Tag: Western

When is the last time we got a good western?

Oh, you mean like, every year over the last decade? Hells yeah.

Since Westerns went out of style, we get a lot less of them, and they end up being a lot higher quality. Not when we were oversaturated with the westerns decades ago. They were like the superhero movies of their time.

Needless to say, this year we already had a western Damsel, that I for sure did not see. But I saw The Sisters Brothers, which has a chance to be the western of 2018. And if not, then sure, Damsel.

Damsel probably doesn’t have a bearded Gyllenhaal though, sooooo…

Set somewhere in the 1800’s, the brothers Eli (John C. Reilly) and Christian Sisters (Joaquin Phoenix) are good at killing and a bit proud of it. They can take out a whole group and walk away unscathed. Some say it is thanks to their dad being a straight up killer madman as well. And some people say…well, they only say that one thing.

They work for The Commodore, a man who runs a large area with his wealth and outlaws. If someone steals or messes with him, they end up dead. And now the brothers have to try and catch up with a prospector (Riz Ahmed) who stole something from the Commodore. Trying to catch up to someone before they make it many states away can be quite the burden, especially if they don’t exactly know where he will be.

Thankfully, another worker of The Commodore, John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), has been following the prospector and keeping notes along the way for the brothers to follow. He is a writer, not a killer, so he couldn’t do anything that could cause a person that much pain. Even though it would make things simpler.

But when the prospector and the author start to develop a friendship, with dreams of making it big, then anything can change.

Also starring Carol Kane, Rebecca Root, and Rutger Hauer.

“If there is a place you need to go, I’m the one you need to know, I’m the map!”

Let me just say, before I get really into the movie, that this film had the most infuriating credits intro I have ever seen. Apparently a lot of companies were behind this one, and so they had to show them all at the start, you know, for legal reasons. And it started with one at the bottom of the screen in a strange shimmer color font.Then the next one appeared directly on top of it. And so on. And some lines had more than one group. Overall, it was 7 rows of words stacked on top of each other, filling in the black screen, and for whatever reason, it made me angry.

Making me read down to up? Just filling things up and not fading anything away? I was mad.

And the film really didn’t make me happy. It is not a comedy or anything, a serious drama, with the occasional jokes. About two brothers, overall, who are good at killing people and have to go around killing a lot of people. And it is also a lot about the prospector and Gyllenhaal’s character.

The Sisters Brothers is about a few characters. It is definitely not about the story. The plot is pretty poor. It feels really long and drawn out, not to showcase great shots, because the shots are just okay. The acting is decent, it has some moments that are cool to see. But we also have night scenes with not great lighting, because they are going for realistic, and that is a shame if those things are big events, like the introduction or when main characters get hurt.

I was disappointed with The Sisters Brothers. This is not a knock on Reilly, Phoenix, Gyllenhaal, or Ahmed, who all acted wonderfully. But the film put me to sleep and felt like it was going nowhere fast.

When you think of Hostiles, you think of a group of angry people. Knowing that this movie is set as a western, with cowboys and American Indians, it sort of brings Pocahontas to mind. I know, it wasn’t cowboys, but close enough. And famously in that movie we had the song Savages. Throughout history, generally Savage was used when the “white” side ran into natives in another land. But in this song, they both saw each other as savages! Equality because both sides were different and didn’t trust different things.

Except you know, the part where in Pocahontas, the white people were actual terrible invaders and the bad people and that was it. So they tried well, but still failed in that regard.

Anyway, I think of that song when I hear Hostiles (and probably also for the movie Savages). Going into it, I assumed that every side and every new character was probably a “hostile” individual, and that no one should be trusted or given a gun.

When everyone is this aggressive, you just need to have the gun out at all times.

Set in 1892, we find ourselves in the Western United States. The Civil War is over, but the Spanish-American war had not yet happened. Soldiers at this point didn’t have a lot of responsibilties. Mostly keeping the peace, in forts across the country.

