rating: *****
the story: The life of lawman Wyatt Earp.
review: Recently I watched a slew of westerns. It's part of my blood, something I inherited from my dad, one of those John Wayne partisans. Wyatt Earp wasn't part of the lineup (two DVD sets totaling fourteen films, plus Tombstone) until I added it in (plus another viewing of Colin Farell's American Outlaws, which I'm ready to agree is mostly a misfire). I'm glad I did. It's now probably my favorite Kevin Costner movie.
Made at the tail-end of Coster's golden age, just before Waterworld destroyed his (hugely) popular career, a hotstreak that included The Untouchables, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, JFK, and The Bodyguard, it was shot and released at the same time as Tombstone, which was released first, got all the praise, and all but canceled out any interest in Wyatt Earp.
A horrible travesty. When I finally got around to seeing it the first time, Dennis Quaid's Doc Holliday made an immediate impression on me as a wonderfully sensational acting clinic, the best I'd ever seen from Quaid. The problem everyone else who's bothered to see the movie seems to have is that Val Kilmer had already stolen Tombstone in a charismatic (and arguably his best) performance of the same role. But as entertaining as Kilmer's Doc is, Quaid's is unquestionably better.
The same can be said of every other element. Don't get me wrong about Tombstone's Earp, Kurt Russell, who's frequently highly magnetic in his film appearances. It's just, Costner by definition has so much more to work with. His Earp is basically an antihero. If this were 2019, Wyatt Earp would be the angsty DCEU to Tombstone's MCU. Or in other words, Tombstone is in every sense the Disney version, the glossy traditional Hollywood take (and even feels in most respects as if it were released far earlier than 1993, an instant anachronism, as it were), and Wyatt Earp is the western as it might've become if it had landed better.
Indeed, it's one of those movies that just seems to become more timely as the years progress, and therefore timeless. It could just as easily have been that uneasy cinematic response to Black Lives Matter that never really happened until years into the movement (and even then most directly in a movie that's actually set in the past, Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman), with an Earp who's as celebrated as he's reviled, frequently criticized as too violent in his pursuit of justice, even as events sometimes seem to prove his methods justified. That's what Tombstone and Wyatt Earp most have in common, trying to give the true history of the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral, have the heroes be less obviously heroic.
Wyatt Earp traces the whole arc of Earp's life (could almost be the ancestor to all those later movies that begin with a familiar character's childhood where previous depictions hadn't). Gene Hackman, who appeared in two other westerns during the same period, Unforgiven and The Quick and the Dead, both in fairly villainous roles, plays Earp's dad, a tough but loving father that draws out far greater nuance from Hackman, and puts his impulses to good use. He sets the tone for a family saga that drives the women crazy later in the movie (though the script, for such a long movie, doesn't really have much for the likes of Mare Willingham and Catherine O'Hara other than love and exasperation), though it gives good parts to brothers played by Michael Madsen, Linden Ashby (who has only one other notable role to his credit, Mortal Kombat's Johnny Cage, which he nailed), and a young Jim Caviezel.
The supporting cast is bursting with talent besides! Also featured, among others, are Bill Pullman and Tom Sizemore (in a role that doesn't merely require him to be a tough guy, for a change) as Ed and Bat Masterson, respectively, Mark Harmon as someone other than Gibbs, and Isabella Rossellini, who completes the excellent portrait of Doc Holliday as his frustrated lover, Big Nose Kate, plus Jeff Fahey as the head of the troublesome Clantons.
Earp's arc as a troubled lover is highlighted, his losses and triumphs, his yearning to escape the spotlight (one almost has the sense that the sentiment could also have been Costner's). The running time is entirely justified. This is an epic that tells an epic, but also completely human, tale. Costner isn't the romantic hero he so often was in this period, but the complete opposite, a man ground down past such illusions into messy real life, struggling to do the right thing, and not always succeeding.
