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Western Movie Rambles

rohanaka

By rohanaka,
in Westerns

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rohanaka Advanced Member

rohanaka

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The Grey Guy says:

 

have to watch The Third Man

 

Followed by mention of.... a fluffy film for me to watch

 

Well I was starting to WONDER if you were ever going to show up in there or not.... :P

 

Pretend the CAT was named "Fluffy" and go watch the movie, for crying out loud. :P:P

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rohanaka Advanced Member

rohanaka

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Well.. there ya go.. ha. Now you HAVE to see it.. And if it makes you feel any better.. aside from a little "ballet" dream sequence (which I have to say for me lasts a bit too long) right in the middle of of the story.. it is DEFINITELY not "Fluffy" :D

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rohanaka Advanced Member

rohanaka

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It's a musical! That makes it fluffy!

 

You and your definitions. ha. (Mr. "Interesting + Fascinating = Boring" ) :P

 

Where DID you buy your dictionary... and what kind is it, anyway??? "Webster's New American Standard: The Wrong Headed Version?" :P:P:P

 

And you call yourself a GLORIA fan.. I bet MAD HAT would watch it.. if only to get to hear Gloria sing "The I Caint Say No" song.

 

Oh brother.......................

 

Oh. I just had a thought.. it is getting close to "A Christmas Story" season.. maybe I should "triple dog dare ya" Ha

 

Edited by: rohanaka on Nov 19, 2010 2:06 AM

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OllieTSB Advanced Member

OllieTSB

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Fluffy? A musical? A western? A dessert topping? A floor wax?

 

Well, because of Roha's nagging questions and MissG's torments, I finally examined the Harrison Ford "Western" trailer on IMDB's front page and sadly discovered COWBOYS & ALIENS.

 

So, let's see...

 

We've already had JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER (1966), one of the earliest Western mixes (if you consider something like bubonic plague and anthrax as a 'mix').

 

Then we have Fresh Prince's WILD WILD WEST, which offered us CGI-meets-tumbleweeds. Although, perhaps the ability to have endless ammo, shooting 6 bad guys with 4 bullets, and some of the wagon rides on sound-stages - maybe all of those would be "CGI-esque".

 

I don't think "looking forward to it" is quite the right phrase, at my gut-level, for COWBOYS & ALIENS. I'm not sure we'll see it in the theater, let's say, but I am certain it will make the 17-times-a-week playlist on many, many TV channels.

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MissGoddess Advanced Member

MissGoddess

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don't forget yul brynner's WEST WORLD.

 

what makes me mad is i saw a couple of reivews of COWBOYS & ALIENS headed with the words "it's got John Ford written all over it"....AAAACK!!! The only bit of John Ford all over it would be his lunch if he saw that statement.

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CineMaven Advanced Member

CineMaven

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Now don't quote me on this...but I have a sneaking suspicion that many of today's filmmakers couldn't hold a conversation about film with any one of us...in any one of these forums on any

genre.

 

(I did see "Unstoppable" yesterday, and thought it was exciting).

 

Want to say touche to you & Miss G. in Bronxie's threads. Didn't want to write over you.

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OllieTSB Advanced Member

OllieTSB

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Oooh, yeah, *WestWorld*. I'd neglected that.

 

Have you ever done the Turista-Thingy To Tombstone, if you've driven thru Tucson? They have the 'authentic bank-robbery' theater playhouse, all miked up with PA systems and magnum-loaded shotgun shells to really boom across a hundred square miles. So authentic.

 

(cough cough, gag gag)

 

I was more impressed with puny, li'l ol' Langtry, Texas, realizing that without constant oil for lamps, those saloons woulda been mighty dark places. Visiting there on a summer's noon helped a little - incredibly bright sunlight, then stepping into those dark buildings was more like a cavern adventure.

 

Where's the white cane?

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OllieTSB Advanced Member

OllieTSB

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MissG's comment about reviews saying this next film has "John Ford written all over it" and I replied, "More like Edsel Ford..."

 

A classic? Sure. Classic piece of sh... [aving cream, shaving cream|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M32Qr5D9AUM&feature=related] .

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rohanaka Advanced Member

rohanaka

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Hiya Ollie.. I looked up Cowboys and Aliens online because I could NOT believe anyone could even conceive of such a notion.. ha.

 

Sadly.. I was mistaken.

 

OH my golly.. I watched the trailer for it.. I can't say for sure (because other than the trailer, I have NO knowledge of the movie) but it looks like they are going for a "War of the Worlds-ish, Independence Day-ish" kind of high action sort of feel with a western twist.

 

Oh brother.. They SHOULD have gone more "campy" with it instead of coming on "serious".Because I dont think (at least from what I saw in the trailer) that it is SUPPOSED to be funny.. and yet.. I still laughed. HA! :D

 

Maybe they could have done a sort of "ET: The Bonanza Years" kinda thing.. ha. (Where Hoss and Little Joe find a friendly and loveable little space alien creature and teach him to ride and rope out on the range before he has to return back to his home planet) ha. Now THAT would at least have been more "believable.

 

OH.. better still.. I just had a thought... You were onto something by mentioning The Fresh Prince.. ha. What they SHOULD have done was get Will Smith to play the lead.. ha. Then they could have a sort of "Wild Wild West Meets Men in Black" thing going on. He could play a cowboy who is working for the Secret Service as an Extra-Terrestrial Law Man. James West with laser guns (one hidden in his belt buckle and the other in his boot heel, of course) HA.

 

Oh, those Hollywood guys.. what WERE they THINKING????????? :P

 

(did I mention OH brother?????????)

