― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 18:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― charleston charge (chaki), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 19:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 19:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 19:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 19:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 19:19 (nineteen years ago) link
I guess if your nation was formerly the seat of empires and now changes governments annually, you'd dote on the past too. (plus Visconti was an aristo)
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 19:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― charleston charge (chaki), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 19:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 19:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― charleston charge (chaki), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 20:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― charleston charge (chaki), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 20:02 (nineteen years ago) link
*actually 6 hours, i think
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 20:11 (nineteen years ago) link
then i took a class about spaghetti westerns and italian horror in college. it didnt help that the class was four hours on thursday nights but most of the westerns would put me to sleep [morricone's music was a sweet lullaby somehow]. dario argento's horror movies were just so much more exciting to watch in class. it also ruined westerns to have to write lengthy papers breaking down their cultural significance while italian horror was much more sexual in nature...
still like leone but only when i have a whole afternoon free and plenty of popcorn.
― jane (jane), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 21:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 21:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― jane (jane), Wednesday, 9 March 2005 22:07 (nineteen years ago) link
what about those:
sabatathe great silenceman of the eastkeomagunlawmy name is nobody
all brilliant. the last one doesnt really count though because leone co-directed it (and because its a piss-take of "for a few dollars more")
― fe zaffe (fezaffe), Thursday, 10 March 2005 01:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 10 March 2005 01:25 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.lfb.it/fff/fumetto/aut/a/imm/aragones01x.jpg
― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 10 March 2005 01:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― fe zaffe (fezaffe), Thursday, 10 March 2005 01:46 (nineteen years ago) link
also, i consider that film to have a stronger, more haunting feel to it, due mainly to the score and aspects like that hazey telephoto shot of a distant man walking towards the camera, his visage blurred by desert heat
say, does anybody know what kind of revolver makes that characteristic spaghettie western retort? that "Pyewwww!" sound? or is it just a recording of a richochet of a rifle-fired bullet?
― kingfish van vlasic pickles (Kingfish), Thursday, 10 March 2005 06:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 00:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― C. Grisso/McCain, Monday, 2 April 2007 16:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― chaki, Monday, 2 April 2007 17:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow, Monday, 2 April 2007 22:51 (seventeen years ago) link
The box is out this Tuesday!
― C. Grisso/McCain, Thursday, 31 May 2007 16:23 (sixteen years ago) link
jesus christ... Duck You Sucker kicks ass.
― chaki, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 00:18 (sixteen years ago) link
I just rented Colossus of Rhodes. It's Leone's first directorial feature and it's a epic set in ancient Greece.
Box made it seem awesome. I really should have translated that "cult" actually can mean "a very homo-erotic gladiator film". The acting and fight scenes are lousy too. Bummer.
― Nate Carson, Monday, 10 August 2009 09:20 (fourteen years ago) link
didnt he just co-direct that?
― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius), Monday, 10 August 2009 17:36 (fourteen years ago) link
It feels like he co-directed it with no one. I think the term "half-directed" is spot on. But no, Imdb just credits Leone. Disappointed because I really wanted this to be like another Jason and the Argonauts or Satyricon. Not.
― Nate Carson, Monday, 10 August 2009 20:59 (fourteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OspdJIxTYi4
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 03:24 (fourteen years ago) link
(I'm so so sorry)
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 03:25 (fourteen years ago) link
just finished a fistful of dollars. so amoral! love it
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Saturday, 5 November 2011 16:54 (twelve years ago) link
I love pretty much everything this guy did or touched except "Once Upon a Time in America," which I find a strange drag.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 5 November 2011 19:04 (twelve years ago) link
it was significantly cut and re-edited on release -- esp.the us version, which didn't have leone's approval -- and i'm not sure anyone has ever yet seen the original intended version: tho whether the full-length version would have been less draggy is obv a bit of a question
it sets itself lots of tricky technical conundrums -- multiple flashback structure involving multiple child actors playing characters when young , plus characters playing themselves when old slathered in latex, and hinges on a not-very-amazing reveal, if i recall correctly
also it turns urban new york in the 30s into somewhere as spaciously unpeopled as some of his westerns, though this is kind of amazing in its strangeness
i don't think de niro is that great in it, which is a problem: he'd entered his slump period round now, i guess
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 19:18 (twelve years ago) link
oth it has that terrific infolded multiple flashback montage with the ringing phone, which is one of my favourite coups de cinema (some of it set in the most spacious opium dens outside qing dynasty beijing)
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 19:24 (twelve years ago) link
den not dens
― mark s, Saturday, 5 November 2011 19:28 (twelve years ago) link
what was going on w/ this dude between 1971 and 1984?? anyone read a biography or somethin'?
