THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (2016) When is a remake not a remake?

Well they did it, didn't they?  They finally did it.  The Hollywood Remake machine has finally claimed another American classic.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed they would have the tenacity to attempt to redo a nearly perfect classic film.  How much more taboo can you be?  The film that I am talking about of course is WORLD GONE WILD.  The post apocalyptic action western starring Bruce Dern is about a hippie from the sixties living in a world ravaged by nuclear warfare.  He lives in a small settlement of peaceful pioneers in the desert who find themselves under threat of Adam Ant and his cult of followers.  Out gunned Bruce Dern goes out and recruits about five other tough guys who manage to fight back and save the town from the weirdo attackers.  Of course the most memorable moment in the film is when Bruce Dern kills a bad guy by flipping a hub cap into his throat with the flick of a stick.  Oscar worthy and totally possible in real life I am sure.

Of course I am being silly.  Yes, WORLD GONE WILD is a remake (or homage) of the classic western, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, which was a remake of the classic samurai film, THE SEVEN SAMURAI, directed by Akira Kurosawa.  But we are here to review the new Denzel Washington film directed by Antoine Fuqua.  I bring up WORLD GONE WILD to make a point.  WGW has the spirit of the original as well as some lines of dialogue and some visual cues as well.  THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN 2016 only has a few lines of dialogue from the original.  The spirit of the original is completely absent from the new film.  The new MAGNIFICENT SEVEN barely even qualifies as a remake.  I would argue that it is not a remake at all, but just another "Men on a Mission" movie.  However, the idea that this is not a remake does not make the new movie better.  There is no fresh or new approach to the material.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN from 2016 is about a gunfighter named Sam (Not Chris!) who accepts a request from a recently widowed woman to help save her town from an evil rich guy and his army of bearded, duster wearing, professional gunmen.  Of course along the way Sam (The Denzel) recruits Chris Pratt and five other cohorts to lead the revolt against the army of TOMBSTONE movie enthusiasts.

I was shocked to see according to IMDB that the new MAGNIFICENT SEVEN was two hours and thirteen minutes long.  That is five minutes longer than the 1960's version!  How can the longer film have less story?  The new movie has gutted the story and replaced it all with guns, guns and more guns.  The movie becomes more of a standard revenge Western than an epic tale of men of questionable character deciding to fight for a noble cause with little chance of winning.  Yes, that is right I said "revenge Western."  Spoiler!!!!  At the end it is revealed that the rich bad guy, Bartholomew, had murdered Sam's family.  That revelation undercuts the whole point to the story.  The story narrative is incredibly important.  The filmmakers didn't trust the audiences to understand a motivation that wasn't revenge or getting gold and stuff.  The concept of fighting because it is the right thing to do seems to be too much of an abstract concept nowadays.  When Sam says the line from the original "I have been offered a lot, but never everything" it now suddenly has no meaning because he is only joining the cause for revenge.  Contrast that with Yul Brynner's character, Chris, who is moved by the gesture of poor farmers scraping together everything they have just to hire him to fight.  Which movie has more depth of character?  Which movie is going to move you more on an emotional level?

Akira Kurosawa's film was called THE SEVEN SAMURAI.  It is about seven samurai.  The 1960's MAGNIFICENT SEVEN is about seven gunfighters.  The new movie's cast of characters have different occupations.  You have Sam and the Mexican as gunfighters, a knife expert, a former Confederate who is now a sharp shooter, a Native American who joins for no reason, a mountain man and a gambler.  The diversity of their occupations doesn't hurt the modern film because there is no attempt to bring a connection between our protagonists and our super rich and super mean antagonist.  There is no time for character development despite the longer run time.  Longer run time means longer gun fights at the end.  1960's MAGNIFICENT had a cast of nothing but wandering gunfighters just like the wandering samurai from the source material.  These seven gunfighters are fighting a large band of outlaws who are also gunfighters.  They have similar job occupations.  Eli Wallachi leads the gang of outlaws who steals from the poor defenseless farmers.  Near the end he out smarts the heroes and takes over the small village but he doesn't kill them.  He respects them.  He sees himself as one of them even though he doesn't understand why they are fighting for some pathetic farmers.  The new movie has a stereotypical wealthy bad guy.  Only at the end is there an attempt to establish any connection our heroes and villain and it is only the deflating revelation that the bad guy killed Sam's family back in the day.  Standard stuff you would find in any Western.  That is why I really don't consider this a remake.  It is too far gone from the source material.  It is in name only that this is a remake.