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MissGoddess Advanced Member

MissGoddess

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I just watched the trailer, too. oh wow, Piecemaker your thoughts exactly mirror mine. What a joke! I can't believe this movie is to be taken seriously!!!! i can't believe ron howard's name is attached to it. are these men ever going to grow up?!

 

i just don't like all this comic book stuff that is flooding the movies. it turns me off big time.

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OllieTSB Advanced Member

OllieTSB

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I tell ya, "Edsel Ford" seems more appropriate, the more I read about it. I am still laughing at MEN IN BLACK, THE REALLY EARLY YEARS concept.

 

I can't wait for someone to decide all those radioactive monsters and frozen dinosaurs shoulda thawed about 1872 or something, and come up out of the Donner Pass or something. Maybe they can get Morris Ankrum to be a general again? At least William Shallert's still around - although he might die if he was in such a film. Or choose to die, moments before shooting begins.

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laffite Advanced Member

laffite

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Oh shucks, hope nobody minds of post this. I watched this a week ago and had no thought of positing anything about it at all. But sometimes I get a delayed reaction and I have a job where I can do a lot of sitting around and thinking, thus, the following. Since there is not a particular film that is heavily under discussion at present, maybe it will be okay to throw it out there. I'm not suggesting a discussion but a comment or two might be fun if anyone has seen it.

 

It is not from the classic era so maybe I'm already in trouble but...

 

...rather, it's from the "New World", the post-Code, Movie Rating System era and I have to say that I was somewhat disillusioned, at least as far as Westerns are concerned. Like the rest of you, I?ve been around a little, so I shouldn?t be shocked?but I think that because I have seen so few Westerns in recent years (well, more than just recent) I wasn?t really expecting to see what I saw. Rapes, attempted rapes, debauchery, cruelty, and a kind of cold-blooded killing that might even make John Wayne and Randalph Scott blanch. All of this in a Western? And the killing. More people die in this movie than I care to number?and in horrific ways. In the old-fashioned traditional Western the good guys shot and killed bad guys but it was no big deal. When Lee Van Cleef was shot dead he at least he fell over and died like a gentleman. Here, there is some preliminary writhing about followed by protracted body spasms?oh, and of course, blood galore, spurting from wounds, all over someone?s face, sopped in clothing, everywhere.

 

The movie is *The Hunting Party* (1974) and there SPOILERS AHEAD. A presumptive schoolmarm (Candace Bergen) is kidnapped by a band of outlaws because the leader (Oliver Reed) wants to learn to read (yep, you read that right). Only she ain?t the marm, she?s the wife of a rich and powerful business tycoon-type (Gene Hackman), who thereby vows revenge. Hackman (as his name indicates, ha) is not a Jim Douglas-Gregory Peck type revenge ****. Douglas-Peck eventually reveals himself to be a man with normal values and, in the end, endowed with an extraordinarily and rigorously honest constitution when it comes to scruples, while the Hack Man is more like a psychopath. He is a holder of a number of cutting edge rifles that can hit a target at 800 yards instead of usual measly 300 yards. He means to profit from this advantage by lining up his ducks (Reed?s gang) and pick them off unseen---and from a distance. Gene Hackman?s character is one of the most unpleasant individuals that I have ever seen in a movie. He manages to alienate everyone who claimed to be his friend and goes to quite a length to achieve his object, the hard way, because he is lunatic enough to want to do his way.

 

I like Candace Bergen in this although she doesn?t exactly impress as a stellar actress. She doesn?t so much act as re-act what with all the attempts on her person. But when she in not being attacked in some way, she is subdued and I think kind of real. To her credit, she doesn?t overact.

 

Seriously, the movie is unpleasant and I almost gave up on it. The only reason I got his movie was to see Oliver Reed on a horse. My curiosity seems to be getting to me lately. Now that I have satisfied myself (sort of) with seeing Myrna Loy on a horse (see *Rogue of the Rio Grande* (1931) where she plays Carmita ) I wanted to see Oliver Reed with a 10-gallon hat, i.e., in a Western, quite an anomaly for him.

 

There is only one scene in the movie that I can recall right now that is even remotely pleasant and that?s the peach scene. There is some lightheartedness there and the scene constitutes a progression of the wearing down of Bergen?s obstinacy and consequently advancing the quirky rapprochement of Reed and Bergen, which began, by the way, by a rape (although it can be argued, as I would, that there was enough eventual acquiesce on her part to call it something a little less dire---maybe.)

 

I won?t say too much about the ending, except that it was not what I expected. It looked like a traditional showdown was in the works?Anyway when it was over, I was a little pensive and seemed to have a sort of respect for the show although I can't really say I liked it that much. I navigated back and watched the peach scene a couple of times. Candace is (no surprise) very pretty in this movie and it is practically the only time she smiled. Who can blame her.

 

Anyway, ho-hum, I think I'll regress a little and go back to JW and RS, and maybe even a bit of Rory Calhoun, who knows? (And a few less body spasms too, I hope)

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OllieTSB Advanced Member

OllieTSB

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I haven't seen HUNTING PARTY since it was first released, and I was just beginning to understand why I liked some films and not others - I had to have characters I liked. Somewhere. And my vague memories of HP is, "Nope, no one to like here."

 

But your review makes me want to revisit it. An early Gene Hackman film - pre-FRENCH CONNECTION, but after GYPSY MOTHS, DOWNHILL RACER and MAROONED where he was shoved down the marquee names' listing, but still was making a known-face for himself.

 

Thanks for the comments about HP. I've been blaming the '60s Westerns for my termination of Western Film Fandom, but I remember seeing this one and a few others. I was still giving them a chance, apparently.

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