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Culturegasm: The Return of the Western

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  1.  (8234.41)
    @Lmanningvines

    Actually, it's a Thai film. But yeah, the imagery in that thing is just incredible. I found it really hard to watch the first time because of the acting and the silly voices (it was like one guy was trying to do an American accent... in Thai), but I tried it again later and I'm glad I did. Fuckin weird, wild shit.

    Although I have a feeling I'll like the Good, the Bad, and the Weird more. Just my kind of style.

    I also recently half-watched Renegade (aka Blueberry) and hol-ee-sheeeeeeiiiiiiit I don't know what the fuck I was lookin at.

    Seriously. Vincent Cassel doing the worst American accent ever and then tripping balls with Michael Madsen for a straight 20 minutes. I have not, until now, seen a Western that featured a sequence to rival 2001: A Space Odyssey's "Star Gate." I mean... kudos, French, for making something truly bizarre. The rest of the film was pretty unwatchable though.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAdam Violent
    • CommentTimeMay 17th 2010 edited
     (8234.42)
    Came across this review while I feverishly wait for Red Dead Redemption to arrive on my doorstep. There's a part where he ruminates on the Western genre, so it's worth a read to those interested in this topic.

    Way Down Deep in the Wild, Wild West
  3.  (8234.43)
    • CommentAuthorjonah
    • CommentTimeMay 17th 2010
     (8234.44)
    I really dig the downbeat westerns like Lonely Are the brave, it is easily my favorite western. How about High Plains Drifter or The Shooting(with Jack Nicholson)?

    I I haven't seen it yet, but what about Brokeback Mountain? It would be the most popular/successful recent western, wouldn't it?

    @Adam Violent
    What is that that review going on about at the end? Beef wellington? I'm not sure what the reviewer is referencing in that third to last paragraph. I am lost.
    • CommentAuthortsm_sf
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010
     (8234.45)
    @henchbot we see eye-to-eye on some things, but I've been thinking about your Wayne=douche comment a bit.

    John Wayne might have been a raging asshole (no idea), but he's pretty much the opposite of the current crop of Jersey Shore style douchebags. I can see hating Wayne for the kind of Americana he projected, but 'douche' simply does not fit. The man was not style over substance.

    Have you seen The Shootist? Did you know that he himself was dying of cancer when he made it? It's a powerful film, Ron Howard aside (oh hell, there's nothing wrong with Ron Howard).
  6.  (8234.46)
    High Plains Drifter


    That movie was awesome times ten.
    • CommentAuthorMathias B
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010
     (8234.47)
    I believe the Western will stick around, in some form, because of our continued fascination with that period in American history/mythology and how it relates to our own time. Kind of like the superhero genre; just when you thought it's all used up, someone reinvents the wheel and tells a good story. But the days of the Western-as-must-see-action-blockbuster is unlikely to return, because its triumphant flagwaving is no longer viable. Peckinpah, Leone and the others killed that off in the 60's, probably for good.
    • CommentAuthorsacredchao
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010
     (8234.48)
    @256
    Watch Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller. It's not only not flat, it's very wet and very muddy as well.

    Also, I want to point out that Westerns have been considered, by film critics anyway, in revival since The Proposition and Deadwood came out.
  9.  (8234.49)
    @Jonah
    Yeah, I have no idea. I googled around a bit and still came up with nothing. It's great that he enjoys Rockstar's referential wit but fuck if I get the joke.

    So do you guys think that it's more a matter of overexposure that made the Western take a decline in interest, or just the change in social climate? The former would make sense, because it's been a while since there's been any sort of saturation of the genre in the media. And just like with the Punisher, for example (to nerd up this discussion), time has passed allowing it to cool down and interest build again. In the early 90s, the Punisher was everywhere. I think he had 3 or 4 different books on the shelf at one point. There was just too much of him. So he disappeared for a while and then it took a great story to bring him back and now he's skirting that line again.
    • CommentAuthorMathias B
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010
     (8234.50)
    I think what happens is every once in a while someone comes up with a fresh, commercially successful take on Westerns and that forms the "rule book" for how the genre is addressed for the years to come. Like when Young Guns was big in the 80's, it spawned a whole bunch of these MTV-style Westerns; like Posse and Bad Girls and The Quick and the Dead etc. They weren't that great to begin with (although I have a nostalgic attatchment to the Young Guns franchise), and over the years they just seemed to get less and less inspired.
    Then, like @Adam Violent says, the genre needs to hibernate for a few years until a new standard is set.
  11.  (8234.51)
    I don't think anyone has mentioned Sam Peckinpah's "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" yet, but that's a good modern day western.