Watching it again, especially in the context of so many other westerns, it's a revelation, especially set against, once again, Tombstone. Its only real competition, for me, against so many others, was The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (which is even better). The western, it seems, was only getting better with time. The more art infused, the less artifice, therefore justifying the genre's outsize placement in film lore. Directed by underrated icon Lawrence Kasdan.
Saturday, November 23, 2019
Sunday, November 17, 2019
Unforgiven (1992)
rating: ***
the story: A gunslinger comes out of retirement.
review: This is one of those movies that looms large in aficionado circles, but has never particularly interested me. So I gave it another chance, and at least I can say I'm starting to enjoy Unforgiven.
I think mostly it's the kind of movie that's celebrated for what it meant rather than what it was. It was Clint Eastwood's final western (which, remarkably, remains true in 2019, and given his ever-advancing age, even if he remains as active as ever, isn't likely to ever change), and made at a time when westerns had somewhat definitively lost their role in the continuing lore of cinema, which made it instantly iconic if nothing else. This is not to say it isn't a good movie in and of itself, but that those fans who particularly identify with it (as fans of anything will do) are prone to exaggerating its worth.
I recently watched a slew of westerns, including a few of Eastwood's, and on the whole, I'm less interested in watching Unforgiven again than Pale Rider or Outlaw Josey Wales (which Unforgiven might be considered an unofficial sequel to, and all but functions as such). Among them was also the far less celebrated The Quick and the Dead, which in hindsight seems like a deliberate rephrasing of Unforgiven, but a bit more on that in a moment.
What's most interesting about Unforgiven is perhaps the idea that Eastwood's character isn't really a hero so much as an opportunist the audience has every chance to root on, so of course we're going to, while Gene Hackman's sheriff perhaps isn't as much a villain as he's made out to be, even though as far as the narrative goes, he certainly is. There's an unreliability to the whole thing that's pretty interesting to think about. Hackman's sheriff is perhaps most intriguing as a guy trying to do the right thing but badly botching it, which is something observers of politics would have plenty to say about, and as such there's an allegorical worth to the movie that's perhaps its best feature.
But strip away the legacy and it's a pretty rote experience (which is why I rated, a while ago, The Fugitive much the same way, because when it comes right down to it, the only thing that really stands out about it is Tommy Lee Jones, and pretty much just the "I don't care" line, which is admittedly brilliant, and brilliantly undermines the whole movie in the process, and leads to a whole movie with him as the acknowledged lead, but no one really cared about that, ironically). We don't even get a proper ending, but rather screen text. This is really just an exercise in setting up Eastwood's later career as an aging star. (Clearly it worked.)
But what's so interesting, really, is the Quick and the Dead connection. Lots of commenters have said that Sharon Stone is blatantly playing Eastwood's Man With No Name (though it would be interesting to hear fresh perspectives, now that Charlize Theron uses the exact voice in her action roles), but Gene Hackman plays a more bombastic version of his evil sheriff, and it plays much better the second time, without any confusion about what he is, and Leo DiCaprio plays a better version of the kid who's trying to make a name for himself, with the same basic notes being made there, too. It's harder to think of Russell Crowe's presence in Quick and the Dead, and perhaps the entirety of his popular career, without thinking of Eastwood, once you begin thinking about it. (It's worth arguing that even Eastwood borrowed the persona, possibly from Charlton Heston.)
In Unforgiven, you have a few notable supporting players. Saul Rubinek, who never quite broke out, for instance, and more notably Morgan Freeman, who was on the verge of exploding (which he would, two years later, in The Shawshank Redemption). And then there's Richard Harris. Harry Potter fans like me will forever be seeking out the original Dumbledore's earlier days, and here's an interesting one, as he portrays English Bob, who perhaps most accurately sums up the film as a depiction of American savages, barely grasping the concept of civilization, something a lot of westerns tried to illustrate, but seldom as, well, savagely.
the story: A gunslinger comes out of retirement.
review: This is one of those movies that looms large in aficionado circles, but has never particularly interested me. So I gave it another chance, and at least I can say I'm starting to enjoy Unforgiven.