Location.  Location.  Location.  The location is so important to both versions of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.  For the original it helps emphasize the thoughtful nature of our heroes.  They choose to fight the odds in a foreign land far away from anyone who will ever know their sacrifice.  There is no reward for what they are doing.  No one will remember them except for the farmers and villagers they help save.  They are alien to the Mexican culture.  Through the course of the film, however, the gunfighters envy the farmers for having a life worth living full of family and friends.  The farmers and the gunfighters learn from each other and develop a kinship.  Also the village is in the middle of nowhere far from any form of law enforcement which is ideal for Calvera and his men to take as they please.  The villagers are so desperate to hire men that are good with guns that they scrounge all of their most valuable possessions together making themselves even more poor than they were before.

The location of the remake takes place in the United States.  The townsfolk are not poor when compared to the farmers of the original.  The townsfolk gathering up their possessions to pay for their own Magnificent Seven isn't as meaningful.  They probably have more wealth where that came from.  Just look at how prosperous their town looks.   These people have jobs.  It feels disingenuous.  Being in the United States means there is some kind of government law somewhere about.  I know the film gives the classic cliche that the evil rich guy owns the law but if you are going to seek help from an army of bad guys, you don't buy gunfighters.  You go to a nearby fort and find the United States Army and ask them to help for free.  Does the bad guy own the Army too?  Not bloody likely.  Maybe there is some kind of HEAVEN'S GATE situation going on the movie doesn't mention.

Calvera played by Eli Wallachi is bombastic, deadly and a true threat.  He is a bandit, a killer, a man who has lived the life of adventure.  He lives outside of the law just like our heroes.  Contrast that to Bartholomew Bogue the wealthy murdering businessman.  Peter Sarsgaard is a great actor and he does his job well playing the antagonist but his diminutive size and stature does not present much of a menace to our stalwart band of larger than life heroes.  Being a man raised in great privilege makes him look soft having armed guards do his dirty work.

So what are we left with?  A descent action western and not much else.  Its not great but it is entertaining for the most part.  All the actors are great in their respected roles.  Denzel is always good.  You can never accuse the guy of giving a bad performance.  Chris Pratt is pretty much an early relative of STARLORD but that is a good thing for this film.  The Seven do have some good chemistry between them all that musters some attachment from the audience.  I like Byung-hun Lee as Billy Rocks the knife expert and his partner Goodnight Robicheaux the sharpshooter.  These two have an fun and sympathetic friendship where Billy keeps Goodnight in check from completely falling apart from his past experience in the Civil War.  If they had survived the movie they should have had a spin-off movie exploiting their further adventures.  Oops!  Spoilers!  Antoine Fuqua is a really good action director and he brings his "A Game" for this one.  There is a ton of glorious six gun blasting action in this movie and it's well staged and easy to follow.  No busy editing to distract form the action.  I particularly like all the horse stunt work Denzel does shooting bad guys from atop his magnificent black steed.  He is like a gymnast on a pommel horse.  Don't worry, folks.  The horse survives.  With all the shootings, stabbings and other major impalement issues I am surprised that this film managed to squeak out a PG-13.

Its funny.  Antoine Fuqua made another actioner that came out back in the old days of 2003.  It was TEARS OF THE SUN.  It starred Bruce Willis as a Special-Ops commander who leads a small group of soldiers who are sent into Africa to retrieve a doctor played by Monica Bellucci but find themselves ignoring orders to save a bunch of refugees fleeing a murderous army that seeks to kill them all.  Its an okay movie.  Tom Skerritt pops up in the film as an added bonus.  TEARS is way more closer to a MAGNIFICENT SEVEN remake than the Denzel movie.  Men in a foreign land who fight against a much larger army to save some people they have no apparent commonality with.  Sure it doesn't take place in the same time period and it lacks the memorable dialogue of the original but it does have the same core concept of few against many for the lives of strangers and the greater good.  See it for yourself.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN has more in common with any generic action movie (WORLD GONE WILD) concerning men recruited to undertake a dangerous mission than it does with the classic Western the movie steals it's title from.  Still the new movie is enjoyable with it's colorful cast and impressive amount of shoot'em up fun.  It is just too bad they didn't approach the material as an epic rather than just another BANG-BANG action movie.

