Reel of Fish IV, part B
Howdy, pardners.
This here's gonna be another whatcha might call truncated piece, bein' as it's t'other half of th' fourth week's reviews, goin' up late under the influence of a whole passel a'leftover poison an' rotgut. Meantimes - an' they're mean times, brother - yer erstwhile hero, has had hisself a reckonin' an' fought through th' night, doin' a bastard's heap o' labours, workin' like a coolie under the whip of ol' Boss Apple.
But now that fat bastard has gone down under the guns-a' this fat bastard, and after a few restful hours o' shut-eye against the warm flank of my ol' dog Trey, I'm back in the saddle, limberin' the timber, makin' heads into canoes, and wonderin' just how long I kin stretch this piece o' dialectical fluff while I review:
Week 4 of 51, part B - 3:10 to Yuma
Director: James Mangold, The Washingtonville Kid
Starring: Russell "Boot Hill" Crowe, Bateye Christian Bale, Alan "Washoe" Tudyk, Ben Death-That-Walks Foster, and Peter Fonda, The Two-Gun Zombie.
What It Is: Bateye Christian Bale makes hisself out to be one Dan Evans, a failin' rancher somewhere out in the wilds o' Arizona, just one more dusty homesteader dyin' in the dirt with his skinny cows and faithful wife an' whipcord pups. He has th' added character flaw o' a missin' foot, left somewhere on th' battlefields o' the Civil War - which, trust me, weren't too damn civil - an' he's stubborn as a gub'mint mule. This becomes increasin'ly relevant as he crosses paths with Ben Wade, po'trayed here by ol' Boot Hill Crowe, the baddest outlaw in the entire-ritty o' th' Wild Wild Westerns. Well, Wade and Evans, bad men both if at varyin' degrees, cross paths, an' what with one thing an' another it ends up that an unlikely group o' cowpokes includin' Evans, Washoe Tudyk the nervous town doc, The Bible-thumpin' Two-Gun Zombie (suckin' chest wound an' all), and the grinnin' henchman o' the town's richest jerk end up haulin' Wade up to a town called Contention to catch th' title o' the film. Along the way, they find thisselves in all sorts o' trials an' travails, includin' encounters with crackshot Injuns, the heathen Chinee, a tobacco-chawin' Luke Wilson - the heartless bastard o' the feared Wilson Boys - various stabbin' implements, an' Evans' son, who looks like th' godless kin a' Christian Slater an' Cillian Murphy. Along the way the posse is exposed to th' rather unique philosophizin's o' the surprisingly deep outlaw poet Wade and is pursued relentless-like by Death-That-Walks Foster, playin' a dapper young maniac named Charlie Prince, an' the rest o' Wade's colorful gang of cutthroats. An' somewhere between Evans' crappy ranch and the dusty Western stunt show town o' Contention, this stupid Western dialect broke a knee and was shot in the back of the head with a Remington.
Sorry, son, it had to be put down.
Comment il Rouler: I think I liked 3:10 to Yuma for two reasons above any other - one is that I haven't seen a Western with so many great lines since Tombstone (although, much as I might have enjoyed this little celebration of America's love affair with train timetables, it ain't no Tombstone). These are some witty, thoughtful, droll fuckin' cowboys. They quote the Proverbs and introspect and say deep and disquieting things about the brief and brutish lives of the outlaw and the starving rancher alike, and then when the time comes they gun motherfuckers down like Samuel L. Jackson on a bender in SIn City. I like that. There's no line with quite the resonant immortal bite of "I'm your huckleberry.", but "Even bad men love their mommas." has a certain enduring beauty to it, and coupled with the sudden brutality of the scene which the line caps, it'll definitely be a keeper.
Secondishly, this movie was a pleasant reminder that just because I've liked Christian Bale's last few movies more than I've liked Russell Crowe's recent batch, that doesn't necessarily mean I like Bale more than I like Crowe. Don't get me wrong - the character of Dan Evans is a case-hardened bad-ass with some wicked lines and a savage Bale glare and an apparently magic Winchester rifle. But Russell Crowe introduces the first outlaw I've fallen in love with since Doc Holliday. He's smart. He's lethal. He's merciless. He's witty. He's cunning. He's dapper. He has a cool hat and a gun named the Hand of God. He draws hawks and leaps rooftops and kills people for being rude. There's nothing about Ben Wade not to like except for the fact that he'll kill you and everyone you care about - but in that, he exemplifies the secret dream of the American West, and provides an intriguing segue for me to explore in this next paragraph.
