The Last Western You Watched?

The War Wagon - 1967

Directed by Burt Kennedy and produced by Wayne himself this is a good John Wayner. Who is quite good in the type of roles he felt at home in the 60s.
Entertaining stuff with some memorable scenes between Wayne and Kirk Douglas, but also with some ordinary looking stuff like an ending which is in parts disappointing.
Unlike in Hawks films the group around Wayne is build by selfish people mainly interested in money. A more talented director could have improved the movie, even if this is already better directed than other films of the director. 6,5/10

Good luck with the converting!

And actually, I rewatched The Great Silence for the first time last friday (the first time I saw it was about three years ago I think). A great film, but also really difficult to watch. And as I said, I’m a different Silence!

The Deserter (1971) by Burt Kennedy

Bekim Fehmiu and his chosen few got a job to do - to wipe out Apache warcamp
so, story“s nothing new, except for the fact that instead of bandits or soldiers, we have Indians as a bad guys
some familiar faces in FehmiuĀ“s gang - Ricardo Montalban, Richard Crenna, Chuck Connors, Woody Strode…
it“s quite entertaining and contains some very brutal scenes (for example our heroes kill some 30 sleeping Apaches with knives in the dead of the night)
action scenes are dynamic, but it“s a pity that all three bigger fights were shot in the night, at least finale should be shot during the day and should be longer
nice music score by Pierro Piccioni
the film also should focus more on action than on some unnecessarily long scenes in a wasteland, where our heroes have to overcome problems with climbing rocks and building a bridge

[quote=ā€œSilence, post:9342, topic:141ā€]Good luck with the converting!

And actually, I rewatched The Great Silence for the first time last friday (the first time I saw it was about three years ago I think). A great film, but also really difficult to watch. And as I said, I’m a different Silence![/quote]

Yes I hope your ending is better than his! :wink:

Yeah… that’s one of the main reasons why I’m happy with being a different Silence ;).

Been building up for a few years now to view the first Provvidenza film, but was just not in the mood for comedy stuff tonight :smiley: . Will try in the week re that one.

Re viewed $20,000 On No 7 instead. Pretty simple the story to this. Not the best one out there, but it sort of keeps me watching…not sure why. Have to admit to liking the gadgets though…High precision as the main guy kept on saying.

Really? As far as I remember the story was a mix between ultra-complicated and non-existing.

Yes pretty straight forward the story this time round. When I first viewed not as much so.

I regret to say the last western I watched was Jonah Hex. It was a terrible film and any vestiges of interest I had were lost when my girlfriend started making with the sexy talk near the end. Really, though, what a terrible waste of celluloid. It was especially disappointing (the film, not the sexy talk) because they could have played it straight and made a good western. And there was really no need to reimagine the comic book, since there was nothing wrong with the comic book in the first instance. It felt like Constantine all over again and made me hate comic book adaptations. I think even more so because it was so obviously trying to be ā€œcomic bookā€, even down to the animated flashbacks. I hate that studios come to comic book properties thinking that they have to make it look and feel like the layman’s idea of what a comic book is, when the comic itself might be trying to be as much like a good and gritty film as possible (as in the case of Jonah Hex).

Also, I think steampunk has a lot to answer for. Jonah Hex is another example of a period film where the filmmaker has added a bunch of ridiculous fantasy weaponry just to inject excitement. I hate all of these types of films and I think in the vast majority of cases it feels like pandering to idiocy; adding explosions and gatling guns just so that the kids don’t lose focus. I’m talking about films like Van Helsing, the recent Three Muskateers, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I hate them all and anyone who thinks classic literature is better for the addition of giant fucking airships covered in flamethrowers.

Finally, before I let my breathing return to normal, I want to add that I don’t understand the thinking behind giving Jonah Hex a love interest. It’s annoying for the same reason Batman being given an arbitrary love interest with every single film; you do not need to give brooding loner characters love interests, because they have more important things to worry about than love. Things like maiming law breakers and getting bloody revenge. So Megan Fox, as attractive as she is, was completely superfluous. Her character added absoultely nothing to the film and they struggled to make her relevant to the plot (I’m not going even going to get into how unconvincing she was as a sassy whore). Just pointless.