Captain Joseph J. Blocker (Christian Bale) has been in the army for about 25 or more years at this point. He has seen and done a lot of things. He was at Wounded Knee not to much longer before. And he hates the Native Americans. He h as seen what they have done to “honest, Americans” and is disgusted by that fact. Hell, most of his career has involved killing them or rounding them up, but he also has only done what he is told.

And now he is being told to do something unthinkable. He has to return Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) and his family (Adam Beach, Q’orianka Kilcher, and more) to their homeland. He has been imprisoned for seven years and it has been long enough, especially since Yellow Hawk has the cancer. It has turned into a big deal for their government to send him home to die with his people and forgive past crimes, hell, even the president has signed off on it. The press are involved!

Blocker doesn’t wan this job. And it will be his last one before retirement. He has his crew (Jesse Plemons, Jonathan Majors, Rory Cochrane, Timothée Chalamet), he had his weapons and supplies, and he had a terrible mission.

And along the way he will also pick up Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike) a very recent widow who lost her family and house to a group of Native American horse thieves, and (Ben Foster) a former soldier, turned prisoner for doing unthinkable crimes and trying to run, who needs delivery to a fort for a court marshal.

Also featuring others, like Stephen Lang, Peter Mullan, and Robyn Malcolm.

Shit, everyone gets a gun in this movie.

Hostiles is a film that is just a little bit over two hours, but one that feels much longer. The first scene grabs you and the film refuses to let go the entire time. It keeps your attention by gripping characters, extremely great acting, authentic everything, and slightly terrifying plot.

It doesn’t keep your interest like a modern cartoon, by flashing shit at you every few seconds. No, the scenes are long, detailed, and showcase real human emotion. Hard decisions don’t just come naturally, but they are often decided in between scenes. But in this film, we have to watch actors think through their moral issues and figure out what they need to do. And on its own, that might not seem too appealing, but it just shows the amount of attention to detail that went into this film.

Scott Cooper directed this film and I will be honest, I haven’t really enjoyed anything he has directed before. That is from Black Mass, Out of the Furnace, and Crazy Heart. All films that are known for one reason or another, some good, some not so good. But none of them really reached me.

Hostiles reached me something fierce. Bale has a good chance of getting nominated. Watching Pike play such an unhinged character gave me flashbacks to Gone Girl, she does such work here as well. All of the other side characters are clearly their own individuals. The film kept me guessing with just how scenes would play out. The characters are complex individuals, so their actions won’t always be obvious from earlier in the film.

Hostiles is just a great film on all fronts. The soundtrack, the acting, the story, the pacing, the cinematography, shit, even the costumes. Westerns are rare, but it seems like every western we get is basically gold at this point.

I didn’t watch The Magnificent Seven before now, because it is from one of the studios that I don’t get invites to. But despite that, I did WANT to see it, and then never got out to the theaters. And now it has been out for awhile and I still dicked around.

My bad. I wanted to see the movie because yes, I knew the story. It is a remake. But I liked a lot of the actors involved and wanted to give it a shot. A whole lot of shots. A village full of shots.

Basically now I just find myself in a gun mood, and want to watch fake cowboys shoot other fake cowboys. They have theme parks with that theme.

Let’s see…One…two…three…uhh, um…yeah seven. Looks like seven people here.

In the late 1800s, the town of Rose Creek is getting besieged! Or maybe just hoodwinked a little. A big time robber dude, Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), is trying to buy out an entire mining town for his own profits. He is not giving them a good deal, using threats and intimidation and actually killing to get his way.

So Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) and her friend (Luke Grimes) go out in search of help, eventually finding a warrant officer, Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington). He doesn’t want to until he hears about Bogue, which causes him to agree and start looking for other people to join his crew.

We got a gambler (Chris Pratt), a Mexican outlaw (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), a Comanche warrior (Martin Sensmeier), a tracker (Vincent D’Onofrio), a guy good with knifes (Byung-hun Lee), and of course a famed sharpshooter (Ethan Hawke).

Needless to say, they don’t have a lot of people. But they have some townsfolk, who are miners and farmers. Their lead villager (Matt Bomer) is pretty good too. If they set up defenses, put the towns people in easy areas to defend, they can probably stop a pretty big force of asshole outlaws from taking over. But it is a gun fight, so some people are going to get scared, and a lot of people are going to die.

