he loves the name.  In fact a peasant woman is captured that he falls in love with and he actually seduces her to the dark side.  That was pretty creative if you ask me.  Usually the female lead character would resist the villain's charms and eventually hook up with the hero.  Not in DJANGO STRIKES BACK.  That girl gets herself murdered by a jealous slave chick with a whip.  I didn't see that coming. 

I hate to speak metaphorically about films but it is kind of hard to ignore what I think the main theme (or whatever you want to call it) of the movie is.  DJANGO STRIKES BACK seems to be about good triumphing over evil.  I know that is what most movies are about but this one seems to have some strong religious overtones to it.  Django represents God being that he fights for good saving the innocent and comes from a monastery.  He kind of looks like Jesus.  Orlowsky is obviously the devil seducing the innocent or keeping them as slaves and murdering them in some horrible fashion.  At the end when Django is rescuing everyone and all the bad guys are dead he has a duel with El Diablo Orlowsky.  Orlowsky tries to escape but finds himself at the edge of a pit with hundreds of newly freed slaves at the bottom just waiting to get their hands on him.  Django shows up shooting Orlowsky's sword in half.  Then he simply walks toward El Diablo forcing him to walk backwards falling into the pit where he is engulfed by hundreds of arms like flames.  The whole dang thing looks like something out of Revelations where the devil is thrown into the lake of fire.  I don't know.  I am probably just trying to be smart when really I am not.  I don't think the makers where thinking that but the scene reminded me of all that biblical stuff.  Maybe if they called Orlowsky 'Cookie" I would think the whole movie was some kind of violent homage to THE BOZO SHOW.

DJANGO STRIKES BACK is a great action filled western.  They really exploit the whole gunning bad guys with a machine gun aspect of the Django character.  Apparently he is so accurate with it that he can shoot a bunch of baddies with it and miss the wall of innocent people that are running around two feet behind them.  Hilarious.  I think they try to create some similar gothic moments from the original Django using fog and crosses and the same wind sound effects.  Doesn't quite work but it is a nice try.  It is the thought that counts.  DJANGO was the western set in the mud.  DJANGO STRIKES BACK is the western set on the water.  I like that idea.  Too bad there was never a RETURN OF THE DJANGO.

Some thoughts on Quentin Tarantino's DJANGO UNCHAINED.  If you are going to call your movie DJANGO you better have a large body count and a dude lugging a Gatling Gun around and shooting people in the face with it.  I don't think we are going to get that from UNCHAINED.  I know it will be a great film but I am expecting something similar to INGLORIOUS BASTARDS where all the action is taken out and replaced with well written scenes of people talking around tables.  (Oscar gold!!!)  Good but not what we really want.  Do we really need a prequel to JACKIE BROWN?  It would be nice to see Quentin direct an extremely violent action film.  At least he always gives us something that is different.  I know the title DJANGO UNCHAINED is based more on the concept of countless westerns that stole the name 'Django' in an attempt to fool audiences into thinking they were actually watching a DJANGO sequel.  At least Franco Nero will make an appearance.  That will give UNCHAINED some street credit for us nerdos who love Italian Westerns.  Yes, we do exist.

Jason

Whoa!  Calm down, Rambo!

Django is the villain in DJANGO!

DJANGO is the ultimate example of the word 'extreme' in the Italian western genre.  It is violent and shocking with it's use of gore   The body count is the highest in the genre too as far as I know.  Bad guys are blasted left and right flailing their arms in the air or clutching their bullet riddled stomachs as they spin dead face first into the muddy streets of the soon to be ghost town.  DJANGO is the reason why we watch Spaghetti Westerns. From what I understand both Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Leone both saw YOJIMBO and decided to make a western based off that movie.  While director Sergio Leone completely ripped off Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO with a nearly shot for shot remake titled A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, the other Sergio made a violent messy film that was merely inspired by the samurai classic.  Both Italian films have rival gangs pitted against each other by a mysterious gunman.  Both are stylish and violent with unique visuals like  Eastwood in the serape and Django pulling behind him a muddy coffin.  But what makes DJANGO a more interesting film is the character of Django himself.  Eastwood's character is clearly the hero who kills for money but has a heart of gold.  We have seen that character a billion times before.  Django on the other hand is the main villain of the story who cares for nothing but money.  He is one S.O.B. who happens to be a B.A.M.F.