There are two basic alpha male archetypes that dominate Western thinking; James Bond and Jesse James. James Bond represents the British fantasy - elegant women with nice teeth eager to have filthy but completely sanitary sex with you, all the expensive cocktails you can drink, cars that aren't laughable Minis or puttering Renaults, and the license to kill those who you deem to have trespassed upon the sovereignty of your nation. The latter is very important - Bond is a rogue and a gentleman killer, but he's one that has all the appropriate paperwork and government chitties. A self-reliant killer who can, ultimately, rely on his beneficent government. Jesse James, on the other hand, is just the opposite. He embodies the spirit of the American West - the man who goes out past where the law can reach him and becomes a law unto himself. He wasn't a mad dog killer by any means; that wouldn't fit the fantasy. He killed those who opposed him with the unspoken understanding that any such were cowards, law dogs, or fools. I'm always going to side with Chaos against Law, even when Chaos wears a shiny badge like Wyatt or the Doc's. And that's why I like Ben Wade so much in this movie, and why he could kick James Bond's ass. Except maybe the Daniel Craig Bond.
Coupled with an excellent script and some powerhouse performances by larger-than-Yankeedom characters, 3:10 to Yuma has the added advantage of an excellent linear plot with plenty of tension and a giant train at the end. Combined with a rooftop chase, guest appearances by railroad-pounding Chinese and the aforementioned deadly Indian savages, a gun with a curse on it, and a horse that comes when whistled up, this movie comes perilously close to being the perfect Western, the one Plato would sit down to watch while eating the exemplar of popped corn and sitting in the perfect form of Chair. Sadly, it's still short a dance hall with a fiery blonde saloon girl, a mysterious man with no name, a lightning storm and an axehandle from being completely perfect. The action is sharp and shot with a beautiful Sergio Leone clarity which is a nice change of pace from the hallucinogenic violence of Sunshine and the jittery Handicam terror of Cloverfield. Gunshots are bright and vivid in the bright sunlight, and men die in the dust with true grit and real Hondo bravado. There are some excellent touches to the shooting that have been the hallmark of Mangold's limited but sterling career. Watch Copland and Identity, brilliantly scripted mangum opi that become all the richer thanks to clever shooting and strong direction. It's hard to film a Western that doesn't look like either a knockoff of Gunsmoke or The Magnificent Seven. If there was any one thing 3:10 to Yuma really reminded me of, it was Brisco County Junior, arguably the cleverest Western series ever filmed. Bright, sharp, lots of steady movement and establishing shots, and lots of quiet reflective moments between the bursts of gunfire.
It's by no means perfect, mind you. Some of the characters are kind of annoying, the motivations are a little muddy, and even the brilliant Bale and Crowe's characters seem to act a little impulsively at times as they rush natural interactions to their conclusion in order to catch up with the script as it chugs along. Also there's quite a few loose ends, and some parts of the story don't make any sense unless you watch the DVD special edition and catch all the deleted scenes. It really grinds my gears (Fuck you, Griffin, my name's Wheel and I'll take that phrase if I fucking well want it, you fat animated prick) when directors cut out important bits that leave big gaping bleeding holes in the story - cuts that no director in his right mind would have made 20 years ago - because NOW they know the scenes aren't really gone, they're just going to the DVD. Here's where I turn on Mangold like a drunken cobra; he's a damn good director, but he's fallen prey to the laziness and idle greed of the Special Features menu. There was a time when you had to THINK before you cut a film, knowing that every frame was expensive and every word meant something at the time. Editors were like assassins, hired to kill the right word at the right time, usually in the dead of night when no one could stop them, and serious directors demanded final cut so they knew they'd be able to save their baby on the operating table before it was hacked up by butchers. Now any blind yokel with a Macbook and a copy of Final Cut Pro can slash apart a feature film and let it be released into theaters like a crippled butterfly, and directors let it slide, knowing that their art is all still intact on a million shiny discs, twinkling in the future. This, I think, heralds the end of the movie theater as we know it, the end of quiet dark spaces and greasy popcorn slicks on the unseen floor and previews with green MPAA bars and the soft ratcheting hymn of the projector. In the future, every home will be a theater, and every last man a projectionist.
Endgame: 3:10 to Yuma - it may be a damn good cowboy movie, or it may just be the Antichrist.
