Johnny Guitar

I finally made it back into work today. I was so busy today that I felt like I had been at work all week! Plus I ended up staying over an hour late so that I could get more stuff done. I'm glad to be back home and rest, it was a really long day for how sick I felt.

Today I watched Johnny Guitar, directed by Nicholas Ray in 1954. I really am not sure what to make of this movie. Maybe I needed to watch it in a better mood, when I was more ready to concentrate on it and not just laze around? I just feel confused by the whole thing. It was very strange. After I watched it, I felt like how I did when I first saw the spoofy 1967 Casino Royale when I was like, 9 or 10. I had no idea it was a comedy, I didn't know any of the actors in it, and I did not understand a single part of it, and I remember for a long time it was my most hated movie, because I never could figure out what had happened in it or why. I feel like I'm just sort of missing something with Johnny Guitar, maybe, be it that it was my mood or that I don't know these actors well enough or something.

Unforgiven

I think I'm finally over my "I hate westerns, but..." stage. I sort of like some westerns, so I was interested in finally watching today's movie - Unforgiven, directed by Clint Eastwood in 1992. Somehow I never saw it before, despite how famous it is. I always heard that it sort of marked the end of the western genre's popularity, which I think has since come back somewhat (also I've got a great western screenplay if anyone is buying, hint hint).

The movie was really great, focused on the dark side of the west. I loved the characters and the story, and it was just so well filmed and made. I liked that it was sort of a blend of a lot of different styles of westerns - John Ford meets Sergio Leone, in a way. It had a lot of brighter, beautiful outside scenes that were more adventure-y, but it was mixed in with the nastier, grittier, and more violent end of the film. I liked the combination, and really loved this movie! I'm pretty sleepy from having a bad headache today, so I'm going to have to keep this post short despite how much I love the film.

Shane

I am so glad that it's the weekend and I can get some time to sleep in and relax! Today when I got home from work I saw that my local newspaper had run an article about me and my blog. It was really cool! Maybe I'll scan it later and post it so you guys can check it out, it's really well-written and flattering, if I might say so :)

Today after a long day of work I watched Shane, directed by George Stevens in 1953. I feel bad, but I honestly just wasn't very into this movie. I will say that this is probably largely based on my mood. I felt like going out and doing something, and I was a little resentful that I had to watch a long, meandering movie instead. I usually like meandering, but this just felt a little off to me. What's so frustrating is that there are many parts that I actually liked, but they often were followed by something I really disliked - and that little scene I hated seemed to stand out more. These are more faults of myself than of the film, though. It's another one of those movies where I can so clearly see what it's masterful, but just didn't personally feel anything for it.

The Searchers

I unashamedly love today's movie - The Searchers, directed by John Ford in 1956. It has everything that I normally hate, like John Wayne and John Ford, but it's one of my favorite movies. It's shot incredibly well, and so many shots are just breathtaking. It also is not a traditional role at all for John Wayne - he plays a character who is racist and suspicious, who can't really function well in normal society.

I feel like I've watched The Searchers at least once a year, which is sort of funny because some director or another I liked once said that he does the same. I haven't meant to watch it so much - I just always saw it for classes in college, or later, worked it into my essays that I was writing (even a poetry essay!) I don't feel tired of it, though. To me, it always stands apart from other westerns, and I always enjoy watching it.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

This is not going to be another post about a western that I preface with “I hate westerns, but...” I do hate some westerns. But I also like a lot of westerns, the more I explore the genre. I hate John Wayne-era westerns. They feel so campy and neat and pretty to me. In my imagination, the west was a dark, gritty place, and I see that come to life in this movie. For those unfamiliar, it was directed by Sergio Leone in 1966, and I just adore his over-the-top version of the west.

I think it can be hard to remember what was so groundbreaking and new about this movie when it came out. Clint Eastwood is a household name, but he wasn't in 1966. He was a TV star that no one thought would succeed. “In those days,” Ebert writes, “it was thought that a movie audience wouldn't pay to see an actor it could watch for free” (Great Movies II, 161). He got paid barely anything for his work with Leone, but it paid off. People were also much more used to the Wayne west, where there was not so much blood and dirt, where everything was filmed in the US. Here, Leone gave us big sweeping foreign vistas. People with dark, sun-stained skin. Blistering, peeling faces and grit covering everything. It was sort of alien, almost. I know there were many critics who didn't like Leone's emphasis on style, but I really love it.

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.

My Darling Clementine

This is going to be a short post. The biggest problem with John Ford's 1946 western My Darling Clementine was that my DVD didn't work. I didn't realize until we started playing it that it was badly scratched, and I probably ended missing about 40 minutes of the movie. The parts I missed seemed to be Ebert's favorite parts - the shootout, the parts with Clementine. I feel bad since I know I probably missed what made this movie great, but it was so late that I didn't have time to find a different copy.