So the movie starts out with some poor woman named Maria trying to cross a bridge but instead is tied up and bull whipped by a group of Mexican bandits.  Django dressed in a Union soldier uniform is watching from a nearby hill.  Then BANG! all four bandits drop dead.  Before you can say "Hey, I only heard one shot!" another group of villains emerge from another hill.  They shot the bandits at the same time.  Not to be outdone by their rivals in the mean department the new bad guys saved the woman just so they can tie her up to a cross and burn her alive.  These guys are part of a gang that is like the K.K.K. led by the dastardly Col. Jackson who apparently really hates Mexicans.  Django appears before them.  They all have a blah-blah-blah back and forth then suddenly Django blasts them all saving the woman from certain doomy-doom-doom.  If you were paying attention you would have seen your first clue as to the moral character of Django.  Django draws first.  Normally the hero waits for the bad guy to go for his gun first with the hero being so fast that he can draw, fire and kill in an instant.  Django is quick but he isn't interested in being good.  Don't let the fact that he just saved an innocent woman from death fool you.

After mowing down a hundred red hooded clans men in the muddy streets of the a run down town with a Gatling gun, Django strangely lets Col. Jackson escape.  We learn that Jackson killed Django's wife.  So when given the opportunity to kill Jackson twice Django abstains.  Why?  Hugo and his merry men of marauders shows up and reclaims the broken down town.  Hugo is a self appointed general who is planning a revolution in Mexico.  He and Django are good friends.  In times past Django saved his life in prison.  It is kind of a weird back story for Django.  He must have been gone from his wife for a very long time to be in prison and fight in the Civil War.  Jackson doesn't seem to even know who Django is.  They don't really have a back story together.  Jackson just killed Django's wife and that is it.  I guess that is a good thing because the movie doesn't get bogged down in boring flashbacks or long winded tales of who did what to who back in the day.  DJANGO just speeds along to the next violent set piece. 

Django reveals to Hugo that Jackson has a bunch of gold in a fort and with his mens' help they can all be rich.  I can only assume that is why Django did not kill Jackson.  He wanted to make sure Jackson put his gold in the fort.  Hugo is impressed with his old pal Django.  Not only did he wipe out Col. Jackson's gang he also returned Maria back to the flock.  That is right.  Django saved Maria to ensure that his standing with Hugo was solid.  This film should have been titled DJANGO THE BASTARD!  So Hugo, eager to fund his revolution, raids Jackson's fort and steals his gold.  That night Django betrays his old friend and steals all the gold for himself.

Every move he has made to this point in the film was simply to steal all the gold for himself.  Revenge was never in the equation.  That is pretty unique for a simple western.  This is why Django is the villain.  DJANGO is similar to a caper film.  Hugo maybe bad but he didn't betray Django.

Unfortunately for Django life is a bitch and he loses all the gold in quick sand and his former ally Hugo has his men run over his hands with horses.  With his hands pretty much destroyed the 'evil' Django is perished and replaced by the good Django who realizes that his destiny is to kill Jackson for the murder of his wife which he does in splendid unrealistic fashion.

DJANGO is a near perfect Euro-Western.  There is one really slow part where Django is sneaking out of his hotel room on his way to steal the newly acquired gold but other than that DJANGO moves quickly.  A ton of people die in this one and it gets a little gruesome from time to time.  At one point this guy gets his ear cut off and fed to him.  That is pretty graphic for a mainstream film.  This scene inspired the ear cutting off scene in RESERVOIR DOGS.  Many movies were called DJANGO after this but none lived up to the hype the name invokes including the official sequel DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN.  Hopefully DJANGO UNCHAINED does.  Probably won't though.  Most likely we will get another movie about people sitting at tables talking about stuff in a clever manner.  Stop going for the Oscar, QT!

I wonder if DJANGO inspired elements of TOMBSTONE.  Both have a second in command villain named Ringo and both have a gang that is identified by their red sashes.  Makes me think.  Watch DJANGO and THE GREAT SILENCE back to back.  Best double feature ever.

Jason

KILL THEM ALL AND COME BACK ALONE

WHOA, title!  Calm down.  You don't have to be so serious.  Can't some of those guys on the cover there live?  Heck, one of them commited suicide in real life.  Can't you give that guy a break?  What?  No answer?  You truely are a cold and cruel title. Damn you, title.  Damn you to hell!  That is an awesome title though.  I would argue that it's the greatest title ever.  Have you ever heard of a better title for a film? 