I think mostly it's the kind of movie that's celebrated for what it meant rather than what it was. It was Clint Eastwood's final western (which, remarkably, remains true in 2019, and given his ever-advancing age, even if he remains as active as ever, isn't likely to ever change), and made at a time when westerns had somewhat definitively lost their role in the continuing lore of cinema, which made it instantly iconic if nothing else. This is not to say it isn't a good movie in and of itself, but that those fans who particularly identify with it (as fans of anything will do) are prone to exaggerating its worth.
I recently watched a slew of westerns, including a few of Eastwood's, and on the whole, I'm less interested in watching Unforgiven again than Pale Rider or Outlaw Josey Wales (which Unforgiven might be considered an unofficial sequel to, and all but functions as such). Among them was also the far less celebrated The Quick and the Dead, which in hindsight seems like a deliberate rephrasing of Unforgiven, but a bit more on that in a moment.
What's most interesting about Unforgiven is perhaps the idea that Eastwood's character isn't really a hero so much as an opportunist the audience has every chance to root on, so of course we're going to, while Gene Hackman's sheriff perhaps isn't as much a villain as he's made out to be, even though as far as the narrative goes, he certainly is. There's an unreliability to the whole thing that's pretty interesting to think about. Hackman's sheriff is perhaps most intriguing as a guy trying to do the right thing but badly botching it, which is something observers of politics would have plenty to say about, and as such there's an allegorical worth to the movie that's perhaps its best feature.
But strip away the legacy and it's a pretty rote experience (which is why I rated, a while ago, The Fugitive much the same way, because when it comes right down to it, the only thing that really stands out about it is Tommy Lee Jones, and pretty much just the "I don't care" line, which is admittedly brilliant, and brilliantly undermines the whole movie in the process, and leads to a whole movie with him as the acknowledged lead, but no one really cared about that, ironically). We don't even get a proper ending, but rather screen text. This is really just an exercise in setting up Eastwood's later career as an aging star. (Clearly it worked.)
But what's so interesting, really, is the Quick and the Dead connection. Lots of commenters have said that Sharon Stone is blatantly playing Eastwood's Man With No Name (though it would be interesting to hear fresh perspectives, now that Charlize Theron uses the exact voice in her action roles), but Gene Hackman plays a more bombastic version of his evil sheriff, and it plays much better the second time, without any confusion about what he is, and Leo DiCaprio plays a better version of the kid who's trying to make a name for himself, with the same basic notes being made there, too. It's harder to think of Russell Crowe's presence in Quick and the Dead, and perhaps the entirety of his popular career, without thinking of Eastwood, once you begin thinking about it. (It's worth arguing that even Eastwood borrowed the persona, possibly from Charlton Heston.)
In Unforgiven, you have a few notable supporting players. Saul Rubinek, who never quite broke out, for instance, and more notably Morgan Freeman, who was on the verge of exploding (which he would, two years later, in The Shawshank Redemption). And then there's Richard Harris. Harry Potter fans like me will forever be seeking out the original Dumbledore's earlier days, and here's an interesting one, as he portrays English Bob, who perhaps most accurately sums up the film as a depiction of American savages, barely grasping the concept of civilization, something a lot of westerns tried to illustrate, but seldom as, well, savagely.
Sunday, November 3, 2019
Get Out (2017)
rating: ****
the story: Chris finds out it's dangerous to be black among white folks with ulterior motives.
review: Wow, so this is a great example of knowing what a movie technically accomplishes, and getting a totally different grasp upon actually seeing it. Get Out, for me, was a victim of the vast scaling back of film watching I've experienced over the past decade. I was pretty out of control, generally speaking, for a few years. I went to the movies all the time. I had a pretty comprehensive sampling of what was released. Then I had to become more selective. I had to start making some snap judgments before movies ever hit theaters, including must-see picks and things that didn't seem like they were for me. Get Out seemed like it wasn't for me. It seemed like one of those movies hipsters like, that only seemed to be clever.
