Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia

I'm just going to try out this post using a jump, I think it's a good idea, but now is the time to tell me if you hate it, before I update the older entries!

I somehow let so much of the day get away from me - I didn't even eat dinner until 9pm. I found some time to watch Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, directed by Sam Peckinpah in 1974.  This was my first time watching this movie, and I was really excited to see it, since I love The Wild Bunch so much. I know that critics, and the public, really hated this movie when it came out. It is disturbing and violent, especially for 1974. Roger Ebert's defense of the film has become almost legendary - he was pretty much the only critic to support it when it came out. Over time, people have come around and given this film the credit that I think it deserves.

The Wild Bunch

Another post that I keep putting off writing. Not because I hated the movie - I love The Wild Bunch. I just watched it earlier, had to leave for an appointment, and didn't write before I left. Now that I'm home I want to be lazy and screw around watching stuff on my DVR. In case I wasn't lazy enough today, blah.

Today I watched The Wild Bunch, directed by Sam Peckinpah in 1969. It's a fantastic western - gritty and violent,  with a great plot. I feel like I always say I hate westerns and then I wind up watching the ones I like for this project. I mean, I'm glad I don't have to watch a whole haul of American westerns, but it seems hypocritical if 90% of the westerns I watch for this project are ones that I already love and are prefaced with my normal cry of "but I hate them!" This film has so much of what I like about westerns - it uses the time period as a backdrop for a great story, and it deals with that era without any romanticism or fantasy. It is, as Peckinpah himself has said, "...not fun and games and cowboys and Indians. It's a terrible, ugly thing" (From here). I feel a deep love for him for saying this, since I'm always whining about realism in westerns, or something like that.