Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Michael Elliott
Bob: What's the point?
Jane: The point is everyone does it so why take it so personal man.
Bob: Gee, I never thought of that Jane. Want a smoke?
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LOL
By the way, thanks for the exhaustive reply, Joe. Frankly, I wasn't expecting it but I sincerely appreciated it. I don't have time to reply right now (I have to get some more non-essential movies under my belt
) but let's see what you make of (at least, one of) the following:
11/13/08:
LEFT HANDED JOHNNY WEST (Gianfranco Parolini, 1965) 
This was still early days for the Spaghetti Western, so the plot clearly looked to the basic American formula for inspiration; besides, there’s the constant intrusion of comedy relief (via three scruffy, good-natured but belligerent individuals – two of them ex-boxers and the other the obligatory town drunk) rather than a general self-mocking tone, which the genre would go through on its way out.
The hero, then, is a dour and somewhat enigmatic half-breed (a white girlfriend of his ends up dead on his account, while he rejects the doe-eyed advances of a child-like squaw); he’s either referred to as Johnny Cherokee or Left Handed Johnny West throughout (the latter is crushed, HUSTLER-like, at one point – but, soon enough, he learns to become as deadly as ever with his other hand), and is constantly accompanied by an amiable white-haired mutt called Gypsy which even sacrifices itself for him at the climax. One mildly interesting point is that the villainous figure here is actually twin brothers, with the more vicious of the two identified solely by his dark attire and pencil moustache; also, when one of them is killed off and his coffin is brought to the town square to ‘witness’ Johnny West’s own demise, the other is ingeniously hidden behind a revolving panel inside it! Incidentally, the actor’s face seemed oddly familiar to me and, when I looked at his filmography on the IMDb, I realized he was the male lead in Cesare Canevari’s Nazisploitation effort GESTAPO’S LAST ORGY (1977) – which I watched not too long ago!
A subplot revolving around the appropriation of a gold mine and the revenge sought by its murdered proprietor’s hotheaded but inexperienced young son is as dreary as it sounds. The passable score is by veteran Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, which comes with a typically emphatic (yet pointless) theme tune complemented by wailing female vocals. For the record, the film was co-written by French exploitation producer Robert De Nesle – a valued Jess Franco collaborator, but who was also involved with Georges Franju’s sublime JUDEX (1963). Director Parolini is perhaps best-known for the three “Sabata” Spaghetti Westerns, none of which I’ve watched – though all are readily available for rental (albeit in English-dubbed editions) via the MGM/UA R1 Box Set. In conclusion, the lowly rating for this one is chiefly due to the fact that it has more brawls than gunfights – while the treatment is, at best, indifferent: a bad combination.
11/15/08:
THAT DAMNED HOT DAY OF FIRE (Paolo Bianchini, 1968)
I’d never heard of this one before its recent late-night Italian TV screening; on a hunch, I looked the film up on the “Spaghetti Western Database”, where it’s given a favorable write-up – and I’m glad I did, because this is a solid entry within the genre. I also wasn’t familiar with director Bianchini – but, then, the same also held true for Mario Lanfranchi of DEATH SENTENCE (1968), another unconventional Spaghetti Western I was impressed by of late.
The film is enjoyable, reasonably stylish and displays plenty of invention throughout; at the same time, we have to contend with some resistible (albeit brief) humor. It’s also quite a violent offering: the hero is dragged by a horse, tied to a tree and beaten-up
en masse, buried alive and shot at a number of times (the film’s single most startling moment – which I’m amazed wasn’t cut for TV – involves the graphic extraction, in gloating close-up, of a bullet from his hand!). The action scenes are undeniably well-staged – with the hero always managing to outwit the villains and emerge victorious (despite being greatly outnumbered).
Having mentioned all of this, it’s interesting that I should be following the film with the newest James Bond adventure – I may be wrong here, but this Western seems to have been inspired to some extent by that highly popular franchise (then in its heyday): the complex plot (involving espionage at the time of the American Civil War, having a Gatling gun for the obligatory “McGuffin”, and where one of the characters is revealed to be a ‘defector’), dour womanizing hero (with the leading lady typically picked out from the opposite side and another who’s dispatched by the villains for her involvement with him), etc. Casting, too, is more than adequate: Robert Woods (who would feature in a dire Spaghetti Western I’d watched not too long ago, SAVAGE GUNS [1971], but also
six Jess Franco movies – including the haunting THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR [1973]), John Ireland (excellent as an uncouth half-breed bandit who can throw a deadly knife with his toes[!] and, to feign a tough exterior, lights a match against his bare feet and eats an onion raw – though there’s also an anti-racist angle surprisingly attached to his character), Evelyn Stewart, George Rigaud and Gerard Herter.