Also starring Jonathan Joss in pretty intimidating role.

With lights that bright, there must be an angel or something in that corner.

The point of The Magnificent Seven is to watch some famous people act like cowboys, shoot each other, hopefully have some really cool skillful tactics, and be a bit enjoyable. And sure, it did feel pretty enjoyable.

I know I was hoping for a lot more to happen during the final siege. Or maybe a secondary skirmish after the initial one to give us more shenanigans. The big siege just didn’t live up to my expectations and hype. Some cool moments, sure, and I cared what happened to the characters, but it was just overall a little bit disappointed.

The good news is with a diverse cast of characters, it plays out like an RPG. Everyone has their own little bit of plot and characterization, it isn’t just 3 people and 4 “guys who shoot good” or anything. No, they said these seven people were magnificent, so they made them all really talented and different. Which is another major point of this film.

But you know what? It ended with a narrator describing their story and referring to them as magnificent, then credits. My eyes physically left my head to do a bigger roll at that moment. It is so…dumb. Just ugh.

Hopefully there is no sequel to this movie, but hey, just give me another reboot and do it better and I will be happy.

Hell Or High Water is a review I meant to have early in August. I mean, I even drove to a theater about 35 minutes away just to see it. I heard a lot of good things and I wanted to make sure I saw it before it was hard to come across.

And apparently a lot of other people heard the same news, because it was completely sold out. Sure, it was in a dinky 3 row theater, but those 15 or so people got there before me, and I got screwed out of a trip. So I saw Sausage Party instead and forgot about this movie.

But now Oscar season is rearing its ugly head. Good films are coming out in theaters. Good films are being released. People are talking, and I had not seen this movie yet. I knew that come hell or high water, I’d have to see this movie before December, or else I might get lost in the new film Oscar rage again.

Thems the laws, you gotta just follow them.

The story is about two brothers, a smart one, Toby (Chris Pine) and a convict, Tanner (Ben Foster). They are together robbing banks, like a bunch of western assholes. But they have some rules. Never the bundles, just the loose cash, just right when they wake up so no one gets hurt, and just from one bank, Texas Midlands Bank.

You see, their mom died and they are about to lose the family farm. She owed the bank moneys from mortgages and extra money for bank reasons, and unless they get $40,000 ish before the end of the week, the bank will take their home. The same home that just had a big oil deposit found on its land. The boys would like to get the money from the oil rights, and so would the bank, which is why the bank is moving so fast. The Texas Midlands Bank.

So they figure if they rob from the banks, they can use their own money to pay off the debt and live a life of somewhat luxury after that. Decent plan. They are in the middle of nowhere Texas, so law enforcement isn’t the best. They do have a pair of Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham) trying to figure out what the hell their plan is, which is becoming increasingly difficult with Tanner playing the wild card.

If they are lucky people will just assume 21 Pilots are committing these robberies.

Westerns are weird. A once popular as fuck genre now only has one or two movies a year. The good news is the people taking on these western films tend to want to make them a great watch, so they put a lot of detail into the setting, cinematography, and more. I don’t know a damn thing about the director, David Mackenzie. He has directed over fifteen things, and sure enough, I have only heard of this one. So it is a nice surprise when what feels like an unknown director putting out quality work.

The story has a large cast of extras, but really only the four important characters. It is about the relationship with the brothers, the vagueness of their past, their extreme situation and a whole lot of morally gray area.

The chemistry between Foster and Pine feels natural and believable as brothers. It is one of the strongest points of the movie and should be acknowledged. It might still fall to the wayside of Bridges, old as shit, and still kicking butt. His character isn’t just a smart detective who knows everything, he is a bit bumbling, but he gets the job done and you can feel his anger at points right off of the screen. Bridges is probably a lock for a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

It has good acting, visuals, story, and chemistry. So why did I not love it like everyone else?

Honestly, I can understand a slower movie, I love a few of the slower movies this year already. It just took me so long to really feel invested in the characters. Sure, I did get invested, but the beginning with the first robberies and the chases, it didn’t do a whole lot for me. It took too long for me to care.