This here's gonna be another whatcha might call truncated piece, bein' as it's t'other half of th' fourth week's reviews, goin' up late under the influence of a whole passel a'leftover poison an' rotgut. Meantimes - an' they're mean times, brother - yer erstwhile hero, has had hisself a reckonin' an' fought through th' night, doin' a bastard's heap o' labours, workin' like a coolie under the whip of ol' Boss Apple.
But now that fat bastard has gone down under the guns-a' this fat bastard, and after a few restful hours o' shut-eye against the warm flank of my ol' dog Trey, I'm back in the saddle, limberin' the timber, makin' heads into canoes, and wonderin' just how long I kin stretch this piece o' dialectical fluff while I review:
Week 4 of 51, part B - 3:10 to Yuma
Director: James Mangold, The Washingtonville Kid
Starring: Russell "Boot Hill" Crowe, Bateye Christian Bale, Alan "Washoe" Tudyk, Ben Death-That-Walks Foster, and Peter Fonda, The Two-Gun Zombie.
What It Is: Bateye Christian Bale makes hisself out to be one Dan Evans, a failin' rancher somewhere out in the wilds o' Arizona, just one more dusty homesteader dyin' in the dirt with his skinny cows and faithful wife an' whipcord pups. He has th' added character flaw o' a missin' foot, left somewhere on th' battlefields o' the Civil War - which, trust me, weren't too damn civil - an' he's stubborn as a gub'mint mule. This becomes increasin'ly relevant as he crosses paths with Ben Wade, po'trayed here by ol' Boot Hill Crowe, the baddest outlaw in the entire-ritty o' th' Wild Wild Westerns. Well, Wade and Evans, bad men both if at varyin' degrees, cross paths, an' what with one thing an' another it ends up that an unlikely group o' cowpokes includin' Evans, Washoe Tudyk the nervous town doc, The Bible-thumpin' Two-Gun Zombie (suckin' chest wound an' all), and the grinnin' henchman o' the town's richest jerk end up haulin' Wade up to a town called Contention to catch th' title o' the film. Along the way, they find thisselves in all sorts o' trials an' travails, includin' encounters with crackshot Injuns, the heathen Chinee, a tobacco-chawin' Luke Wilson - the heartless bastard o' the feared Wilson Boys - various stabbin' implements, an' Evans' son, who looks like th' godless kin a' Christian Slater an' Cillian Murphy. Along the way the posse is exposed to th' rather unique philosophizin's o' the surprisingly deep outlaw poet Wade and is pursued relentless-like by Death-That-Walks Foster, playin' a dapper young maniac named Charlie Prince, an' the rest o' Wade's colorful gang of cutthroats. An' somewhere between Evans' crappy ranch and the dusty Western stunt show town o' Contention, this stupid Western dialect broke a knee and was shot in the back of the head with a Remington.
Sorry, son, it had to be put down.
Comment il Rouler: I think I liked 3:10 to Yuma for two reasons above any other - one is that I haven't seen a Western with so many great lines since Tombstone (although, much as I might have enjoyed this little celebration of America's love affair with train timetables, it ain't no Tombstone). These are some witty, thoughtful, droll fuckin' cowboys. They quote the Proverbs and introspect and say deep and disquieting things about the brief and brutish lives of the outlaw and the starving rancher alike, and then when the time comes they gun motherfuckers down like Samuel L. Jackson on a bender in SIn City. I like that. There's no line with quite the resonant immortal bite of "I'm your huckleberry.", but "Even bad men love their mommas." has a certain enduring beauty to it, and coupled with the sudden brutality of the scene which the line caps, it'll definitely be a keeper.
Secondishly, this movie was a pleasant reminder that just because I've liked Christian Bale's last few movies more than I've liked Russell Crowe's recent batch, that doesn't necessarily mean I like Bale more than I like Crowe. Don't get me wrong - the character of Dan Evans is a case-hardened bad-ass with some wicked lines and a savage Bale glare and an apparently magic Winchester rifle. But Russell Crowe introduces the first outlaw I've fallen in love with since Doc Holliday. He's smart. He's lethal. He's merciless. He's witty. He's cunning. He's dapper. He has a cool hat and a gun named the Hand of God. He draws hawks and leaps rooftops and kills people for being rude. There's nothing about Ben Wade not to like except for the fact that he'll kill you and everyone you care about - but in that, he exemplifies the secret dream of the American West, and provides an intriguing segue for me to explore in this next paragraph.