With respect to the soundtrack, apart from an effectively atypical jazzy score by Piero Piccioni, there’s a nice atmospheric touch in the constant buzzing of flies (due to the oppressive heat). For the record, the framing on the edition I watched was slightly compromised by being opened up from the original Techniscope (2.35:1) to the 1.85:1 ratio. By the way, an alternate title for the film is GATLING GUN – another Western by that name was made in 1973 (and one which is readily available for DVD rental locally).
11/15/08:
QUANTUM OF SOLACE (Marc Forster, 2008)
Daniel Craig has had to face almost as tough an opposition as James Bond does in his movies when he took on the role of everybody’s favorite British secret agent two years ago but CASINO ROYALE (2006) had effectively silenced his critics by being, for my money, one of the all-time Top 5 entries in the long-running series. However, I can see an onslaught of bad vibes creeping up again following his second stab at the role. Actually, he’s not really the one to blame as his is a good performance under the circumstances; clearly, the major culprits here are the screenwriters and director for not really understanding (or caring enough) who James Bond is – and has been for practically the last half-a-century – and the producers (who should have known better) for letting them tamper with the beloved character far too much.
Before I sat down to watch this, I skimmed through online film forums to gauge the general reaction to the new Bond outing and, being a largely negative one, I prepared myself for the worst. While the film didn’t prove to be as bad as all that, it’s still inferior to its direct predecessor to such a dispiriting extent that the production team decidedly need to go back to the drawing-board fast if the next installment is to keep the momentum brought on by the breath of fresh air that CASINO ROYALE had been. It’s well-known by know that, uncharacteristically for the series, QUANTUM OF SOLACE is a continuation of that film’s storyline in that Bond is more interested in rooting out the man responsible for the death of his precious Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) – despite his all-too evident bitterness (read emotionless brutality) at her betrayal of him – than he is in catching the bad guys in this one.
And, frankly, who can blame him when he’s saddled with a potentially impotent wimp of a villain (Mathieu Almaric) – with an even more effete right-hand man – whose nefarious crimes extend merely to controlling the water supply of Bolivia to the detriment of the perpetually poor populace? Besides, Vesper Lynd had conclusively proven not to be just another Bond girl in more ways than one – being a woman whose death Bond was still mourning and a memorable character in her own right. Despite the beauty of her substitute here (which still comes up short, if you ask me, next to the stunning Miss Green), the character of Camille (Olga Kurylenko) is so one-dimensional that Bond doesn’t even entertain the notion of making love to her (a first for a Bond film for sure) and the one episode where he does go to bed with a girl – a red-headed M16 desk clerk (Gemma Arterton) that goes by the name of Strawberry Fields (‘tis pity she didn’t wear flowers in her hair, though) – seems like an afterthought merely intended to make her death scene a welcome tribute to Shirley Eaton’s iconic fate in GOLDFINGER (1964)!
After the extended, breathlessly-paced opening action sequence, I wasn’t too bothered by the rapid cutting which is said to imitate the BOURNE trilogy (but I wouldn’t really know since I’m not familiar with it and have little interest in finding out) but, apart from a good sequence at the Opera House, even the action set-pieces seemed indifferent to me. Equally pointless were the cameo appearances of both Giancarlo Giannini and Jeffrey Wright from CASINO ROYALE but the low-point of the movie must surely be the fact that the villain – lame though he might be – gets his come-uppance off-screen (which must be another first for this series)! The obligatory title song (performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys) has also received a lot of flak but, again, I didn’t find it as painful to listen to as others seem to have. Significantly, however, while QUANTUM OF SOLACE is, at 106 minutes, officially the shortest-running Bond movie ever (which is all the more remarkable because it follows the longest entry of all), it feels much longer than that – which is never a positive sign. One final thing: I still don’t quite know what to make of the film-makers’ decision to go back in time with Bond – making him a still up-and-coming secret agent that has yet to earn M’s complete trust – and yet have him operate in this advanced technological age of ours (represented by mobile phones and touch-screen graphics).