Jason

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 3: THE HANGMAN'S DAUGHTER

Out of the three FROM DUSK TILL DAWN films HANGMAN'S DAUGHTER is my least favorite.  That should come as some surprise to those who know me because I love the concept of a vampire western and part 3 takes that concept literally.  HANGMAN'S DAUGHTER is a prequel to the first film with the setting in the late 1800's or early 1900's when real westerns take place.  I have two big issues with part 3.  The first is that the story is more of a repeat of the first film with it starting out like a real western and ending as a horror movie.  Say what you will about TEXAS BLOOD MONEY at least it was an original story.  How many movies are out there about vampires robbing a bank?  None as far as I know.  My second problem is with how weird and uncomfortable the film gets when the vampire carnage begins.  This movie gets weird, folks and I mean not in a good way.

Ambrose Bierce is a writer and former solider looking for Pancho Villa  to help with the Mexican Revolution.  Johnny Madrid is an outlaw who has just escaped the Hangman and has taken his daughter, Esmeralda as a willing hostage.  After Johnny and his gang rob Ambrose's stage coach and leave him out in the middle of nowhere with two missionaries he finds a bar and brothel out in the middle of the desert.  Johnny and his bandits also find the bar along with the Hangman and his posse looking for him and his daughter, Esmeralda.  Esmeralda discovers that she has a strange connection to the bar.  Of course we all know the bar is run by vampires.  As the vampires attack, the survivors escape by wandering aimlessly in the back tunnels of the bar until they magically end up where they first started so the movie can be over soon.  Yeah, you can kind of tell they didn't know exactly how to bring the characters back full circle to reach the climax of the movie.

There is a lot to like in HANGMAN'S DAUGHTER.  The cast is strong with Michael Parks as the often drunk Ambrose Bierce and Marco Leonardi as the cutthroat with a sense of skewed morals Johnny Madrid.  These two are the film's foundation.  There are some great moments too that you wouldn't find in any other movie.  For instance the stage coach robbery scene is a standout simply because the coach's drivers are a mute and a blind man.  The two work together as one to fight off with desperadoes the best they can with the mute driving and the blind man using his sense of hearing to shoot.  I also like the idea of Ambrose being haunted by his future death.  The movie starts off with a dream sequence showing Bierce getting shot from a firing squad.  Throughout the film he is haunted by strange visions of that moment.  At least I think his future death is being foretold.  What the heck do I know.

With all the great moments, bats on strings fun and red and green goo thrown about the movie still somehow manages to screw things up with the vampires.  In particular the head mistress of the bar/brothel.  The camera lingers way too long on her as if we are suppose to find her extremely seductive and sexual.  I hate to say it.  She isn't.  There is nothing worse than a movie trying to pass someone off as "hot" when they clearly are not.  Anyone see CLERKS 2?  She has this tendency to lick blood from time to time and at one point regurgitates blood so another vampire can taste it.  It makes for some uncomfortable watching.  Too much tongue action.  The first thing the head mistress does when she meets Esmeralda is lick the wounds on her back.  Really?  How is that for a 'Hello'?  She really doesn't pose much of a threat.  She just looms about making everything weird for everyone.  The head mistress turns Esmeralda into Santanico Pandemonium with some bizarre ritual at the end of the movie that involves a naked vampire grandma.  We get to see grandma's "down there parts" if you know what I mean.  Another thing to mention is how do vampires age?  I thought it was implied that vampires never age since Danny Trejo is back playing the same character he played in the first FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.  Maybe she was a grandma when she turned but I doubt it.  Oh, well.  Who cares?

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 3: HANGMAN'S DAUGHTER has many things that work in it's favor.  It is a somewhat creative film with some strong characters and violence.  There is enough here to entertain.  The problem is that the few problems the movie does have hurts the overall feel of the movie.  In the end we really didn't need to see the story of how Santanico Pandemonium came to be head B-Word of the Titty Twister.  Still like part 2, HANGMAN"S DAUGHTER is a mostly enjoyable monster movie even if it is not nearly as good as the first one.

