[size=12pt]#(JANGLLLE!)
Jangle,
Have you always been a mole?
(JANGLLLE!)
Jangle,
Have you leather-lunged again?#[/size]
Or something like that.
Yes, at #18 my movie tonight is spag staple Django (Corbucci, 1966), one of the only spags I owned or had even heard of back when my movie collection was nought but VHS videotapes 15 years or so ago. I’m interested to watch this one tbh because I haven’t seen it since last year and I found myself ever-so-slightly less enamoured of it than I had been previously, which triggered a sizeable drop out of my personal Big 10 and, as we can see, almost out of my Big 20. And how’s this for commitment to Spagvemberfest: We are going out to visit with some friends in an hour or so and we’re unlikely to be back until the very small hours so I shall be taking a burnt DVD copy of Django and a portable DVD player with me to watch it there. No, really. I’ve done it before.
14: Caiano: The Man Who Cried for Revenge (1968)
-Here’s a sw with great cast, Steffen, Berger, Undari, Brega etc. Steffen is in good form, looking cool and making roll and shoot acts. Film has also very good look, grey and brown colors, mud and dirt, buildings look old and ragged. It’s too bad that despite the actors and good looks it just never rises above average and it ends with very long and tedious hide-and-seek shoot out. 5/10
Much like LC said in an earlier entry on this thread, Companeros is a film I’m never sure if I’m going to like as much as last time but invariably do and this time around was no exception. It does, however, feel less and less like a western somehow and more and more just a romping great Buddy slash adventure film and for that reason, along with its clearly superior budget I’m finding it harder to compare with the other films I’ve watched so far this month. Not so much like comparing apples with oranges as comparing garden sheds with luxury villas. Either way, it’s a lot of fun and even the wife enjoyed it which is always a bonus. Hopefully she will be equally as happy with the rest of the Corbucci weekend I have planned.
I watched whatever I was watching tonight* (5 giants…) in 2 halves (as before) but can’t unfortunately give it top banana marks this time. Thoroughly enjoyed the end again but it dragged in the middle like I knew it would on a second watch.
Flawed but interestingly different film.
And after this talk of Quinto, I think I’m gonna slip this one in as a wild card - I certainly have fond memories.
[size=8pt](*The Reverend is a trifle squiffy tonight and will reserve the majority of his one-fingered dribblings til the morrow)[/size]
Going to be brief here since I’m as sick as a pig. A sick one, anyway. Scoffed a small loaf of jalapeno & cheese bread to myself. An interesting taste, not as pleasant as it should have been, but it’s not sat well at all and I think it’s transformed into some sort of doughy plutonium gremlin which is attempting to kick its way out of my ribcage. Going to lie down and whimper in front of Spag #17 in my Big Rundown: Face to Face (Sollima, 1967). Maybe Tomas Milian’s upsetting hairstyle will induce me into vomiting the evil demon-dough back the way it came which will mean that, in a cruel mirroring of the events of the movie, I will find myself “Face to Face” with something I once loved but which eventually went mad and tried to kill me. Why, jalapeno bread? WHY?? :’(
As I said in my drunken dribblings - great end to Five Giants From Texas which I’m gonna give a 15.75 this time around. I wasn’t disappointed with this bit of madness-tinged revenge finale but it really did drag in the middle.
I think this maybe the earliest outing that I can remember for what I’m still gonna call The Fiddler’s Three after them being regulars in some of Sir Spitfire’s stuff, even though I haven’t worked out quite how many there actually are… they move about a bit. As you can see… (actually there’s 4 in this shot)…
Ooops - forgot tonights offering - Night of the Serpent
This will certainly remain in a toptwentiness state of being.
Real cacti, and a peote flavoured yarn that’s as fresh as they come. Every character is a beaut and bonkers to boot. It’s got Chelo and a diminuitive sex-mad religious relative that trying to get in her knickers… What more needs to be said! 8)
17.75 - thats a goodie!
Tomorrow - another slow burner - A Hole in the Forehead… sorry Luke!
I think there’s a potential new page to be built here for the database: “Chrysanthemums (and assorted other flora, succulents and cylindrical gourd fruits) For a Herd of Swine”, presented by Reverend Danite Titchmarsh. Items include Cactuswatch, nominations for the Hall of Fame (Floral background supporting talent), Which Spag-Featured Flora do Your Genital Resemble? (that’s a reader’s photo section), and maybe a Cacti exchange & Mart section? Worth a thought!
Round 2 of my Corbucci weekend triple header and interesting to watch this one and Companeros one after the other (albeit in reverse chronological order). I have flip flopped over the years as to which one I preferred and I’m doing it again. Nothing wrong with this one but I definitely enjoyed Companeros more this time around. Maybe watching essentially the same film twice in two days was too much or possibly it was because my Koch DVD of Mercenary crapped out three quarters of the way through and I finished the film via my old Trash Palace vhs ripped DVDr with in built Greek subs and shitty picture quality. Whatever the reasons Companeros wins out and Mercenary will probably drop a fair few places a s a result. Just no room for two such similar films in my top 20 these days I think. However, now that my good DVD has failed me a Bluray update is in order and I might just change my mind again. Let’s be honest, these two are interchangeable anyway. Maybe I’ll create a new entry at 17 called The Companario and be done with it.
