If Major Jackson was wearing a pink polonaise and bellowing ‘Hey stud, please, fondle my butt’ in the denouement of Django, it would be only slightly more absurd than that outright WTF finale of Shango. I genuinely abominate this execrable deus ex machina which is warranted neither logically nor narratively. Therewith, Mulargia completely inhumes the film, not to mention the disastrous script which almost seems to go awry at every bloody turn.
That is not to say that I abhor the film - some parts of it are quite enjoyable and the film is not particularly pain-in-the-arse foul or revolting, notwithstanding, its ambience, beautiful autumnal locations and relatively well-helmed action sequences cannot elevate the film to any higher level. Shango remains but a downright stultified and flimsy flick that is kicked off with a lot of potential, but right after the engrossing commencement, Mulargia does absolutely nothing to develop the film’s intriguing premise and present some well-delineated characters.
Apart from some palliative components, the movie, just like its ending, is a complete blah.
Gunfighter’s Moon (1997) …Good western with Lance Hendrickson who is excellent as a fast on the trigger gunfighter who comes back upon being summoned by his ex-love to protect a daughter he didn’t know he had and her husband from the town’s slimey bastards. Good story, good acting and overall entertaining. 7.5/10
A really classic film to me, been a while since I last seen it, thought it was a good time to go back to it.
I remember the first time I watch it in TV still a kid and how overwhelming I was by this not men versus nature, but man in nature the feeling still stands. It’s not a complex film, but I just love the story of the man that has become disenchanted with society, and tries to remodel himself as lonely mountain men.
There some amazing haunting scenes like the one when Johnson turns back to find out his family dead. What I’ve learn of the film among other things, was that the permanent “vendenta” that issues after that poignant scene, was nothing more that Jeremiah Johnson final stage of emerging completely in the native’s world and becoming a true mountain men. Living the life of a trapper was a dangerous type of life, everything was out there to kill you, but at the same time the things that could and would kill you, would also save you, animals gave you food, Indians that could track you down, could also teach you to survive respecting nature, that was the beauty of the mountain life, to live among nature learning to depend on her to survive.
The cinematography is great, with the wild landscape being the main character of the film. The script was adapted from two books by John Milius, those novels told the story of Mountain Men in general, and a real life Mountain Men named Crow Killer Johnson, in which Jeremiah Johnson character was based. Milius seems to be in a lot of films I particularly like, as a writer or director.
Robert Redford doesn’t seem like an obvious choice to play a character like J. Johnson, but he’s really good staying true his character ways, also the rest of the cast, mostly more or less unknown actors was great, not easy to film in such freezing cold. Pollack direction is precise and above all not very intrusive, he simple lets the film flow naturally, one of his best directing jobs.
Normally I usually like these films in the wilderness, something like Kurosawa Derzu Uzala, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Pollack had watched, not Kurosawa film made two years after, but the original soviet film from the sixties that the Japanese master made the remade. When it came out, I liked Dances with Wolves, mostly because of Jeremiah Johnson.
Not sure if it can be considered a western, but great film.
@Topo
Jertemiah Johnson is definitely a western for me, mate. And you all know how picky I am on that subject.
@autephex
Let me add my recommendation to Topo’s. JJ is a great film imo and a personal favourite of mine. You should definitely get around to seeing it.
Jeremiah Johnson is one of my favorites too.
Very fine movie. Definitely a western to me, although not one of the traditional shoot 'm up type of cowboy movies.
My Name Is Pecos - Wild East’s first Blu, they’ve done a good job of this considering the elements, best I’ve ever seen it, the disc also comes with the sequel which I’ve never seen before so looking forward to checking it out.
[quote=“last.caress, post:11492, topic:141”]Is it region free/multiregion, Yod? Would I be able to order it and enjoy it on my region B player?[/quote]I’m not sure what my player was set to when I put it in, I’ll set the machine to Region B later and try it
Top sleuthing, fella! Thank-you. I did email Wild East to ask them but, so far, they’ve ignored me. That’s some top customer service there, guys! Thumbs up!
Ooh, no sir. I’m a bit of a technophobe and I worry that in ten/fifteen years time when everything’s in the bloody “cloud” or wherever and machines are defunct and hard to come by, you’re going to struggle because, since your collection is full of region 1 DVDs and region A blus, you’re always going to have to go that extra mile to find not just a working player but multiregion capability as well. I don’t yet own a single blu that can’t be played on a region B player and I think I already own way too many region 1 DVDs as it is (three of those 8-movie Echo Bridge Spag sets, some Dog the Bounty Hunter sets - yes: I like Dog the Bounty Hunter ;D - the complete series runs of Soap and Married… With Children, a “Mr.Perfect” Curt Hennig DVD - Yes: I like WWE ;D - and one or two other isolated movies).
Know what you mean. I have a couple of spare multi region dvd players in stock and a couple of vhs players aswell. Picked them up cheap on E Bay when I have had a little spare cash.
I’ve still got a few multi-region dvd players that I’m keeping around just in case, although I haven’t needed to use any of them in a while now.
Never know when one player may take the dive and good to have a spare.
Although these days I prefer to convert most of my DVDs into lossless MKV files and then stream to my TV… much more convenient and then region locking and PAL/NTSC encoding are not an issue either
Was intrigued by this one as stars Joseph Cotten around the time he started his Spaghetti work. But its all a rather dull affair based around The Battle of Little Big Horn. Tedious is the word for this one.
…certainly not me.