[quote=ā€œTheBigSmokedown, post:9349, topic:141ā€]I regret to say the last western I watched was Jonah Hex. It was a terrible film and any vestiges of interest I had were lost when my girlfriend started making with the sexy talk near the end. Really, though, what a terrible waste of celluloid. It was especially disappointing (the film, not the sexy talk) because they could have played it straight and made a good western. And there was really no need to reimagine the comic book, since there was nothing wrong with the comic book in the first instance. It felt like Constantine all over again and made me hate comic book adaptations. I think even more so because it was so obviously trying to be ā€œcomic bookā€, even down to the animated flashbacks. I hate that studios come to comic book properties thinking that they have to make it look and feel like the layman’s idea of what a comic book is, when the comic itself might be trying to be as much like a good and gritty film as possible (as in the case of Jonah Hex).

Also, I think steampunk has a lot to answer for. Jonah Hex is another example of a period film where the filmmaker has added a bunch of ridiculous fantasy weaponry just to inject excitement. I hate all of these types of films and I think in the vast majority of cases it feels like pandering to idiocy; adding explosions and gatling guns just so that the kids don’t lose focus. I’m talking about films like Van Helsing, the recent Three Muskateers, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I hate them all and anyone who thinks classic literature is better for the addition of giant fucking airships covered in flamethrowers.

Finally, before I let my breathing return to normal, I want to add that I don’t understand the thinking behind giving Jonah Hex a love interest. It’s annoying for the same reason Batman being given an arbitrary love interest with every single film; you do not need to give brooding loner characters love interests, because they have more important things to worry about than love. Things like maiming law breakers and getting bloody revenge. So Megan Fox, as attractive as she is, was completely superfluous. Her character added absoultely nothing to the film and they struggled to make her relevant to the plot (I’m not going even going to get into how unconvincing she was as a sassy whore). Just pointless.[/quote]

i quite agree with you - but Constantine was faaar better movie than this ehm, waster
well, Jonah Hex is bad movie and also bad comics adaptation, but Constatine at least has some pretty good inspired moments like from Delano or Ennis works on Hellblazer - last 15 minutes in Con are superb (and also some other scenes throughout the whole movie)
i can hardly pick up 1 entertaining minute in JH (maybe opening scene with mounted machineguns)
i“m not saying that Con is great adaptation - it is not, but in comparison with JH comics failure? an easy winner

Saw Massimo Dallamano’s Bandidos, wonderful film. Needs a better looking print to do it justice, though.

What print did you view ?

I think it was the Japanese one, I also checked what I think was the German one. Pretty average, I thought.

Yes, the German DVD is no more than average
One of those movies that need a first rate release

Amazing film

Viewed the Japanese disc last time.

The other day picked up an old UK pre cert tape on the cheap, and could not resist. Something for me to collect here and there:

There are 2 German DVDs, and the one from New is pretty good, albeit slightly cut. The other one is uncut and in 1,85:1.

I wrote a review of the NEW disc. I don’t think it’s that good, it’s no more than acceptable. And then there’s this problem with the second chapter that many copies seem to have.
If you look at the screenshots, you’d say the image quality is quite alright, but when watched, you get another impression.

I’ve never seen the other German DVD but I have a copy of the Japanese disc, it’s very much like the NEW disc (but not anamorphic)
How is the image quality of this tape, ENNIOO?

http://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Bandidos_DVD_Review_(NEW)

Not bad for a very old tape from the early 80’s, in a cropped widescreen ratio. Obviously not dvd quality though. But purchased for nostalgic reasons for myself more than anything else :slight_smile: .

I’m not sure if I saw the New or a Fandub from the Japanese DVD, and I only saw it on a 4:3 TV, but on that it looked quite good. Good colors.

Both have the same runtime, yes?

[quote=ā€œENNIOO, post:9355, topic:141ā€]Viewed the Japanese disc last time.

The other day picked up an old UK pre cert tape on the cheap, and could not resist. Something for me to collect here and there:

[/quote]
Nice cover!