Saw "Magnificent 7" remake yesterday & better then I thought...

[spence]

   finallt got to go to the remake of the 1960 classic western "The Magnificent 7" & to my surprise, though not especially a good western, it's better than I anticipated;

 

& of course no match vs. the 1960 version-(P.S. & I've actually never seen any of it's sequels, not yet anyway)

 

*Denzel is firm in the title & original *Yul Brynner role. & I guess an actor named Chris Pratt-("Jurassic World" & others) is essentially meant to fill in McQueen's famed role,. though not so in all ways

 

Who stole the acting chops in my opinion is an unrecognizable Vincent D'0frio! He really took me by surprise until I finally remembered him also being in the film,  even bigger then his now famous role in *Kubick's 1987 "Full Metal Jacket"

& with almost white hair & a totally different voice. & *Denzel  doesn't deliver 1 of his greatest performances here, in the classic *Yul Brynner character-(SEE 1973's "Westworld" as most ikely already have)

 

But, as I already wrote, he's firm here. among the main problem for me is the villain-(Eli Wallach)

Peter Saarsgard takes it on & is quite dull, even with the comparison.

 

I'll not give away who gets it  among "The 7' though???    

 

(My personal overall star rating **1/2-out of 4)

 

(P.S. & EVEYBODY FORGET THE GREATEST REMAKE OF "THE MAGNIFICENT 7"  It'S THE 1987 COMEDY W/STEVE MARTIN, CHEVY CHASE & MARTIN SHOIRT "THREE AMIGOS!")

 

THANX

[sewhite2000]

Why you started a new thread on this rather than simply replying to the thread you started three days earlier on the exact same topic is confusing to me. Will a moderator step in and combine these two threads as seems to be happening a lot lately?

[Sepiatone]

I didn't know D'Onofrio was in the remake.  Always liked him in "Law & Order C.I" and his scant film work.  He has a reputation as an "actor's actor".  But, this ISN'T a Vincent thread, so.....

 

 

I've always thought of THE THREE AMIGOS as more of a "send-up" of both old Hollywood and  "The Magnificent Seven".

 

Sepiatone

[spence]

I didn't know D'Onofrio was in the remake.  Always liked him in "Law & Order C.I" and his scant film work.  He has a reputation as an "actor's actor".  But, this ISN'T a Vincent thread, so.....

 

 

I've always thought of THE THREE AMIGOS as more of a "send-up" of both old Hollywood and  "The Magnificent Seven".

 

Sepiatone

TO (SEPIATONE) It obviously was a send-up, I was just being a wiseguy,etc

 

(TRIVIA: But the lead villain in the comedy was Wallach's 2nd in command in the original)

[spence]

   I forget to mention  something I am sooo fed-up with & is shoving it's way into cinema "PC"-("political correctness") & alike

Which & not at all surprisingly was in the modern era Western too

 

The casting of all races in key roles, that were not there in the past???

[LawrenceA]

   I forget to mention  something I am sooo fed-up with & is shoving it's way into cinema "PC"-("political correctness") & alike

Which & not at all surprisingly was in the modern era Western too

 

The casting of all races in key roles, that were not there in the past???

 

Which races didn't exist in the past?

[spence]

   Even *Tom Hanks did this a few yrs back in his 2nd feature as director & star.  It's as if first he cast the picture & then came up with the script?

 

"Larry Crowne" (*1/2) ($40m.) was the lousy comedy co-starring *Julia Roberts & a total flat mess it turned out to be too-(ANYONE ELSE SEEN IT YET?)

 

 

THANK YOU I JUST HAD TO VENT

[spence]

Which races didn't exist in the past?

All races existed in the past of course, but when remaking a classic, they just added & or replace roles now with such concepts

 

"IF IT AN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT"

[JamesJazGuitar]

Which races didn't exist in the past?

 

The L.A. Times posted a letter from someone welcoming this latest remake and mocking the original Japanese version because it only featured Japanese people.   NOW,  I took this letter as sarcasm.   (as in:  Look the remake has every different type of person,,,,isn't that nice,,,, why didn't that racist Japanese version do the same,  ha ha).

 

 

BUT a few days later the Times posted another letter that addressed this first letter.    Here the person pointed out that back in the 12th century in Japan,  the setting of the film,   Japan had only Japanese people (it was one of the most closed societies known to man since it was an island nation etc...).

 

I laughed hard that this second person felt that original letter wasn't sarcasm and took the time to make a serious reply.  

[sewhite2000]

I'm glad someone brought this up. Hoo-boy, travel over to imdb message boards if you want to see an explosion of vitriolic hatred about the casting of minorities in roles once held by white people in the previous version. It finally turned my stomach to the point where I couldn't read anymore.

 

I had two things I wanted to say in response, but I finally felt it wasn't worth engaging in debate someone or someones who weren't going to listen to or understand what I had to say. But I would have liked to have said:

 

1) Just Google African-Americans in the Old West and you will find dozens, hundreds of interesting articles that may surprise you about the many and diverse roles they played in that time and place. We only THINK they didn't because they were "whitewashed" out of the history books, and certainly a hundred years of mainstream Hollywood films were complicit in the cover-up, where, Woody Strode aside, you just didn't see any black people in Westerns unless it was in very tiny roles as train porters or shoeshine boys or so forth.

 

2) And okay even if a black guy leading up a band of guns-for-hire defending a town against the goon army of a robber baron in 1879 is highly improbable in the real world, so what? Who said The Magnificent Seven was the real world? Personally, I like the idea of a black kid not having to ask his parents hey why aren't there ever any heroes with my skin color in Westerns, and he doesn't have to hear, "Well, that's just not the way it was in real life". Do we want to propagate our shameful past of racial oppression and injustice forever because "that's not the way it was"? A LOT of people on imdb message boards certainly do, which made me sad.