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 02:30 (twelve years ago) link
p.s. i love how everybody in duck you sucker says "duck you sucker" like leone imagined it to be some kind of common american slang phrase.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 02:32 (twelve years ago) link
anyone read a biography or somethin'?
Yeah this:
http://cache0.bookdepository.co.uk/assets/images/book/medium/9780/5711/9780571164387.jpg
... not that interesting tbh 'cos he wasn't that interesting. I think between 1971 and 1984, he was trying to make "Once Upon a Time In America", buying rights, raising money, arguing over money, writing scripts, rejecting scripts, hiring writers, fighting with writers, firing writers, filming far too much then being unable to decide what to leave in and what to leave out - pretty much what he did on all his films!
― Charles Kennedy Jumped Up, He Called 'Oh No'. (Tom D.), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 11:38 (twelve years ago) link
Prefer this Frayling bk to his actual biog -
http://www.boomerangbooks.com.au/bookImages/LARGE/439/9780500287439.jpg
but Frayling's commentary tracks for the Leone movies, especially the blu-ray only TGTBATU commentary, are some of the very best ever recorded - guy has done his research, is an excellent public speaker, has interesting things to say about the content.
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 22 February 2012 11:57 (twelve years ago) link
Local indie cinema running a morricone season, man with no name trilogy, ouatitw, the mission. result.
― dub job deems (darraghmac), Monday, 8 July 2013 21:00 (ten years ago) link
http://diodatilodge.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ad1.jpg
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 8 July 2013 21:48 (ten years ago) link
http://www.lushquotes.com/pics/sergio-aragones/The-Western,-when-I-do-one,-will-be-one-long,-continuous-story..jpg
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 8 July 2013 21:50 (ten years ago) link
The Dollars trilogy Blu-ray boxset keeps calling to me from the shelves in HMV
― hewing to the status quo with great zealotry (DavidM), Monday, 8 July 2013 23:02 (ten years ago) link
it is the greatest
― dub job deems (darraghmac), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 00:00 (ten years ago) link
Those movies are poetry. Esp. if you throw "Once Upon a Time in the West" in.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 00:08 (ten years ago) link
Once upon a time in the west tho. Its somehow more, isnt it? Elegaic as opposed to pulpy maybe?
― dub job deems (darraghmac), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 00:21 (ten years ago) link
RIP screenwriting man
“But to the general public Mr. Vincenzoni was most associated with For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, two hugely successful Italian-made westerns directed by Sergio Leone that are now recognized as classics. ‘I have written movies that won prizes at Cannes and Venice,’ he told Christopher Frayling, a cultural historian and Leone biographer. ‘These were screenplays for which we suffered on paper for months. Do you know how long it took me to write For a Few Dollars More? Nine days.’”
http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-luciano-vincenzoni-1926-2013http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-luciano-vincenzoni-1926-2013
― Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 26 September 2013 17:38 (ten years ago) link
Charles Bronson in "Once Upon a Time in the West", Rod Steiger in "Giu la Testa" etc.
― Buckfast At Tiffany's (Tom D.), Thursday, 18 August 2022 18:35 (one year ago) link
Oh, I knew they were often playing Mexicans or Native Americans. But I was always struck by how everyone in these movies seemed to have the same skin-tone (like Fonda above), no matter who they were playing. Like, Bronson in "West," is his character's ethnicity even stated?