So KILL THEM ALL AND COME BACK ALONE is about Mac Kay (played by the Rifle Man himself, Chuck Connors.  I'm going to call him Chucky from now on because I am an A-hole) who recruits a bunch of hooligans who specialize in being bad and getting themselves into (and out of) crazy situations that involve a lot of jumping, punching, shooting, exploding and other volatile shenanigans.  This is a "men on a mission" movie.  Their mission is to steal a bunch of gold from a Union army fort for the confederates.  Chucky is given specific orders by Lynch (played by the great Frank Wolff) to kill his crew of cutthroats before returning from the mission.

The movie as a whole is pretty good.  Its not great though.  Despite how serious the tone of the title is this movie is a little more fun in nature but not too much.  There is a lot of action but it does get a little too repetitive especially when they use the same shots but from different angles.  Too many times you see the same guy fly into the air or twist and spin dead.  There is a lot of brawling in this movie too and those get to be a bore.  What makes this movie stand out however is the gun fights.  They are large with many extras dieing in over the tops ways.  Enzo G. Castellari directed this sucker.  He is the guy who directed the original INGLORIOUS BASTARDS.  He is a little more of a creative director when it comes to action.  I kind of think of him as the Italian John Woo with many stunts and explosions in his shootouts.

I think the only real disappointment I have with this film (besides the fact that there is a (sigh) acrobat in this movie) is the fact that ol' Chucky Connors doesn't try to kill his own men.  Even though he himself doesn't mind killing for the sake of gold Chucky has a slight honourable streak to him.  The second he gets the gold secure he leaves his men behind instead of killing them.  This leads to them all including Chucky being captured and discovering that Frank Wolff was going to steal all the gold for himself.  Instead of Chucky having to kill them all most of men die escaping the federal prison and the rest by each other.  I would have liked to have seen a movie where Chucky did kill them all and actually come back alone.  Its not like any of them are good guys.  It would have made for a slightly more darker film.

If you like Italian Westerns and are looking for something with a lot of action and not much story then I highly recommend this one.  Its not great like INGLORIOUS BASTARDS but its kind of close.  Its cool to see Chucky Connors in a lead role again. 

Jason

THE GREAT SILENCE! THE GREAT MIDDLE FINGER TO THE AUDIENCE!

What?  You have never heard of THE GREAT SILENCE?  It just happens to be one of the greatest westerns ever made.  Heck, in my opinion it is one of the greatest movies ever made.  Its like #3 on my all time favorites list.  I obsess over this movie.  I have the DVD, the soundtrack, and a poster of it in my living room. (Now I am blogging about it.  How cool am I?......Don't anwer that.) I've watched it like a hundred times since I bought it a few years ago.  Every time I watch it I see something new.  Its one of those kind of films.  There is a lot to digest in this Italian action western.  I love it and hate it all at the same time.

THE GREAT SILENCE is a strange film to say the least.  It embraces many of the cliches of its time.  Most Italian westerns at the time (the late sixties) had the same kind of story with the same kind of characters.  They usually had a stranger show up to a town run by a corrupt rich land owner and starts trouble intentionally or not and in the end has a showdown with the land owner's fastest meanest gun man.  THE GREAT SILENCE has all of that and at first this movie is nothing new.  You can see how everything is building up.  You can see the foreshadowing.  Everything is going fine and then the ending happens.  If you have never seen this movie don't read anymore and just rent it if possible.

Everything comes together in this film.  Even the stuff that should make this movie bad actually helps.  The director, Sergio Corbucci is at times very sloppy with his camera.  There are shaky zooms, poor framing, shaky cam, and at the beginning you can see the filter clearly covering the camera lens.  But all of this helps not hinder the film.  It gives the film it's own unique character.  The film takes place in the snow which is unusual because most Italian Westerns are filmed in the desert.  The cold, the snow, the wind through the mountains are all part of the film's character.  It sets the roughness of the film's environment.  There is a lot of imagery referencing death too.  At one time there is a scythe rising above the hill carried by a "bandit", and another time in a graveyard there is a murder of crows flying above.  All of it foreshadows what is to come.  But not the way you expect.  The music is perfect too.  The theme music is Ennio Morricone's finest work.

The stranger's name is Silence (Jean-Louis Tringnant) because he can't speak.  His throat was cut by bounty killers.  That is what they call bounty hunters in Italy because they assumed they killed all their bounties.  Silence spends his life killing bounty killers for a price.  He shows up to a town called Boot Hill.  There he takes a job to kill the local bounty killer Loco (Klaus Kinski) who is employed by a greedy Justice of the Peace who put unjust bounties on the local homesteaders in an attempt to steal their land.  It is interesting to note that both Silence and Loco have a similar code of conduct.  Both kill for a thousand gold pieces.  Both kill for money only.  Both will make the other draw first.  But Klaus is more likely to break those rules because he is smart enough to know that Silence is far too fast for him.  It is important to note that Silence never misses a shot.  He always hits his target no matter what.  He always shoots them in the head and if they surrender he shoots their thumbs off so they can't fire a gun anymore.  The fact that he is so good with his gun indicates how much he hates bounty killers.  He has done nothing with his life but shoot that gun.