There are two basic alpha male archetypes that dominate Western thinking; James Bond and Jesse James. James Bond represents the British fantasy - elegant women with nice teeth eager to have filthy but completely sanitary sex with you, all the expensive cocktails you can drink, cars that aren't laughable Minis or puttering Renaults, and the license to kill those who you deem to have trespassed upon the sovereignty of your nation. The latter is very important - Bond is a rogue and a gentleman killer, but he's one that has all the appropriate paperwork and government chitties. A self-reliant killer who can, ultimately, rely on his beneficent government. Jesse James, on the other hand, is just the opposite. He embodies the spirit of the American West - the man who goes out past where the law can reach him and becomes a law unto himself. He wasn't a mad dog killer by any means; that wouldn't fit the fantasy. He killed those who opposed him with the unspoken understanding that any such were cowards, law dogs, or fools. I'm always going to side with Chaos against Law, even when Chaos wears a shiny badge like Wyatt or the Doc's. And that's why I like Ben Wade so much in this movie, and why he could kick James Bond's ass. Except maybe the Daniel Craig Bond.
Coupled with an excellent script and some powerhouse performances by larger-than-Yankeedom characters, 3:10 to Yuma has the added advantage of an excellent linear plot with plenty of tension and a giant train at the end. Combined with a rooftop chase, guest appearances by railroad-pounding Chinese and the aforementioned deadly Indian savages, a gun with a curse on it, and a horse that comes when whistled up, this movie comes perilously close to being the perfect Western, the one Plato would sit down to watch while eating the exemplar of popped corn and sitting in the perfect form of Chair. Sadly, it's still short a dance hall with a fiery blonde saloon girl, a mysterious man with no name, a lightning storm and an axehandle from being completely perfect. The action is sharp and shot with a beautiful Sergio Leone clarity which is a nice change of pace from the hallucinogenic violence of Sunshine and the jittery Handicam terror of Cloverfield. Gunshots are bright and vivid in the bright sunlight, and men die in the dust with true grit and real Hondo bravado. There are some excellent touches to the shooting that have been the hallmark of Mangold's limited but sterling career. Watch Copland and Identity, brilliantly scripted mangum opi that become all the richer thanks to clever shooting and strong direction. It's hard to film a Western that doesn't look like either a knockoff of Gunsmoke or The Magnificent Seven. If there was any one thing 3:10 to Yuma really reminded me of, it was Brisco County Junior, arguably the cleverest Western series ever filmed. Bright, sharp, lots of steady movement and establishing shots, and lots of quiet reflective moments between the bursts of gunfire.
It's by no means perfect, mind you. Some of the characters are kind of annoying, the motivations are a little muddy, and even the brilliant Bale and Crowe's characters seem to act a little impulsively at times as they rush natural interactions to their conclusion in order to catch up with the script as it chugs along. Also there's quite a few loose ends, and some parts of the story don't make any sense unless you watch the DVD special edition and catch all the deleted scenes. It really grinds my gears (Fuck you, Griffin, my name's Wheel and I'll take that phrase if I fucking well want it, you fat animated prick) when directors cut out important bits that leave big gaping bleeding holes in the story - cuts that no director in his right mind would have made 20 years ago - because NOW they know the scenes aren't really gone, they're just going to the DVD. Here's where I turn on Mangold like a drunken cobra; he's a damn good director, but he's fallen prey to the laziness and idle greed of the Special Features menu. There was a time when you had to THINK before you cut a film, knowing that every frame was expensive and every word meant something at the time. Editors were like assassins, hired to kill the right word at the right time, usually in the dead of night when no one could stop them, and serious directors demanded final cut so they knew they'd be able to save their baby on the operating table before it was hacked up by butchers. Now any blind yokel with a Macbook and a copy of Final Cut Pro can slash apart a feature film and let it be released into theaters like a crippled butterfly, and directors let it slide, knowing that their art is all still intact on a million shiny discs, twinkling in the future. This, I think, heralds the end of the movie theater as we know it, the end of quiet dark spaces and greasy popcorn slicks on the unseen floor and previews with green MPAA bars and the soft ratcheting hymn of the projector. In the future, every home will be a theater, and every last man a projectionist.
Endgame: 3:10 to Yuma - it may be a damn good cowboy movie, or it may just be the Antichrist.