Westerns

God, I love Westerns. I don't care whether it's John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, I just love the whole genre. It's so damn sad to see where it's gone nowadays. The last truly awesome western that came out was over 20 years ago; Unforgiven. I saw True Grit (the remake) the other day and it was fantastic.

I could just gush all day about this..anyone else with me here?

I've only seen The Magnificent Seven, it certainly was.

I haven't seen The Magnificent Seven yet, heard that it's pretty good for a remake of Seven Samurai. And it has Eli Wallach in it so that's a plus.

They're certainly a gold mine for awesome music:

Not a whole lot of westerns I like, actually. But sometimes, you find a shining gem of shininess in the most unexpected places.

I've only mostly seen the ones post-deconstruction. Haven't seen many of the old ones (does Gunfight At The OK Corral count? That's probably the only really old one I've seen). I've seen a lot of Clint's stuff, I think there should be more like High Plains Drifter. I'm probably a minority in that, though...

3:10 To Yuma was pretty good, I thought.

OP, are you going to be seeing Cowboys And Aliens?

edited 6th Jan '11 9:26:16 PM by melloncollie

Yyyeeeeees. I haven't watched enough Westerns yet. I've only seen three

To the OP: what is it about the genre that you seem to think needs fixing?

I wonder if I should bother posting here after six years or if I should find some other appropriate thread for this. Well, can't find one right now, so a hot take: Once Upon a Time in the West is a beautifully made movie, but deeply flawed on objective level, because of how much it fails at presenting its main theme and message.

The trope page for this movie talks about how it firmly stands on romantism side of Romantism Versus Enlightement and honestly, I can't see how anybody could get that from just watching it, because it sucks shit at arguing for it.

Frank, the only one who ends up opposing to the change, is a complete and utter monster, while Morton is presented as more sympathetic. The person bringing the enlightement is Jill, the single most sympathetic character in the movie and it's something Cheyene and Harmonica help her with, with Harmonica seeming at worst to be gradually accepting it. Even Morton's motive isn't greed and he is just taking out another business. You could say the movie is just being fair to both sides, but as presented, the taming of the west seems pretty unambiguously good thing. So, hard to see it as the Marxist manifesto it's been presented as.