jbow


My two favorites right now are
 
Open Range
 
and
 
Silverado.
 
Kevin Costner is in both and both he and Bob Duvall are outstanding in Open Range. My favorite character in Silverado is Kevin Kline. I've seen others I liked and I like most any movies, western or not, set in the 18th or 19th century.
Cowboys and Aliens... not so much.
The remake of True Grit was really good, IMO. 3:10 to Yuma was OK.. not great.
 
I like no BS characters like Capt. Woodrow Call in Lonesome Dove and Charley Waite (Costner) in Open Range.
 
Any suggestions?? What to watch...???
 
Julien

In Silverado, I love John Cleese' entrance,  "Wots all this then?"

" The Wild Bunch."  The movie about the end of the old west that ended westerns for a good while.  Peckenpaw at his best.

"Unforgiven."  The best clint western ever.

"The Searchers."  John Wayne makes one bad ass bad ass.  Ford at his best.

@

Wyatt Earp with Costner
Lonesome Dove - Duvall
Open Range - Both of them
Dance with Wolves - Costner
True Grit - Duke
Appaloosa -Ed Harris
She wore a yellow ribbon - Duke
How the west was won - A little goofy but visually true.
Streets of Laredo - Totally goofy but I always watch it

 
Good list. I like the remake of True Grit too and most everything that Costner has done. If you read, you should read Louis L'Amour's book 'How the west was won' and his Sacketts books are REALLY good, especially the first four books. Heck all L'Amour books are good.
 
J

Hi,

Just thought of another movie ...
POSSE -- Mario Van Peebles directed it in 1993 and it was one of those things that is hard to watch, but likely very true to its character and form. Very historical.

I'm watching "El Topo" again and will see what I think this time around ... never seen that thing in its entirety. Also would like to find his other film.
 
Of course, we can always add fake westerns, like "Zachariah".

Hi,

Sam's film making and in the end violent stuff, was not so much about the western, as it was about his own view of things ... and he had the same issue with producers and film studios.  I do think that "Wild Bunch" is the best of them all, though the other films have their own bits and pieces that make it attractive. The only one I prefer not to talk about or watch, is "Straw Dogs", which to me is more about taking it all too far, than anything else ... and by that time, I did not think that Sam was with it anymore.

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is an interesting movie ... and I think, a joke ... and not supposed to be taken seriously ... can't tell ... but it was nice, if not weird. At the time, the studio made a lot of bruhaha about the music for the film, and of course having Kristofferson and Dylan in there. Not sure the movie is better with them, or not important without them ... and I never could decide if the film was worth it or not.

The Wild Bunch certainly is full of memoriable lines and shots.  It was the first time I knew Lt. McCale and his navy could act and why Ernest Borgine won Oscars.  Any movie whose first real line is "If they move, shoot 'em" can't be all bad, expecially after riding into town past kids making red ants and a scorpion fight, their little angelic faces smiling .... kinda like the smiles at the end after ... well, either you know or don't and I don't want to let loose any spoilers.

Pat Garret  is a bit uneven.  The uncut version they have been showing has some great scenes not in the original but seems to slow the movie down.  It is worth a view and Bob Dylan's bit pieces are great. 

Straw dogs is a painful movie.  The remake is painful, but in a different way.  I never got through it tho they show it incessantly on cable.

Pekinpaw used a lot of the same people over and over and would pit them against each other.  In "Ride the high country" he wouldn't let the "good guys"  around the "bad guys" except when filming, and it was the first time most of them worked together.  He liked the tension like he liked his drink.

My favorite of his is "Cross of Iron" w/ James Colburn.  A War movie about Germans on the eastern front.  Maybe the best war novel ever and the movie lives up to it.  Funny, Germans fighting the Russians in WWII didn't seem to play well at the theaters, can't imagine why.  ONly in the 70s and probably only Sam would have tried.  But if you want to watch a serious war movie (kinda like what they made after korea except more explict and psycho and psycholdelic) try it.  It is in pieces on the internet but they never did a great DVD cut of it. 

@

cclarry


SLASH HAS BECAN!!!!

Spammer!

I have Cross of Iron on my to watch list. I tried to watch Duck, you Sucker yesterday but I just couldn't quite get into it. Watched Nevada Smith today and it was OK. I also watched a quirky little spaghetti western spoof movie that was actually pretty good,
Dead Man with Johnny Depp and others, including Iggy Pop. The music is mostly Neil Young playing solo guitar. Good locations, scenery, strange story. I recorded it, watched it, and decided to not delete it... I may watch it again.

If you like underground quirky movies, give Dead Man a look.

J

57Gregy


I forgot "The Long Riders", with the Carradines as the Youngers, the Keaches as the James brothers, the Quaids as... another pair of brothers and... those other brothers as the Fords.

Have you ever seen the Chinese version?  It's called the Rong Lidels.

His career was completely overshadowed by his brother Stacy's work.
How could he ever top Stacy's acting? I mean, did you see Stacy's Oscar-worthy turn in "Up In Smoke"?