Jason

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2: TEXAS BLOOD MONEY

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2: TEXAS BLOOD MONEY probably should have just been titled TEXAS BLOOD MONEY.  I think that way no one could compare it with ridicule to the far superior FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.  If it wasn't for being a sequel, I think TEXAS would be more accepted as the fun bloody romp this horror film sets out to be.  The production value of the sequel is a bit crude compared to the original which can be a huge turn off to those who think special effects have to look immaculately realistic no matter what.  Good luck finding that in the horror genre.  TEXAS stands on its own merit by itself despite the painfully bad computer effects.

Robert Patrick is awesome.  We cannot get enough Robert Patrick in our lives.  We never really get to see him in a badass lead role.  TEXAS was wise to cast Mr. Patrick as Buck the film's cool tough guy bank robber lead.  Mr. Patrick doesn't miss a beat and makes the most of the unique opportunity given to him.  Even though he is a thief he is very likable.  Not a violent man he does his best to protect his pals when all Hell breaks loose.  He and his fellow bad guys rob a bank in Mexico but one of them has become a vampire.  Throughout the robbery one by one Buck's crew fall victim to the vampire and become one of the undead themselves.  Outside the police have surrounded the bank making escape for Buck almost impossible.  The premise of the movie is thrilling when you think about it.  It screams B-Movie fun.  Fun is what you should have when watching it.

Danny Trejo and the infamous Titty Twister bar return to confound the audience but I wasn't left confused.  I don't think Trejo's character is suppose to be the same guy in the the first one nor is the new Titty Twister the same bar.  I could be wrong though.  I didn't write the bloody thing.

I know TEXAS is not a perfect film but I appreciate what it is trying to do.  There is some respect for classic westerns integrated into the look of the film.  There is a big nod to Sam Peckinpah's greatest work THE WILD BUNCH.   At the end the death march from the classic western's finale is re staged at the end of TEXAS with Buck teaming up with a Texas sheriff played by Bo Hopkins (Who was actually one of the Wild Bunch!) to face off with Buck's former bandits now turned greedy bloodsuckers.  It is a great little moment that few seem to notice and when I say "few" I mean none.

I find there is a lot to like in this movie.  Some of the dialogue is cool and original and some of the camera angles are strange and disorienting giving the impression that you are watching EVIL DEAD 2 instead of a FROM DUSK TILL DAWN sequel.  I guess that is because the director of TEXAS is Scott Spiegel who helped write EVIL DEAD 2.  There is a weird angle that is what I call Vampire Tongue P.O.V. as it bites down on a person's neck.  From inside the mouth you see fangs sink into the neck with blood freely flowing out.  No one has seen that point of view before.  Watch it for yourself and see if you find TEXAS BLOOD MONEY abhorrent like most do or a quirky fun bank heist gone way wrong western.  I feel that TEXAS BLOOD MONEY deserves more than a pathetic 3.9 rating on the IMDB.  I shudder to think what it was rated on Rotten Tomatoes.  All I can say is that FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2: TEXAS BLOOD MONEY is BAT POOP crazy.  Whether that is a good thing or not is up to you.  I apparently just happen to like bat poop.

Also I like how at the end this modern day vampire western the survivors question why vampires would rob a bank as if to let the audience know that the makers recognize the silly premise the film presents.  Clever.

Jason

JOHN CARPENTER'S GHOSTS OF MARS

GHOSTS OF MARS is a great John Carpenter film.  I say that in protest to the many critics who truly love the director's previous work but can't seem to love this film as well.  The critics are not entirely wrong.  GHOSTS has its problems but the movie is strong with Carpenter's style.  The story is familiar territory with a small group of protagonists grossly outnumbered and surrounded by a vicious army of killers.  The only difference is that this time instead of the setting taking place on Earth we are transported to Mars in the future.  It is an action/sci-fi/western film with a good dose of supernatural horror mixed in for good measure.  Carpenter can't go wrong with that combination and in my humble opinion he delivers.

GHOSTS is a story about a few cops and local survivors who find themselves trapped in a police station on an small outpost town on Mars surrounded by an army of people who have become possessed by the ghosts of the ancient alien race that once ruled the land.  Back from the dead these ghosts want to retake the planet from the now occupying humans.