How many movies does Adam Sandler do in a year? Usually one right? Maybe two?

Well this year, he stars in three different movies. The Cobbler, Pixels, and now The Ridiculous 6. Sure he is getting older, but those private yachts aren’t going to pay for themselves. And as he does more and more films, he gains more and more friends to have to support on his army of yachts.

This film is a Netflix original movie. Last year he signed a four film deal with the company, and so it will be awhile before his films are released theatrically again.

And uhh. I guess this is Adam Sandler’s take on a western, with a name similar to those other western and samurai movies.

There are rag tag groups and there are shit groups. This group is worse than the later.

White Knife (Sandler) grew up never really knowing his father or his mother. But he is half Native America, despite looking white. And yes, her is freakishly good at using knives. Name explained, boom.

Then one day, an old guy comes to town. Frank Stockburn (Nick Nolte), a famous bank robber who was notorious throughout the land. Turns out that is his real daddy. But he needs help. Members of his former gang are going to kill him, unless he pays back money that was stolen from there. The gang is now lead by Cicero (Danny Trejo), and they are ruthless. Frank lies to them about the location, so that White Knife aka Tommy can get the money and put it in the spot before the bad guys get there. Then, after saving his dad’s life, he can enjoy some of that sweet ass quality time he has been hoping for. So he will run off and do that, before he gets married to Smoking Fox (Julia Jones).

Along the way, Tommy finds out that his dad really did get around, by meeting several half brothers. There is Ramon (Rob Schneider), half Mexican with a burro. There is Lil’ Pete (Taylor Lautner), who is half retarded and well. Yeah. Herm (Jorge Garcia) is half…Mongolian or something. He speaks gibberish. There is also Chico (Terry Crews), half Black and a piano player! And finally, Danny (Luke Wilson) who is half an alcoholic and half an American traitor.

Remember when I said Sandler had friends? Yeah, a ton of them are in this movie.

Chris Parnell. Blake Shelton. Harvey Keitel. John Turturro. Jon Lovitz. Nick Swardson. Saginaw Grant. Steve Buscemi. Steve Zahn. Vanilla Ice. And Will Forte!

Lautner’s tooth gap is played by Steve Carell!

I almost forgot to mention the controversy! You know, where Native American extras walked off the set because they found the humor to be racist and demeaning. One would say that isn’t good publicity, but of course we know there is no such thing as bad PR.

In fact, Netflix can only gain from a raunchy Sandler film. No one will cancel their account because it exists, but they will get more international audiences who love the shit out of him still. Win for them, no matter how terrible a film is.

But in all honesty, this film isn’t even super terrible. No, it is really fucking…slightly below average. Sandler’s character is a bit boring, which is true for a lot of his things lately. He is just playing an every guy, who happens to be good at knives I guess. The only reason to watch the film is for the rest of the 5 brothers.

Taylor Lautner playing what amounts of Simple Jack? Fantastic. He was the best part of Grown Ups 2 and one of the best parts of this one as well. I have been know to enjoy Schneider, and I think his performance is one of his better ones lately (again, not saying a lot). Garcia and Crews felt a bit underused, especially Garcia. His character didn’t even make sense.

But really, the movie has bottom of the barrel. I only laughed occasionally, the twists were obvious, and it was just far too long. It looks like they really did try to make a good western parody, but you know. Poop jokes. Under using actors. Some racism. You know what you are getting going into the film, I suspect.

Westerns! According to Spielberg, Super Hero movies might soon go the way of the Western. Everywhere, and then rarely. K, thanks Spielberg.

All of this is irrelevant to Bone Tomahawk, which is a new western (definitely not a super hero movie). It was also independently released, you can tell, because it wasn’t even rated. Ooh, a Non Rated Western? That has to be intentional. There has to be some fucked up shit in there. You know, NC-17 rated stuff.

What will it be? Violence? Sex? The word “Cunt?” Who knows! Only the one with the best facial hair I imagine.

Fuck. I hope that is real and I hope all future movies let him keep it.