Anyhow, Corbucci number 3 is calling. In fact I can hear the strains of the theme song drifting in from the living room now…
Django…Have you ever licked a friend
Django… Are you nearly on the mend
All went wrong as I accidently bumped into And God Said To Cain on the way to get AHITF, and after reading Phil’s thoughts decided to take a wild-card punt on this even tho’ I haven’t rated it as much as others in the (distant) past. But with the wind and rain lashing the windows outside I thought I may enjoy the stormy theatrics of this one.
Alas - It was really all a bit boring and predictable… and although I like its different take and KK’s character, the ‘atmosphere’ was for me, lacking and the finale just stoopidly protracted. I’m sure I prefer the Steffen film that has the same-named characters.
[quote=“Reverend Danite, post:113, topic:3590”]Alas - It was really all a bit boring and predictable… and although I like its different take and KK’s character, the ‘atmosphere’ was for me, lacking and the finale just stoopidly protracted. I’m sure I prefer the Steffen film that has the same-named characters.
9.5 outa 20[/quote]
Predictable???
Next you’ll be complaining about production values and suggesting that Once Upon a Time in the West isn’t really a Spaghetti Western!!!
:o :o :o
This one must have a decent claim on being the quintessential Spaghetti Western. From the opening scene where a woman is rescued from a sadistic whipping only in order to subject her to an alternative form of humiliating and painful punishment and is saved from this by a miserable sod dragging a coffin about like a security blanket we know we are in an alternate west to the one inhabited by John Wayne and his ilk. It’s a west heavy on arbitrary and sadistic violence and light on sentiment and morals. A place inhabited by hooded racists and self serving bandit revolutionaries. A place where it never rains but is always muddy.
I’ve watched this film untold times and always enjoyed it but I think this time around, if anything, I loved it even more than before. Could it break back into my Top 10? We shall see. It certainly cemented its place in my Top 20 all over again.
And that closing shot in the cemetary…just superb. 8)
Problems of owning a spaghetti collection of 500+ titles (a.k.a First World Problems) I knew I had this particular film burned on disc somewhere but couldn’t find it, only italian version which made me think that I might have accidentally thrown the english version away and kept the italian. Eventually I found the video file on my external hd and watched it on my laptop. And the film was:
15: Fidani: Stranger, Say Your Prayers! (1968)
-Because what would spagvemberfest be without Fidani? This was the first time I saw it on english, not a bad one but not my favorite from Fid. 5/10
Halfway through the fest now and I can feel some exhaustion. Maybe I should refresh myself with some better titles for a while.
How was it Jonathan? We haven’t heard much from ya.
Yeah, I’d skip Wanted Johnny Texas despite what Brother Jonathan may have to say about it’s brilliance…
I’m Ok with a spagadayfest only because it’s populated with some of my faves (AGSTCexcepted) and it’s been a while. Otherwise I reckon I’d feel ya pain.
I gotta say for the most part I’m thoroughly enjoying the ride as I reckon I’ve forgotten more than I remember about most.
[quote=“Phil H, post:114, topic:3590”]Next you’ll be complaining about production values and suggesting that Once Upon a Time in the West isn’t really a Spaghetti Western!!!
:o :o :o[/quote]
;D God forbid. Anyway, talkin’ of production values - not even a soggy saguero on view in AGSTC.
At #16 on my rundown, it’s the fantastic El Puro (Mulargia, 1969), with Robert Woods in the form of his life as the shambolic drunken has-been who, a lifetime ago, was a feared gunfighter, forced once more to come out from hiding and face down yet more would-be assailants, this time in the form of the demented Gypsy (Marco Fiorini) and his merry band of miscreants. El Puro was a movie that hit all the right buttons for me as soon as I clapped eyes on it but, for reasons I can’t fathom now having just watched it and loved it as much as I ever have, it fell oddly flat and uninvolving the last time I watched it prior to today and as a result it took a minor tumble down my personal list. Maybe I was distracted or something because El Puro is IMHO a bona fide titan of the genre, held back from its true place at the top table only by its scarcity relative to the genre’s other giants. Look at the screenshot below: Everything I crave from Spaghetti Westerns in a still image.
Fifteen down, fifteen to go. Hey, that’d make a pretty decent Spag title, wouldn’t it? Anyway, at #15 I’ve got The Mercenary (Corbucci, 1968), my fifth and final Corbucci picture of Spagvember. Franco Nero does his Non-Italian thing again, this time as the Polish gun-for-hire Sergei Kowalski but he almost has the movie robbed from under him by the fantastic Tony Musante as Paco, in what was sadly his only appearance in spaghettis. Ah well. Grittier than the similar Companeros but personally I think it’s (slightly) better for it.