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 18 August 2022 18:46 (one year ago) link
It's not stated but you see him as a child in flashbacks - when you eventually find out where the harmonica playing comes from, for instance - and he doesn't look Lithuanian!
― Buckfast At Tiffany's (Tom D.), Thursday, 18 August 2022 19:20 (one year ago) link
You're right though, even Fonda, of all people, is brown as a berry in that film!
― Buckfast At Tiffany's (Tom D.), Thursday, 18 August 2022 19:21 (one year ago) link
https://hotcorn-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2019/06/27123618/The-Good-The-Bad-And-The-Ugly-Clint-Eastwood.jpg
Lee Van Cleef is Dutch:
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 18 August 2022 19:24 (one year ago) link
Here's Jason Robards as Manuel "Cheyenne" Gutiérrez:
http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cheyenne_Robards.jpg
And then Claudia Cardinale (who is Italian) playing the presumably Scottish or something "Jill McBain":
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DTraHI1YJbs/WtsauCwD4rI/AAAAAAAACdI/m5c7Dg-PPVky-aoWAOuIbO2SKSrgWb6aQCLcBGAs/s1600/once-upon-a-time-in-the-west-1968-008-claudia-cardinale-close-up-angry-look.jpg
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 18 August 2022 19:34 (one year ago) link
I always thought the name Jill McBain was hilarious for someone with the look of Claudia Cardinale. Italians playing Confederate soldiers makes me snicker as well.
― Josefa, Thursday, 18 August 2022 20:09 (one year ago) link
Franco Nero was believable but some of the other guys…
― Josefa, Thursday, 18 August 2022 20:12 (one year ago) link
She's called McBain because she took her husband's name tho! Frank Wolff, of German descent.
― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 21 August 2022 11:56 (one year ago) link
He's supposed to be Irish, so of course he has bright red hair.
― Buckfast At Tiffany's (Tom D.), Sunday, 21 August 2022 12:03 (one year ago) link
(xp) I notice Frank Wolff committed suicide in 1971, while another actor in the film, Al Mulock, committed suicide by jumping out of window, in costume, during the shooting. Leone is supposed to have said, on hearing the news, "Get the costume, we need the costume".
― Buckfast At Tiffany's (Tom D.), Sunday, 21 August 2022 12:07 (one year ago) link
show must go on!
― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 21 August 2022 12:30 (one year ago) link
It's like something from Fassbinder's "Beware of a Holy Whore".
― Buckfast At Tiffany's (Tom D.), Sunday, 21 August 2022 12:33 (one year ago) link
Good observation
― I’d Rather Gorblimey (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 2 September 2022 01:13 (one year ago) link
watched A Fistful of Dollars for the first time in eons the other night. it's far more violent than i initially remembered, definitely goes far beyond any other western of its era. it's not shocking to anyone who's seen westerns from The Wild Bunch and after, but for 1964 it pushes some limits. i read a lot of contemporaneous reviews which consider it pretty bad but no, it's amazing. just the beautiful stark look of the town and the colors of the fire and blood, the dirt and sweat covering everyone at all time. and it's kind of remarkable how Eastwood immediately settled into the role without any growing pains, and how that role really informed the rest of his acting career so much. the absolute expert delivery of his lines when he confronts the men from the Baxter clan, asking them to apologize to his mule (after asking the undertaker to prepare three coffins), his almost tongue-in-cheek amorality masking his ability to do the right thing at the right moment in his own particular manner (i.e. getting Marisol and her family out of town after rescuing her from the Rojos), etc. overall it's a film that feels very contemporary and pitiless in a way that isn't intentionally feel-bad, but simply a brutal tale told well.
― omar little, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 17:54 (two months ago) link
I just watched it recently too and agree with the above. I think I'd seen it before but honestly I don't remember. If so, it was years and years ago. I've seen reviews call it the punk-rock western and that seems appropriate. I think Quentin Tarantino stole almost all of his ideas from this movie. And of course the soundtrack is all-time.
― o. nate, Monday, 15 April 2024 17:05 (one week ago) link