Boy was I wrong.
The surface elements are certainly there but even those underscore its greater message. It's funny that Get Out even had a chance to be widely celebrated, as it mocks liberal attitudes at a time when liberals have virtually succeeded in dominating popular entertainment, both the product and reception of it. But by the end, it becomes so savage as to become inexplicable. Clearly a lot of people just didn't get it. They chuckled knowingly, without comprehension.
You see, Chris's fate is damn ironic. That he ends up escaping it is much a part of how we've reached this endless public hysteria as anything that helped create it. When Bradley Whitford says he would've voted for Obama a third time if only given the option, which he repeats after Allison Williams has already told us he'd say so, director Jordan Peele has shown his hand. That's the whole message right there. Liberals somewhat liberally exploited black people to get the White House. Period. And then moved on, after everything spiraled out of control.
Yeah. Peele's ascent as filmmaker came from a popular sketch comedy series, Key & Peele, which can be felt in Chris's best friend, who hilariously puts the whole thing in context for viewers and comes to his rescue at the end. Chris himself, as portrayed by Daniel Kaluuya, is dumbfounded by the whole experience but never at a loss for action. The only time he's a victim is when Catherine Keener brainwashes him.
Stephen Root shows up in a supporting role, subverting his usual comedic persona by both leaning into and away from the stereotype Southern racist the movie never actually delivers. This is a horror movie with comedy instincts, not a comedy with horror instincts, not a parody. That's what makes the whole thing so refreshing, so subversive, and so biting. It might even be called satire. Probably the way it will properly be understood later.
So I'm glad I finally saw it.
the story: Chris finds out it's dangerous to be black among white folks with ulterior motives.
review: Wow, so this is a great example of knowing what a movie technically accomplishes, and getting a totally different grasp upon actually seeing it. Get Out, for me, was a victim of the vast scaling back of film watching I've experienced over the past decade. I was pretty out of control, generally speaking, for a few years. I went to the movies all the time. I had a pretty comprehensive sampling of what was released. Then I had to become more selective. I had to start making some snap judgments before movies ever hit theaters, including must-see picks and things that didn't seem like they were for me. Get Out seemed like it wasn't for me. It seemed like one of those movies hipsters like, that only seemed to be clever.
Boy was I wrong.
The surface elements are certainly there but even those underscore its greater message. It's funny that Get Out even had a chance to be widely celebrated, as it mocks liberal attitudes at a time when liberals have virtually succeeded in dominating popular entertainment, both the product and reception of it. But by the end, it becomes so savage as to become inexplicable. Clearly a lot of people just didn't get it. They chuckled knowingly, without comprehension.
You see, Chris's fate is damn ironic. That he ends up escaping it is much a part of how we've reached this endless public hysteria as anything that helped create it. When Bradley Whitford says he would've voted for Obama a third time if only given the option, which he repeats after Allison Williams has already told us he'd say so, director Jordan Peele has shown his hand. That's the whole message right there. Liberals somewhat liberally exploited black people to get the White House. Period. And then moved on, after everything spiraled out of control.
Yeah. Peele's ascent as filmmaker came from a popular sketch comedy series, Key & Peele, which can be felt in Chris's best friend, who hilariously puts the whole thing in context for viewers and comes to his rescue at the end. Chris himself, as portrayed by Daniel Kaluuya, is dumbfounded by the whole experience but never at a loss for action. The only time he's a victim is when Catherine Keener brainwashes him.
Stephen Root shows up in a supporting role, subverting his usual comedic persona by both leaning into and away from the stereotype Southern racist the movie never actually delivers. This is a horror movie with comedy instincts, not a comedy with horror instincts, not a parody. That's what makes the whole thing so refreshing, so subversive, and so biting. It might even be called satire. Probably the way it will properly be understood later.
So I'm glad I finally saw it.
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