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Red Letter Media discuss The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly https://youtu.be/17N8_E40Nl0 One is a fan of the whole trilogy, the other hadn't ever seen it. Pretty expected positive reactions, some interesting points that aren't really news to anyone who's seen and thought about the movie but if you like to see strangers discuss a film you love this is that. I do wish they didn't dismiss John Ford and John Wayne westerns as morally simplistic, but they haven't really seen them so they're just expressing a common misconception in pop culture that conflates 50's and 60's TV shows with the more subtle and varies films. The Searchers is just screaming for a rebuttal to a lot of their assumptions.
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Aug 19, 2022 17:37
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| # ? Apr 18, 2025 13:41 |
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Right on. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is another cool one. Tough to top Leone! I've still gotta see Duck You Sucker.
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Aug 19, 2022 17:52
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Heavy Metal posted:Right on. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is another cool one. And my favorite in that category, The Ox-Bow Incident.
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Aug 19, 2022 18:08
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Duck You Sucker is so drat good
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Aug 19, 2022 21:29
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I want a 4K set of just super trashy Lucio Fulci Spaghetti Westerns after watching Massacre Time. I don't dig his horror stuff at all, but that one pushed all the correct buttons.
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Aug 19, 2022 22:05
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Sand Monster posted:And my favorite in that category, The Ox-Bow Incident. The Ox-Bow incident is a wonderful film. Anthony Mann did a couple of Westerns with Jimmy Stewart that are great. Jimmy Stewart always brings that element of madness to a role and Mann takes him to some dark places. If you are used to thinking of Jimmy Stewart in terms of Harvey or It's a Wonderful Life then you are going to get something very different.
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Aug 20, 2022 01:17
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Been working my way through the snow westerns on the Criterion Channel. Watched The Great Silence (1968) first which is a marvelous picture. One of the most brutal and fatalistic westerns I've ever seen, right up there with Unforgiven and The Proposition (which I suppose is more of a Southern). Visually stunning with a great soundtrack. Then I watched Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962) . Which wasn't t hat much of a "snow western" seeing as there is only some vague hints of snow on the ground in a handful of scenes. A very good film despite the lack of snow (compared to Silence where every scene set outdoors has people wading through entire drifts of snow.). Not quite as gritty or bloody as Peckinpah's later westerns but it still has some edge to it. I think what stood out most for me is the perfomances. All the actors give it their all and the chemistry between them is great. You really believe that Gil (Randolph Scott) and Judd (Joel McCrea) have been friends for decades. Makes me want to dig up some of their older westerns.
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Jan 17, 2023 14:35
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The Great Silence rocks. Its political underpinnings are a bit compromised by how terrible the real Mormons actually were, but still a great movie.
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Jan 17, 2023 15:05
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FreudianSlippers posted:Then I watched Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962) . Which wasn't t hat much of a "snow western" seeing as there is only some vague hints of snow on the ground in a handful of scenes. A very good film despite the lack of snow (compared to Silence where every scene set outdoors has people wading through entire drifts of snow.). Not quite as gritty or bloody as Peckinpah's later westerns but it still has some edge to it. I think what stood out most for me is the perfomances. All the actors give it their all and the chemistry between them is great. You really believe that Gil (Randolph Scott) and Judd (Joel McCrea) have been friends for decades. Makes me want to dig up some of their older westerns. Ride the High Country rules, and you succinctly covered why. The chemistry is awesome. I also agree it's not snowy enough for the collection, but I'm glad they got it back on the service. It's a little harder to find, or at least it was last time it left CC.
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Jan 17, 2023 15:08
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Anonymous Robot posted:The Great Silence rocks. Its political underpinnings are a bit compromised by how terrible the real Mormons actually were, but still a great movie. Them being Mormons isn't mentioned in the Italian dub. In that they're just poor citizens who turned to banditry.
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Jan 17, 2023 15:14
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FreudianSlippers posted:Them being Mormons isn't mentioned in the Italian dub. In that they're just poor citizens who turned to banditry. Oh poo poo, lol
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Jan 17, 2023 15:17
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You know what would make a good plot for a western? A gunslinger travels to the Utah Territory when it was basically a Mormon theocracy to try to save a relative who has been indoctrinated into the LDS. Basically Apostle (2018) except with shootouts instead of martial arts fights.
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Jan 17, 2023 15:55
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FreudianSlippers posted:You know what would make a good plot for a western? There is part of me that wants this to be one of the Django knockoff films.
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Jan 17, 2023 16:40
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I watched The Wild North on CC last night. Great snowy setting. I think the most surprising element, for a 1950's MGM Western, is how muddy the morals are for the two main characters. Westerns often have the simplistic Good Guy vs Bad Guy dichotomy. TWN instead establishes the "villain" of the film as the main character, and makes him incredibly likeable, despite some arrogance behind his reputation. Meanwhile the "hero" is introduced as being so by-the-book and uncaring about anything except the crime as it appears on paper (like a Canadian Mountie RoboCop). When the "hero" captures the "villain", our attention and sympathies pretty much stay with the villain. The film just lets the two wrestle with their shared contempt and admiration, and lets them shift their actions in the moment, rather than on some rigid moral code the audience should pick up on. Humans are creatures of opportunity, and a lot of storytelling seems to forget that in favor of simplicity. I love a good "I'm an survival expert, and lemme tell you, the weather is about to gently caress us up" story, and the on-location filming in the mountains and snow lets the stakes feel more realized. Not the best western I've seen on CC, but a solidly good one, especially if you like your characters a little more conflicted about doing what's good or bad. One thing I like about CC's descriptions of the movies: they do accurately describe the film, but they also only describe/spoile the first 20 minutes or so. I've noticed this with Westerns especially. 
Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Jan 18, 2023 |
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Jan 18, 2023 14:06
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The only thing I’ve found awry with the Criterion Collection’s movie descriptions is that they have a much different definition of what constitutes a comedy than I do. I always double check a different source when they’re billing something as funny or lighthearted.
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Jan 18, 2023 14:17
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Watched The Shooting (1966) and Ride in the Whirlwind (also 1966), shot back to back Roger Corman style, both by Monte Hellman and both featuring Jack Nicholson (with him being the screenwriter for Ride in the Whirlwind) I thought both were very solid. I've seen them called Acid Westerns but I think that term applies more to The Shooting than Ride in the Whirlwind as Ride is a very straightforward tale of three cowboys who are accidentally mistaken for outlaws after being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. You could take the same basic plot and set it in modern times and you'd have a decent base for a Coenesque neo-noir. Not much acid about it other than it reflecting the 60s zeitgeist of mistrusting authority. The Shooting on the other hand is a dreamlike atalistic journey into the heart of the desert with broad archetypical characters that behave strangely and often illogically that lend the whole thing an almost mythical quality. With Jack Nicholson playing a mysterious black clad gunslinger who wouldn't feel out of place in Jodorowsky's El Topo . I've also seen them called Mayonnaise Westerns which is a much funnier term.
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Jan 18, 2023 15:45
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Man Stagecoach is really really good. The interplay between the disparate characters all stuck in a tiny moving box together is great even if they're all a bit archetypical.. This feels like the Platonic Ideal of the classic western. I'm not sure how much of the stuff in the film was already well worn before this or if some of it became tropes because of the film. Regardless it's so well put together that it doesn't really matter. That zoom in one Ringo when he's first introduced is an all-timer shot.
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Jan 24, 2023 00:26
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The stunt work is unimpeachable in that film.
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Jan 24, 2023 01:03
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FreudianSlippers posted:The interplay between the disparate characters all stuck in a tiny moving box together is great even if they're all a bit archetypical.. I don't disagree, but it has me wondering, were they archetypal for film characters at that point? They might have been on the early side of things in that regard when it came out.
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Jan 24, 2023 01:24
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I suspect the Gentleman Gambler/Gunslinger embodied in Hatfield might be pretty old as it's basically just Doc Holiday and/or Wild Bill Hickock. The others I'm not so sure. I haven't really seen many pre-50s westerns (but I'm working on it). Maybe it's like Halloween where it feels like a very standard slasher to modern audiences because it invented half of what makes a standard slasher.
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Jan 24, 2023 01:47
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I'm not any kind of expert on the subject but the Silent film era exists for like twenty years before Stagecoach and it was a much bigger deal than we generally acknowledge today; movie makers in the mid twenties are already working in a decades old tradition. Also, apparently The Virginian was published in 1902 so yeah it's two decades of Westerns before then. The Great Train Robbery might not have real characters, but Hell's Hinges does.
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Jan 24, 2023 19:33
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Track of the Cat (1954) is a strange beast. It's visually stunning but most of the film is spent on people on a soundstage yelling their feelings at each other with some brief interludes of Robert Mitchum in a stunning red coat tracking a possibly supernatural big cat through a frozen wilderness. Basically a chamber play intercut with a mystical man Vs nature story every now and then. Also one of the kids from the Little Rascals plays a psychic 100 year old injun in heavy old age make-up. It bounced off me pretty hard but I genuinely loved a lot of it.
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Feb 24, 2023 23:21
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That sounds like wild times. Anybody dig Hombre or the 50s 3:10 to Yuma? Both are based on Elmore Leonard, and I've been enjoying/looking into his stuff lately. Lee Van Cleef, any takes on non-Leone ones he has a big role in? Other than his fun but small cool bits in High Noon and Liberty Valance. I've had Death Rides a Horse, The Big Gundown, and Day of Anger on the list, and Sabata also sounds like it could be fun.
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Feb 25, 2023 09:39
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Heavy Metal posted:That sounds like wild times. I've seen 50s 3:10 to Yuma. I recall the prisoner landed different for me as character in his major scenes where he enticed/challenged the protagonist, compared to the remake. It just seemed like movies had different ways to show the character; 50s one was much more conventionally charming? I'd seen the remake first so that set my expectations going into the original, I'd be curious how other folks compare them.