Set in the vague past, we need to talk about a small town out in the West with your standard group of people. We have Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell), whom has lived a good life of protectin’ people and growing facial hair. He has a “Back Up Deputy”, Chicory (Richard Jenkins, who I didn’t recognize at all until writing this review), and older fella who likes to talk. Like old people.

They got a rich guy, John Brooder (Matthew Fox) with no family, a fear of Indians, and a lover of the ladies in the town. Arthur O’Dwyer (Patrick Wilson) is also relatively wealthy, but he has a broken leg, and is being tended by mostly from his wife, Samantha (Lili Simmons), who is basically a nurse.

But when a drifter (David Arquette) comes to their town, their life begins to get a bit rougher. They lock him in the local jail, not sure if they should trust him. Next thing they know, the drifter, Samantha, and Nick (Evan Jonigkeit) are missing. Apparently they were taken by an angry Indian tribe, nicknamed the Troglodytes, because they live in caves. No other tribes will interact with them because of their cruelty and cannibalism.

Well, not in Hunt’s town. He is able to gather a crew of men (the four mentioned!) to get them back, despite injuries and oldness. That is the only thing they can do, lest a wife and a friend get eaten up. That is not a pleasant way to go.

Also with one scene from Sid Haig.

There are rag tag groups, and then there is this group. Rejectag.

Bone Tomahawk is like a slow fuse. A long, slow fuse. Bone Tomahawk is 132 minutes long and the type of film that is in desperate need of a better editor. I can imagine at least 20 minutes of material being cut out to make the story just a smoother experience for everyone involved. I am not talking 20 minutes of beautiful scenic shots, I just mean actual character conversations.

The first scene is great, tense, gets you the mood. Then it takes a long time before people get kidnapped and their journey begins. An incredibly long time. Enough time for me to forget about the intro completely.

The journey itself was fine. The four actors provided nice conversations and good back stories, but still I figured more things would happen outside of the one or two issues they encountered pre-Troglodytes.

The action was very brutal however. A lot a talk about how one death scene was the craziest of the year, and I think most everyone who watches it will feel uncomfortable throughout it. Straight up medieval torture. The other shootouts are not long and drawn out, just real people blasting in holes in people where no one can really be a hero.

Bone Tomahawk could have been an excellent western. It just needs to trim a lot of fat first to get ready for bikini season.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

Hey boys and girls! Did you like Ted? Well, then you might like the next movie, A Million Ways To Die In The West!

That is what advertisements told me at least. But I only thought Ted was okay. Was entirely pop culture based humor, so it was a movie that won’t be as amusing in a few years because nothing will be relevant. Although it had a decent plot and Marky Mark, so that is fun.

But now we are going out west, back in time, and director Seth MacFarlane is actually going to star in it. Hopefully it is more than just a few dude’s hangin’ out.

Damn it, this looks like two dudes just hangin’ out!

Set in the 1800’s in Arizona, near Monument Valley (like every other western), lives our hero Albert (MacFarlane), a sheep farmer and a pussy. He doesn’t like to shoot a gun, because he never has, and thus he is bad at it. But somehow he keeps getting himself into shoot outs.

Albert starts to hate himself after his long term girlfriend, Louise (Amanda Seyfried) dumps him. Now he hates life. He also is a cynic, pointing out all the things that can kill him in the west. Thus the movie title. He does all this until Anna (Charlize Theron) walks into his life. Just kidding, he continues his moping ways, but now there is this mysterious woman who can shoot better than any he knows. Maybe she can change his life and stop him from getting into gun fights.

Just kidding. He does some stuff, getting him into fights with Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), the owner of the Mustacherie, and Clinch (Liam Neeson), an outlaw and the fastest hands in the West. Oh Albert, you are so silly.

Also starring Giovanni Ribisi, as his best friend, dating a whore Sarah Silverman.

“Huh? Why would Neil Patrick Harris every run a mustache store?” – GorgView Hate Commenter

I think I would rather watch Ted in four years than see A Million Ways To Die In The West.

The humor is very Seth MacFarlane, I will give it that. You can go in expecting that, and if you enjoy that enough, you will maybe have a good time. Maybe.