Visually everything works together to create a futuristic world that maintains traces of our past.  Carpenter's camera picks up every moody detail presented on screen.  The costuming is elaborate whether it be the police uniforms, civilian attire or the tribal mutilation make-up effects.  The sets look authentic.  Despite being about ghost aliens the movie feels down to Earth.  Imagine if this movie was made today.  Half the people, props and sets would be cartooned in with computers.  Remember how fake everything looked in ESCAPE FROM L.A?  That mistake is not repeated here.  The realism of the world helps us get more involved with the story and less distracted with visual hiccups.

Actionwise GHOSTS kicks a lot of butt.  This is an R rated film for sure with blood and severed limbs strung about when necessary.  People have a tendency to lose their heads in this one.  Things get pretty exciting when the ancient warriors in their new meat suits storm the police station.  The survivors band together and organize a tactical defensive to keep the native alien race at bay just enough to find a way to survive.  It is nice to be able to tell what is going on in the action scenes.  That is always my biggest complaint for modern action films with the shaky camera work and heavy use of quick edits.

I only have one complaint about the film and that involves the leader of the alien ghost people, Big Daddy Mars.  He looks like a total badass.  He is big, looks like Marylin Manson from Hell and definitely an imposing figure.  But he doesn't do much besides scream and get caught on fire.  He never really does anything to strike fear into the audience.  I think that is because the character isn't given enough screen time.  We already know where he comes from and what they are but his character is no different than the other possessed people that surround him.  He just looks more badass but doesn't do anything to stand out.  At least he isn't C.G.I.'d over and made a cartoon like they did to that one orc in THE HOBBIT 2.  Nowadays they would do that so Big Daddy Mars can jump around and do crazy acrobatics and stuff to be more thrilling to the kiddies that watch these movies.

I take that back I have another complaint to make about GHOSTS.  I don't like the fact that when you kill a possessed guy the ghost leaves and is free to roam about and posses anyone they want.  This does two things that are bad.  It creates a big plot hole because why are all the survivors not possessed when they kill hundreds of ghost people?  You would figure the newly freed spirits would just float into the prison and possess them all.  Also it makes the idea of shooting the bad guys a bad one because that releases the ghosts.  That kind of ruins the action element of GHOSTS because every time a ghost person goes down you wonder why the survivor who shot them didn't just become immediately possessed after.

I think why people who grew up loving Carpenter do not like this film so much is because they fall into the same trap that older critics did when Carpenter films first came out.  They don't get his style and focus too much on what could be a too simple story for them.  Maybe they want his stories to have some political statement like so many other horror films out there.  John Carpenter is a storyteller and that is what he wants to do.  Tell stories.  You can pull out some political or social statement out of GHOSTS OF MARS if you want but that is not his intention.  Hopefully like the old critics of the past those who do not like this film now will eventually come back to it and appreciate it a little more.  I think that will be easier to do since nowadays films similar to this one are so C.G.I. heavy that it is hard to take anything happening on the screen seriously.

GHOSTS OF MARS is one of the few JC movies I got to see on the big screen.  Despite some flaws I had a blast watching it.  I hope in time others will find this one to be as enjoyable as I did when I first watched it.  Great soundtrack too.

Jason

JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES

JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES is a mixed bag.  It has one of the best representations of vampirism put to screen and an extremely strong out going lead in James Wood's character.  But the story or lack there of and a rushed finale really hurt the film.  Yet despite having some major issues this is one of my favorite John Carpenter films simply because I like the basic concept.  What Carpenter has created is THE WILD BUNCH vs. a bunch of vampires.  I love that idea.

James Woods is a vampire hunter whose team is wiped out by a single vampire.  Discovering this vampire is looking for a black cross that can make it possible for vampires to walk in the light James goes after the vampire to stop him.  There is a little more to it but we all know the story with movies like this.  You don't need me to type it out for you.  It always has to be about saving the world.

The execution of the story is a little weak.  It seems like the writers didn't know which direction to take the story so we the audience find ourselves watching people talk in hotel room for a good chunk of the film's running time.  I never timed it so maybe they aren't in there too long but it sure does feel like it.  The plot of getting the black cross and stopping vampires from walking in the daylight is mentioned at least three times throughout the film adding nothing but redundancy to the plot.  The end itself is a rush job with little in the way of action and conflict.  Apparently they ran out of money which is sad because this film could have used a more violent and elaborate ending.  Instead we get this weird montage of vampires running into an old prison to avoid sunlight with some priest and one of the Baldwins shooting at them with worthless guns.  Big whoop.  They might as well have used harsh language to fight off the vampires by that point.  The result would have been the same.

