That’s right. I made that mistake before. In my mind Pale Rider seems to come before Josey Wales. The latter is a more personal, more original and ambitious movie, while Pale Rider is more derivative (a quality I seem to link to a director’s early outcome). Anyway, I like Clint as a director better when he remains closer to the people he worked with and/or admires.
Revisited The Dirty Outlaws and Death Sentence this week. TDO is a movie that I end up having mixed emotions about. I love the muddy, gloomy and Djangoesque atmosphere with it’s well directed violence and truly evil outlaws, but still the plot is a bit confusing and maybe thin as a whole but there’s enough of suspense moments to keep me interested anyhow. This one is staying in my top 20.
Death Sentence stands out as an exceptional piece of trust whorthy genre cinema. All the four episodes are easy to follow and highly entertaining. Highlights for me is the suspense high stakes poker game and the epileptic albino portrayed by Millian.
Pale rider is rather boring movie but it is still one of the best westerns that were made in 80s and it makes a nice link between Outlaw Josey Wales and Unforgiven. I was so disappointed the first time I saw it. Silverado is the best 80s western by far and pretty damn enjoyable one. Anyway are there any other 80s westerns worth watching? I’m not sure.
I liked Tom Horn with Steve McQueen, Barbarossa, The long riders about the James-Younger gang and the mini series Lonesome Dove grom the eighties.
Haven’t seem Young guns in ages but back them I liked it. The desperate trial was also watchable back then but as I recall it, this was more a tv western.
Quigley down under is f grom 1990, just past the eigties and plays party in Australia. Also a picture I liked.
Just finished Pale Rider. I was curious what I would think of it now, and frankly, it’s even worse than I remember. Basically, you wait hour and half for a showdown, and when it finally comes about it sucks big time. Let’s take things responsibly and review the showdown in detail shall we?
Clint enters the town and sits himself in a nearby diner. Six town troublemakers (some of them got a lesson previously in a quite dumb looking scene with baseball bats at the beginning of the movie) decide to take the Preacher by themselves. One of them peeks inside diner and sees that Preacher must be pretty stupid son of bitch sitting there just like that back to the door. So, six fellas hurl in and start shooting and they shoot and shoot although it is pretty obvious no one is sitting there. Yes, they shoot until their guns are empty, it’s that kind of stupid screenplay. Clint surprises them from a rear, a revolver pointed at them. Two of the guys get out, four other, kid you not, continue reloading until they are shot by Clint.Time to settle the score with the marshall and his six deputies. What follows is a classic hide and shoot town showdown and since Clint is involved and even directing this you would expect something special. Let’s see: first deputy - killed when enters some building, just like that, second deputy - not even shown, he just walks out of somewhere and falls down. By this time, I thought there must be something really wrong with a creative approach to this movie. Third and fourth deputy are shot by Clint from behind some boxes. It looks as lame as it sounds. Into the death of the fifth deputy went some creative input finally. His attention is attracted by an outhouse and is shot by Clint lying behind a watering place. And a bullet fucks his throat quite badly. Great scene. The last deputy is somewhat attached to a horse with a rope and dragged by the animal from the town. Wonder if he survived that. Then follows final duel with the marshall which is not bad, but to me it always looked obvious there are some squibs under his coat, it just looks artificial. 80s westerns. Pfffr. Don’t make me even start with that Silverado crap.
I have never seen Silverado and don’t think I could ever bring myself to watch it. A remake of Dirty Harry starring Will Smith would be about as appealing.
But why? I’ve seen it multiple times. 
Now it looks like I love to torture myself with that crap, but the thing is I always forgot what it was all about and why I didn’t like it and start to question myself regarding my memories of Silverado or better said lack of it. So I watch it just out of curiosity ending with a resolution never to watch it again.
It is not that bad. It has great unusual cast, nice camera and epic music. Glenn and Kline are just too good. The story is a mess, that is true. There are too many themes that are underdeveloped and in the end it is a bit confusing. However there are also great scenes. The intro scene is amazing.
My only memory of the movie is Kline shooting in a pink underwear. Other than that, complete blank, and I’ve seen it at least five times. I had to watch it again, just to refresh memories. 
It’s because, not having seen it, I envision Silverado to be a western version of The Big Chill(1983) or Grand Canyon(1991) .
Because he was mostly a bystander in the movie. Scenes like these made it fun for me.
What, there’s Kevin Costner too?
I know what are you talking about since I felt the same about the movie years ago and only liked it more later.
That scene is actually not bad. It made me curious. Now I have to watch it again. It’s Silverado time.
The Big Chill, Grand Canyon, and Silverado were all written, produced, and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. Kasdan’s 1994 Costner vehicle Wyatt Earp(haven’t seen) was a box office disaster despite 1993 Wyatt Earp movie Tombstone(seen/liked) being so successful. Maybe Kasdan and Westerns don’t mix for me. I did like Kasdan’s Body Heat and The Accidental Tourist from what I remember.
1 Like
I do that all the time with all manner of films (Silverado certainly among them). In fact, Silverado is well overdue another look. I mean, it’s a big production eighties western spectacular! It’ll probably be fine this time…
A few months ago I tried a re-watch of Silverado as it was on Netflix. I did not get halfway through the movie. I liked it when it came out but over the years my taste must have changed.
I have the same problem with Silverado and that’s why I return to it from time to time: I seem to forget (again and again) what is exactly going on in the movie, and why. There are so many characters and they all have personal motivations, and not of these characters or motivations is really memorable, but as an ensemble movie I find it quite enjoyable - if far from great - every time I rewatch it.
Poor Moonraker, poor Pale Rider, poor Unforgiven. 
Precisely!