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 Grapes of Wrath

Maybe I feel really meh about all movies lately. I don't really feel too excited about today's movie, either. It's another film where I can tell it's masterfully made, but it's not really something I find myself getting too worked up about. Today I watched The Grapes of Wrath, based on the Steinbeck novel of the same name. It was directed in 1940 by John Ford. He's a really talented director, you can tell he has a great eye and vision. I just didn't find myself getting as involved in the story as I probably should have been.

This will probably be a shorter post, since I don't really know what to say about movies where I feel so unenthusiastic. 

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.