VAMPIRES is unique though for it's use of the sun.  Vampires do not like the sun but so much of the film takes place in the open sunlight.  Most vampire movies take place at night unless they are really low budget.  Besides the fact that the movie takes place in the geographic west having most of the movie take place during the day adds to the Western movie formula.  Everything shot through a red filter helps with the dry arid desert look as well.  You got these Gothic looking vampires strutting their stuff in the wild west which you don't see too much in vampire movies.

These vampires kill to kill not just to drink blood.  In fact I am not sure if there is much blood drinking in this movie.  They are killing machines as John Carpenter puts it.  These baddies seek power and the cross is going to help them get it.  I particularly like how the vampires ignite and explode in the sun.  If you notice our vampire hunters have a tendency to overkill them.  They stake them, burn the corpses in the sun and then take their heads.  I think they do that because like in the book, VAMPIRE$, they are discovering what will and what won't kill them.  They make sure these vampires have no chance of coming back.  I always liked that concept.  Usually someone has all the answers on how to deal with the undead.  I think it is a little more realistic and exciting if nobody knows for sure.

The gadgets, weapons and outfits our vampire hunters were wearing at the beginning of the film are super cool.  These costume dressings are the kind of badass style we want to see more of.  The vampire hunters themselves would have made the movie better if the writers hadn't killed them all off ten minutes into the film.  Our "Wild Bunch" sadly do not last long.  These guys live the fast  lifestyle.  They know they can die at anytime so they live it up the best they can drinking, smoking and tearing up hotel rooms to impress their whores.  I would have liked the movie to explore that aspect instead of giving us a film with the standard save the world and revenge dead parents plot.  There was definitely a missed opportunity here.  Still James Woods is enough to keep the film interesting.

Maybe VAMPIRES isn't the best in John Carpenter's career but it struck a cord with me with some of it's concepts.  I recommend it but this is one of those movies that has a lot to forgive.  This is one of those rare occasions where I wouldn't mind seeing a remake but with the same director.  Read the book there is a great movie you can make out of that.


Jason

THE LAST STAND.....A very violent car comercial?

What a great time it is to be an action movie fan.  It is also kind of a weird time as well.  Who would have ever imagined that Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to the big screen in a staring role would be a modern day western directed by one of the greatest directors to come out of Korea, Kim Jee-Woon.  If you haven't seen THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD, I SAW THE DEVIL or A TALE OF TWO SISTERS then you are missing out.  The action movie hero torch was never successfully passed to a new generation.  I know we saw an attempt with the Rock in THE RUNDOWN but he kind of fumbled it with crap like DOOM and (sigh) THE TOOTH FAIRY along with even more forgettable crap.  FASTER was his best but it's too little too late.  Thankfully Scott Adkins was there to catch the fumble and with the help of director Isaac Florentine was able to bring about a direct-to-video resurgence of truly great action films like NINJA and UNDISPUTED 2 and 3.  But it looks like 2013 is the return of the old guys.  We have THE LAST STAND with Arnold, followed by BULLET TO THE HEAD with Stallone and finally DIE HARD part 5 with the ever charming Bruce 'freakin' Willis.  All three are released in the first two months of 2013.  Hurray!  To say the least I was really excited to see THE LAST STAND.  I even got my picture with the poster.  Look at how happy I am.  That's probably the biggest smile you are going to get out of me.  That poster was across the street by the way.  It was huge.  I am standing on the second floor of a parking garage.

THE LAST STAND is about an aging sheriff who realizes that he and his few deputies are the only ones able to stop a recently escaped drug lord (and part time race car driver) from crossing the border in a super fast Corvette.  The movie as a whole is pretty darn good.  Its not the greatest action movie in the world but it manages to be unique with its crisp dry cinematography and breezy camera movement.  Arnold is showing his age but still maintains a strong screen persona.  Its comes from his stone cold glare that has been missed from the big screen for so long.  Forrest Whitaker is really good in this too playing an agent who is really really pissed off all the time.  I guess I would be too if I let the most dangerous man in my custody get away.  There is a good amount of warmth in this film coming from the cast.  Arnold is the nice sheriff with a bloody past.  He knows what is about to come his way.  His deputies are bored with the quiet life getting themselves in trouble with their sheriff goofing around with Knoxville who they have to deputize out of desperation to use his guns to fight the baddies at the end.  The supporting cast are usually the comic relief and they do a great job especially Luis Guzman.  Is Guzman ever bad in anything he does?  I don't think so.