To me, this comedy had huge stretches of time without a joke. Trying to maintain some western tropes, there were scenes of traveling and just looking at the scenery. But that wasn’t the downtime. Literally just long periods of the movie moving on without very many jokes. It doesn’t help that quite a few of the jokes were in the trailer, most of which giving the entire set up and punchline so none of it was left to surprise. I am most disappointed in even the TV ads giving away one 1980’s related scene, which would have been amazing if kept secret.

Not that surprise is needed for comedies, no. A good comedy can keep you laughing through many viewings. The humor that was present just for the most part wasn’t for me.

There were some okay moments. I really liked the mustache song. Sarah Silverman ended up making me chuckle on more than one occasion. So I guess I thought the small side plot was more amusing than most of the film. That happens some times.

TL;DR, for the most part, A Million Ways To Die In The West just felt like 2 hours of boredom, with an occasional chuckle. Having the main character be a relatively modern man felt a bit half-assed. And I didn’t even get into how much of a unlikable character he was. Mr. Mopey. Ever have a friend who complains about everything, as if the experiences are unique to them? Yeah…

Do I want to see a movie with Casey Affleck in it? Hell yes I want to see a movie with Casey Affleck in it.

Sure, I am one of the biggest Ben fanboys there are. But his brother has some acting chops. Did you see him in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? If you didn’t, you are missing out on a long, but really well damn acted movie.

Either way, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is apparently a modern western of sorts. Set in the 1970s and Texas. So I will go in, expecting the best.

The best being, I dunno, a lot of gun shooting I guess. And crying.

Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) is a trouble makin’, no good, so-and-so. He’s an outlaw, quick on the draw. But his lady, too, is outlawish. Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara). But she is pregnant, and wants them to get out of the job. Alright fine.

BUT NOT BEFORE A SHOOTOUT. In a house, bullets flying, and Ruth ends up killing a police officer. That is no good. So Bob claims the entire responsibility for the crime. Killing a cop isn’t an easy fix, so Bob is given a strict and long sentence, so he could protect his lady and soon to be child.

Well, many years later, Bob is sick of prison. He has tried to escape at least five times before, but at least the sixth time is finally successful. The rest of the people involved in the escape get caught quickly, but not Bob. He is on a mission. He wants to see his child for the first time, a girl, still a child, but has grown a lot over the last few years.

But he can’t just go straight home. No, that is where the cops expect him to be. Not to mention he made a lot of enemies in his outlawin’, so others are surely out to kill him. The only reason he escaped was to see his woman and child, so really, nothing is going to stand in his way. Also starring Ben Foster and Keith Carradine.

At this point, I think it is illegal for me to not mention/show great mustaches in reviews.

Well, if I came for just acting, this film didn’t disappoint. I was more amazed how much I liked Rooney Mara in this role, more than anything. I haven’t seen her ever try to play such a passive, wait around, old timey role before. Just a loving mother trying to survive. So that was cool.

Casey Affleck, like always, felt really genuine.

But man. The story. A nice idea. But seemed filled with a lot of silly nonsense after he escaped from jail. Just go to the house already! Develop some sort of ruse! Just do it!

That’s what I was yelling at the screen. I don’t dislike it for the character choices, I dislike it for the director making those characters make those choices.

It could not keep my interest after the first 30 minutes or so, and didn’t really seem worth it when I got to the end. Sad times on this end, oh well.

The last of the movies to come out on Christmas for me to review, Django Unchained is unlike really any other.

It isn’t random holiday fluff, and it isn’t based off of previous work/book/musical. Sure, there was the movie series Django. But those stories aren’t at all related, all it is is a name share.

But outside of that, you know its a Tarantino movie, so you know, there will be blood.

Along with stylish threads, and stylish walks.

Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave. A slave walking through Texas. He had a history, hell, he had a wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Too bad she got sold to another plantation owner, who knows where.

But as luck would have it, a man has freed him from his bondage. Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a bounty hunter and former dentist. He is looking for a group of brothers who have gone on the run, changed their name, and he knows that Django knows what they look at.