SPOILER ALERT!

What THE GREAT SILENCE is is a anti-western.  I guess more specifically its an anti-Italian Western.  All the conventions of the Italian western are present.  Everything is pointing to the good guy overcoming overwhelming odds to save the day with the help of the goofy sheriff who rides in at the last moment.  The last time we saw the sheriff he was taking a swim in a frozen lake supposedly dead but we never see his body.  Silence's gun hand has been burned beyond use.  He has to save the homesteaders from the bounty killers.  Loco has challenged him to a one-on-one duel to the death.  So Silence shows up to the saloon that Loco and his men are keeping the homesteaders.  Loco stands at the door.  Silence stands out in the open in the middle of the street.  At anytime you just know the goofy sheriff will show up to help Silence kill the bad guys.  Instead reality steps in.  Before Silence can pull his gun to shoot, one of the bad guys shoots him dead from the saloon's window.  As Silence is dying Loco puts a bullet into our hero's head.  Then Loco shoots Silence's new girlfriend as she tries to shoot him.  Then with all the heroes dead the bad guys massacre horribly all the homesteaders and ride off into the sunrise to collect their reward.  Loco even steals Silence's cool pistol.  How bleak and horrible.  Its probably the darkest ending I have ever seen especially for an action western.  It is a very ugly ending.  Yet without this ending the movie would be nothing but another low budget Italian western.  It's the ending that makes this movie stand out.  I hate the ending but love it at the same time.

What Sergio Corbucci did was shatter the standard Leone western.  Usually in the Leone westerns the hero and villain would have a fair fight where the two would stand out in the open and see who was faster.  The hero is always faster by far.  Corbucci opens our eyes to the reality.  In real life if the hero stands out in the street in the open like a damn fool (but he looks cool, right?) the bad guys would just shoot him in his stupid face from the safety of the indoors.  Not a pretty sight.

Watching THE GREAT SILENCE is a unique experience.  It shows us what would happen in DIE HARD if John McClain died trying to save his wife.  What would happen if Rambo died in RAMBO part 2 trying to save the P.O.W.'s?  Now you know because you have seen THE GREAT SILENCE.  This film should have made Sergio Corbucci as famous as Sergio Leone.  Rumor has it that Clint Eastwood saw the film in Italy while promoting THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.  Apparently he wanted to remake it in the U.S.A.  The film was not released over here because of that. The result was JOE KIDD a mediocre western that had nothing in common with THE GREAT SILENCE except for Silence's gun makes an appearance.  I don't think that story is true.  I think the film doesn't appeal to main stream American audiences.  It's that plain and simple.  Interestingly enough there is a "happy ending" that was filmed and played in certain parts of the world and it appears on the DVD without audio in the extras.

I have read from one review that THE GREAT SILENCE is about who is really good and bad.  The idea is that Silence is really the bad guy and Loco is the good.  Silence kills those who work for the law so he is bad.  Loco kills bandits so that makes him good.  This is probably the dumbest interpretation of the film and I feel that such an idea is created to come to terms with the film's dire ending.  THE GREAT SILENCE is a film about evil triumphing over good.  Loco is a liar.  He bends the rules and has no problem killing in cold blood.  He looks like the freakin Devil for crying out loud with those large bewildering eyes and dominant forehead.  Silence on the other hand looks like an angel.  He has a young handsome face that is heavily sympathetic. Silence sacrifices himself trying to save the homesteaders.  He didn't have to.  He could have left.  There was no reason to return except he had to try.  He knew he didn't have a chance but he tried anyway.  He died a true hero's death.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is a similar film.  It sets up a cat and mouse modern day western story where eventually the hero and villain meet for a final showdown.  But that showdown never happens.  Reality steps in and the hero is gunned down in his hotel room by a bunch of drug dealers trying to get their cash back.  But that film is more about Tommy Lee Jones being too old for his job than evil defeating good.  If you are really into film especially the ones that fall into the genre of "badass" then I highly recommend THE GREAT SILENCE.  It puts a different perspective on every film you watch from then on.

Jason