    •  
      CommentAuthorDovryn
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010 edited
     (8234.52)
    Cowboys & Aliens?
    Ha! I can't wait.

    I don't love the western genre only when its done right. If a movie sucks... in a genre I love, then I still enjoy the film. My imagination has a field day with the scraps like carrion birds, picking at what the producers and directors left behind. To me, it has never waned and does not need a revival.

    But that is what perspective is all about. If it is not your favorite genre, you don't notice every single release, and even a good one or two will slip by ya. The same can be said about most no matter how vague or specific you get, depending on perspective. -horror, sci-fi, buddy cop drama, comedy even.

    But it is interesting that last year... only one western film was made?.. the whole year?
    Damn, we were doing alright there for awhile.

    [edit to add- Oh and thanks for the clips.. been along time since Ive seen some of these films. Hells yes. And to fix a sentence.. heheh]
    •  
      CommentAuthorkahavi
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010
     (8234.53)
    What about The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada? That was a pretty damn good modern day western.
    • CommentAuthorClint Wolf
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010
     (8234.54)
    I always loved the Leone Westerns and some of the other Eastwood offerings along those lines. Unforgiven remains one of my personal top 5 movies of all time.

    However, I've gained a new appreciation for John Wayne just in the past year, as I've been binging on classic Westerns. You do get certain movies of his like McLintock! which are highly disturbing to modern sensibility, but frankly it's just a bad movie whether or not you think an entire town condoning domestic abuse is questionable (Hint: it is. Very.).

    Go back to the movies he did with John Ford, though, and I was frankly surprised at how much he was consciously willing to come off as a fairly complex anti-hero (or even by some measures, a villain). If you haven't seen The Searchers or Red River, they're surprisingly ambiguous pieces of work, long before Unforgiven came along.

    Complicated guy, John Wayne, much moreso than people usually think. For instance, in True Grit he portrays a Marshal that's an aging alchoholic, but the real interesting story is that the screenwriter for True Grit had been blacklisted by HUAC back in the day, and when that stigma was still lingering it was The Duke who (despite knowing this) read her script and said "This is a good Western. Let's do it."
    •  
      CommentAuthormister hex
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010
     (8234.55)
    Fun fact : John Wayne hated riding horses. And his real name was Marion. So Yeah.

    Another fun fact : JONAH HEX opens June 18 2010. And has its own thread on this very forum.

    There'll always be westerns. But apparently, women don't like westerns and that's why there ain't more of 'em. Westerns, I mean. Not women.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDovryn
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010
     (8234.56)
    Did anyone play the original Red Dead Revolver? It had style.
    I played it and loved it and I remember saying.. "If only they would blend this with GTA..."
    I had hoped the game GUN was going to be 'the one'.. but nope.

    Red Dead Redemption came out today. I am trying not to think about it. Failing obviously. /drools
    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010
     (8234.57)
    Did anyone find the remake of 3:10 to Yuma a little disappointing?
    • CommentAuthorClint Wolf
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010
     (8234.58)
    I watched the 3:10 to Yuma remake with my wife. She'd seen the original and I hadn't, and at the end I was all "bleah?" and she was all "You need to watch the first one".

    And she was right. The remake has so much unnecessary padding and a baffling change of ending over the old. Plus, ya gotta love that theme song.
    •  
      CommentAuthorkahavi
    • CommentTimeMay 19th 2010
     (8234.59)
    @mister hex: As a woman brought up on westerns, I find the claim of women not liking westerns baffling. Pretty much all my friends, women and men, adore westerns. The problem is, there aren't that many good ones being made these days.
    •  
      CommentAuthorrazrangel
    • CommentTimeMay 19th 2010
     (8234.60)
    don't fret, Kahavi, women aren't supposed to like comic books either.

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