So of course he will help him out! Killing white people for money, what could be better? Obviously. Not to mention if he helps him out, he can get cash, and find out where his wife is. Because we have all seen the preview, we know she is with Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), and under the watchful eye of her owner and head slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson).

And in this movie, the hammer is an actual hammer, and not his penis.

I think I can say, universally, that Django Unchained basically is firing on all cylinders. It was a classic Tarantino movie, despite being his first western. It had it all. Dramatic tension, thanks to a few scenes between DiCaprio/Waltz, comedy, action, and a lot of gunfights.

This is now the third movie I have seen Waltz in and I love his character so much. The high level charisma and witty dialogue will make the long movie length fly by in an instant. Foxx, despite the main character, does a lot less of the talking, which makes sense given his position and role he has to play.

Despite not showing up until the second half of the movie, once DiCaprio and Jackson hit the scene, they make their presence known and make it count. There is a specific scene in question where DiCaprio accidentally cuts himself by breaking a glass, but doesn’t break character making it all the more intense.

Really, this movie is just a great movie. The “controversy” over word choice isn’t a controversy at all, it is just Spike Lee being a jack ass.

In addition to that, you not only see breasteses, but also a penis. Pretty sure though that a stunt cock was needed.

I don’t wanna sound queer or nothin’, but…

I had a mini theme day yesterday. Realized I had a long block of time, very long, and to make the best of it I wanted to watch some long movies.

So I figured I might as well start with a long movie with a long title, hooyah! The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, and that is one of the last times I have to type it all out. Yes. For those curious, I then went The Patriot and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Yes, seeing both for the first time as well, shut up).

Just a normal day in the life of Jesse James. Getting stared at by Robert Ford, obsessively.

You know whats awesome? Kind of spoiling the ending. Jesse James (Brad Pitt) totally dies in this movie. So if you have a collection of movies where Brad Pitt dies in them, this better be in it.

The movie takes place in the last few months of Jesse James life, including his last train robbery. He has the last remnants of his gang, including Frank James (Sam Shepard), Dick Liddil (Paul Schneider), Wood Hite (Jeremy Renner) and Ed Miller (Garret Dillahunt). Eventually they are joined by the likes of the Ford brothers, Charley (Sam Rockwell) and his younger brother Robert (Casey Affleck).

Growing up, Robert was obsessed with the tales of Jesse James and his gang of outlaws. He knew all about them, from the trains taken, to Jesse’s shoe size. He was his hero! Which is why he was in a situation where he finally got to join the gang and go on a mission with them, despite the fact that everyone else found his obsession a bit creepy. The robbery doesn’t lead to the riches they thought were coming, leaving a very disappointing final heist.

Then in the final months, we have Robert Ford getting to spend time with his FAMILY. He has kids! And a wife (Mary-Louise Parker)! What! But that ends eventually too, and he then lives with a few of the previous mentioned former outlaws.

But over the final months, Jesse finds himself a bit more paranoid with less people he can trust each and every day. So some people die. Some people get arrested. And Robert Ford is left with an ultimatum, kill or arrest Jesse James himself, or find himself in prison.

LOOK AT THAT CINEMATOGRAPHY. Look at ittt.

“Wait a minute! That movie is 160 minutes! You barely gave any plot? Does it move slow?”

Well technically, and despite the fact that you already know what it is about (The Death of Jesse James), I didn’t feel a real need but to introduce the characters and the first few scenes.

Why is this movie so long? Probably because this director loves him some detail. The camera works was almost orgasmic on Blu-Ray, and all the scenes gorgeous, but not over the top. But even better than that was, surprisingly enough, Casey Affleck. Yes, Ben’s younger brother. He made this movie his bitch, and was so damn good at the role. Brad Pitt, also excellent in this film, both surely scene steals, but the level of detail that went in from Casey was just astounding. It all felt so real, which made it all a bit more eerie and awesome.

All of the acting was really well done, and I was very interested in the story line. Of course, one other problem with it could be just that it is…well very damn long. Hard to justify watching this movie a lot, without wanting to just skip around to a few scenes. Also super dramatic. Not a wild wild west shoot em up. Only a few shooting scenes really.