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Feb 25, 2023 11:01
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Heavy Metal posted:
You definitely want Sabata and Return of Sabata if you want to see Lee in a lead role. In between those two movies is Adios, Sabata starring Yul Brunner because Lee van Cleef was shooting another movie at the time, but it is part of the trilogy. Sabata is really just a variation on the character of Sartana from If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death which was directed by Parolini and when the sequels to that was given to another director he decided to just create Sabata instead. You also have Beyond the Law which sort of feels like Italians trying to make an American style western movie. Barquero is worth a watch and it is american made western that feels more like a spaghetti western than a traditional one, but Lee is good in it.
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Feb 25, 2023 12:05
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The Sabata movies rock. I wish they’d make a modern one that went even crazier with the old timey gadgets and gimmicks.
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Feb 25, 2023 16:28
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Heavy Metal posted:That sounds like wild times. In my reasonably informed opinion the Glenn Ford 3:10 to Yuma is one of the best Westerns ever. Re: van Cleef, I really liked Big Gundown
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Feb 25, 2023 16:28
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Heavy Metal posted:That sounds like wild times. Hombre is a solid Western. Paul Newman acts the hell out of it but I felt the rest of the cast wasn't at his level. The 50's 3:10 to Yuma is fantastic. Glen Ford is an absolutely seductive villain and Van Heflin does a great job of being his foil. If you like 3:10 to Yuma, you might like Broken Arrow.
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Feb 25, 2023 19:09
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Awesome, thanks for the takes! One thing that got me curious about the 50s 3:10 to Yuma, and I like the remake, was Leonard in an interview said the original was closer to the book. In particular he mentioned the ending of the remake goes in a different direction and didn't do it for him, or something like that. Though it's a short story so both movies add a lot I hear. Not a western, but it's also interesting how a really short story The Killers got turned into two longer movies that add a lot of additional stuff, or so I hear.
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Feb 26, 2023 01:20
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Watching One-Eyed Jacks (1961) because I had never really heard of it before and a) Marlon Brando in a western is not that common and b) this is the only movie Brando directed, albeit he only became the director because Kubrick got fired. Plus, it has a pretty good cast of supporting characters in Karl Malden, Ben Johnson and Slim Pickens. Unfortunately it isn't actually a very good movie, it also clocks in at almost 2˝ hours and there was plenty of things that could have been cut for time. Apparently the studio didn't like Brando's final cut and did all kinds of edits on their own, so that could account for the movie feeling a bit disjointed. There is still something slightly magical about Brando mumbling away while holding a revolver and looking sweaty though.  There's a good movie in there somewhere, but you would need to re-edit it.
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Mar 4, 2023 17:18
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Watched Once upon a Time in the West over the weekend; hadn't watched it in probably 10 years or more. It's still so, so great, one of a small handful of Westerns that every person who likes movies should see.
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Apr 25, 2023 15:46
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It was great watching Back to the Future 3 for the first time in years and realizing that they were referencing Once Upon a Time in the West with this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12bCLVGpmZ4
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Apr 25, 2023 16:03
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I think I did ouatiw wrong by watching it after Once Upon a Time in America. Movie just doesn't hold up to it's sort of sequel.
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Apr 25, 2023 16:24
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Once Upon a Time in America is let down by the parts with the younger actors imo. I've always been a bit of an outlier with that film, it's my least favorite Leone.
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Apr 25, 2023 16:41
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I don't recall America featuring a leisurely carriage ride through Monument Valley serenaded by Morricone therefore it is definitely not better Kindly take your blasphemy out of the Western thread, friend
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Apr 25, 2023 18:43
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Does anybody collect water in their hat and then drink it in America? Don't think so.
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Apr 25, 2023 18:55
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Why are so many characters in westerns named "Ringo" or "Johnny Ringo" Also when I'm watching Grit, there are naturally a lot of movies that take place during or just after the US civil war and I always hear people referring to confederates as "Johhny Reb/Rebel" Besides Yankee, did the southerners ever have a name for northerners like "George Yankee" or "Jimmy Yankee" or some poo poo?
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Feb 17, 2024 17:25
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wesleywillis posted:Why are so many characters in westerns named "Ringo" or "Johnny Ringo" Billy Yank. Plus everyone in Tombstone is John, Johnny or Jack. Johnny Tyler, John Beehan, Johnny Ringo, Jack Johnson, Jack Vermillion.. Bonus to Bill Brocius, Billy Breckenridge, Billy Clanton and Billy Claiborne. SolarFire2 fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Feb 17, 2024 |
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Feb 17, 2024 17:30
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wesleywillis posted:Why are so many characters in westerns named "Ringo" or "Johnny Ringo" John P. Ringo was a historical gunslinger and outlaw that was involved in some iconic Old West events and was an enemy of even more famous figures like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. One of whom probably killed him (there are of course conflicting accounts).  
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Feb 17, 2024 17:36
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This is some badass stuff. I actually watched Duck You Sucker with my friend a couple months ago, finally did it, lot of fun. James Coburn is cool. This artist I like Carlos Ezquerra modeled his western-ish war comic character Major Eazy after Coburn. He also did a lot of Judge Dredd (co-created it too) and the sci-fi western comic Strontium Dog. Man that guy owned. Heavy Metal fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Feb 17, 2024 |
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Feb 17, 2024 17:42
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