Actionwise the film has some car chase stuff that at times feels like a high price car commercial debuting during the Super Bowl.  Its not bad or anything but I couldn't help but think that everything looked a little too sleek and polished like a car commercial.  I almost expected little words to appear at the bottom stating that this was a professional driver on a closed course.  That all changes when the car runs into Arnold.  There is a pretty cool showdown in the middle of the sheriff's small town with our lead hero showing up in the time to bring out the big guns to blast a few baddies ending with another car chase and a fist fight on the bridge.  Not a whole lot but maybe I was just too spoiled with THE EXPENDABLES 2 which had a body count of like a billion.  Even though the action scenes were nothing too spectacular they were at least pretty bloody.  Gone is the big special effects heavy watered down PG-13 style of action that was so prevalent in the 90s.

Arnold is one of those actors that was so large in physical size that the film had to fit around him.  That really isn't the case with THE LAST STAND.  He is still bigger than most but now the movie has to accommodate his age.  It works in his favor though.  I like older badasses than younger ones.  The older look like they have more experience and wisdom.  I always preferred John Wayne over the younger Clint Eastwood.  THE LAST STAND still has at least one past Arnold movie reference with a sword that looked like Conan's and they still give him a couple of one liners that kind of fall flat.  Hey, at least they didn't make him say "I'm back" or some self referential crap that they always do to him.

I hope that Arnold spends his time wisely making harder edge character driven films.  We don't need anymore JUNIORs or JINGLE ALL THE WAYs.  I really don't want to see him return to his past series either like TERMINATOR or the CONANs.  THE LAST STAND is a step in the right direction.  Even though its not perfect this modern day western is at least a return to the more violent and gritty Arnold that made him the ultimate badass of the 80's.  Bravo.  I want more.


Jason

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

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!

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

THE BURROWERS

THE BURROWERS is a near perfect horror film.  I know.  How can this be?  My second to last entry was about the craptacularness of modern horror and here we have a modern horror movie that feels original and is actually scary.  Basically its John Wayne's THE SEARCHERS meets..........Idk, Kevin Bacon's TREMORS, I guess.

THE BURROWERS takes the Western and Horror genres and smashes them together like two brightly colored pieces of delicious tasty play dough.  Four cowboy types form a posse to track down the missing family we see at the beginning of the movie that gets attacked by the title creatures, the Burrowers.  Along the way our protagonists run across a military outfit run by a crazy Captain who thinks the family was taken to a reservation.  The cowboys stay with them until they realize that the Captain is wrong and heads off in the right direction following a trail of strange shallow holes they find around every attack sight.  The movie is about figuring out what these creatures are.  For most of the movie everyone assumes that it was Indians that attacked the family.  When one of them is attacked by the creatures they realize they are in over their head.  By this time however its a little too late.

If you like Westerns you will like the attention to detail this film offers.  The costumes and speech seem authentic even if maybe they aren't.  The cinematography is beautiful but still shows a rough and unforgiving west.  The actors seem like they are really in the west in olden times.  With the exception of the stereotypical cliched racist Captain all the characters are well rounded and don't necessarily fill typical roles like villain and hero.  The good guys aren't perfect.  In fact the main character gets scared and pulls his gun shooting at some Indians that were trying to greet them peacefully.  He not only made enemies of people that may know how to help, he gets one of his fellow posse members (the KURGAN from HIGHLANDER) killed.  You never know if heros will be villains and you are not really sure who is going to live or die.   This makes the film unpredictable.  That's a good thing.

THE BURROWERS is a dark film.  You don't really expect a western to be particularly disturbing but this one is.  Its disturbing because the creatures like to paralyze you and bury you alive.  The victims are right at the posses feet.  All they have to do is look down.  You can't sleep.  All you do is wait until the little monsters get hungry and dig you up and eat you alive.  Don't get caught by the Burrowers is all I am saying.

A few complaints I guess are in order.  After all I did say THE BURROWERS was near perfect.  The monsters get a little too CGI at the end but its only in a few shots.  Also the way the main character finds out that the woman he was searching for is dead doesn't make much sense.  At the beginning he gives her a trinket to show his intention of marriage.  At the end these Indians show up with a collection of stuff they took off the victims of the Burrowers and of course he finds his trinket.  Here is the problem.  They find the Indians hundreds of miles away from the initial attack of the family.  The Burrowers bury their prey right away.  They don't drag them around underground for hundreds of miles.  You have to assume that the Indians were near the ranch from the beginning of the movie and traveled all the way to meet up with the main characters at the end.  It doesn't seem right to me.  Maybe I missed something.  I don't know.  I have only seen it twice.  Do the creatures travel?  If they do why would they leave their food behind?  THE BURROWERS also drags a little bit towards the end because you are not quite sure where this movie is going and you are not sure if the movie knows where it is going either.  It is only a short time and the pace picks up at the finale.

THE BURROWERS is a movie that makes you think.  Its a movie about two cultures not working together to defeat a common foe because of fears, prejudices and cultural differences.  It kind of reminds me of the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD where the people in that movie get killed because no one cooperates right away with one another.  Even though THE BURROWERS ends on kind of a downer you won't be disappointed watching this movie.  Its a scary, smart good time.  YEE-haw?

Jason

The GOOD, the BAD, the AMERICANIZED CUT DOWN VERSION!

The Good, The Bad, and The Weird is a great homage to the Leone Italian westerns.  The Weird has stolen a treasure map that leads to a supposed ancient treasure.  The Bad is chasing the Weird to settle a score.  The Good is a bounty hunter chasing the Bad for his bountiful bounty.  This is a fun film to watch.  The film is colorful and for the most part the action is captured perfectly.  The shaky-cam does make appearances from time to time but its not too noticeable.  The movie never slows down.  Its one gun fight after another.  Good thing too because I think there are more plot holes than there are actual bullet holes if you pay close attention.  Its still a great film.  Unfortunately the U.S. version kind of sucks.

I have two versions of this film.  I have a region 0 copy that is uncut and the new blu-ray that just came out from IFC Films.  I don't know who but somebody decided to play director and change the ending in the U.S. version.  The original has a longer ending with another nod to the Leone films that is crucial for the ending to make sense and another quick shoot-out.  Its awesome.  The U.S. decided that the movie was too long for today's high school musical crowd and cut it down to where the ending is weak sauce.  The Weird survives but how and I do believe (though I am not sure) they leave the fate of the Good and the Bad a mystery.  You see at the end wanted posters showing the Bad being marked out as DEAD.  The Good is walking by and takes notice.  They only show his feet at first with a shot of his back watching the Bad's wanted poster being marked out. It has to be the Good, right?  When he turns around the lower part of his face is covered by a scarf (or whatever) but to me he looks different.  Something about his eyes doesn't look right.  Maybe the Bad is wearing the Good's clothes but I didn't notice a scar on his cheek so maybe it is the Good.  The point is I couldn't tell.  Its a much weaker ending.  Why would IFC do this?  I thought they would keep the intended viewing experience intact.  Instead they sold out.  Sony did the same damn thing to Sukiyaki Western Django where they removed a couple of weird crazy scenes involving a guy getting his balls shot off and later he tries to be a woman and hit on his gang's leader where he is promptly shot dead.  Its weird and unnecessary but it adds to the unique Takashi Miike watching experience.  Its something you don't see over here which is why we watch movies like this in the first place.  I guess the powers that be decided to that we wouldn't understand so they cut the cool stuff out.

Maybe that is the intent of The Good, The Bad and The Weird.  Maybe there are multiple endings that could be fitted to the end depending on which section of the world the movie is playing at.  The final shoot-out seems left open to where any ending is possible.  The Good could win with The Weird getting away or The Weird gets away and is still being chased by the Bad.  Its whatever you want it to be.  Its kind of like the new My Bloody Valentine 3-D.  In that movie they leave clues to two possible killers.  It was either Jensen Ackles (the hero) or the sheriff played by that one guy from Dawson's Creek who was the token gay character. But the ending isn't decided by the story itself because it could have been either one.  The only way to tell is when Jensen finally comes out and says "I'm the killer".  The ending seems more decided on focus groups and early screening reactions rather than the natural progression of the story.  But I am a blogger on the Internet.  What the fudge would I know?

Despite the ending I do believe the rest of the film is left intact.  If you love westerns and action with blood and comedy I highly recommend. 

Jason