I am not sure how I ended up watching this film. I had listened to some of the book on tape several years ago and enjoyed the historical, action flavor. However, I never had much desire to watch Jude Law and Nicole Kidman’s rendition of Inman and Ada. But not only did I watch it, I liked it. Then as I began this review, I saw some interesting comparisons between this film and Under the Tuscan Sun.
Both films focus on a woman torn by love living in a large house in a rural community. Both the TS lady and Ada find solace in their salt-of-the-earth neighbors and the people hired to keep up their new homes. Both women are more intellectual than their communities and both are played by hot hollywood blondes. This could be the beginning of a list for me - Movies About Women Strugging with Their Love Life while Learning to Live in a Big House in a Rural Community. If I just blundered onto two in a row, there have to be more out there right?
I found the film itself to be surprisingly good. Even though I knew everything that was going to happen, I bacame pretty enthralled in the story. I enjoyed both Inman’s trek home and the interplay between Ada and Rudy. Some things were a little out of place, but overall I thought it was well-done. I guess I left it feeling especially good because I had expected it to be fairly ho-hum.
This is movie has a very deliberate pace. I think Leone fell in love with himself trying to put this thing in the context of the Civil War. Still, it looks pretty cool and you get to hear lots of cannonball sound effects. My favorite character is Tuco (ugly) though all three of the leads to a good job of being tough.
The last couple of scenes are quite a payoff, too finally culminating with the line above. Everything that happens at the graveyard is awesome and I really liked this line:
“There are two kinds of people in this world: People with loaded guns and people who dig. You dig.” I also really enjoyed the tagline written in the IMDB. However, I don’t think teh end payoff counterweighs the rest of the film enough to make it better than Fistful of Dollars and A Few Dollars More.
I saw this film for the same reason that thousands of crappy movies get made every year. We had a choice between three films: this, Cold Mountain and Million Dollar Baby. While I had no desire to see Cold Mountain, I was interested in watching Million Dollar Baby. However, I also thought that Million Dollar Baby had the potential to be work. On the other hand, Tuscan Sun would be easy to watch, if a little boring. So I did a blind draw and got Tuscan. Thirty minutes after finishing the film, here I am wishing I had watch MDB.
UtTS was not as bad as it could have been. There were a couple of interesting parts, but it turned out that the troubled writer who buys a Tuscan villa on a whim lives happily ever after with a bunch of Italian characters thrown into the mix!
There is some nice scenery, though. So that made it kind of fun to watch.
Most people see this film and take it at its hilarious face value. From El Guapo’s memorable lines to the musical hijinx of the Amigos, this film provides one great scene after another. But in addition to being a well-balanced comedy, this is also a hard hitting analysis of U.S. foreign policy.
Our protaganists, hollywood cowboys go into a situation in Mexico with a complete misunderstanding of the situation. Their expectations are that they will be in and out in after a strong show, and they will be richer for it.
The denizens of the town of Santa Poco (St. Small) have equally mistaken expectations of their Yankee cowboy saviors. They bring in the Amigos to help them deal with their local strongman El Guapo (The good-looking). Imagine their dismay when they find out how ill-prepared their American saviors are to deal with this bully. El Guapo seems to be the only one who truly understands the situation and exploits it for his personal gain.
The amigos initially put their tails between their tails and run. Later they come back, their American determination renewed. Then they are able to bring down El Guapo and his European allies with superior wits and talent.
The final nail in El Guapo’s coffin is when the Amigos rally the people of Santa Poco to utilize their comparative advantage and do what they do best, sew. This helps the village get ready for the global market place by turning it into a giant sweatshop.
God bless America!
I found out after watching the movie that his actual given name was J.R. His family called him J.R. but I didn’t realize that it didn’t stand for anything.
At the Oscar’s, Stewart described Walk the Line as Ray with white people. In some ways, that is right on. But that makes it all the more impressive that I left really liking the movie. I didn’t think that anyone named Joaquin could actually turn in a good portrayal of Cash, but he was really good. Though I think he and Reese are much better looking than their real life counterparts. One big difference between this film and Ray was the female characters and I was real surprised at how strong June Carter was. did you know that she could bench press 200 lbs!
Of course, I was probably biassed by the fact that I really like the music. So all the music montages were real fun. You also got to see film portrayals of other famous musicians of the day.
Carrrie really likes Cinema Paradiso, so we got a couple other movies by the same director on our Netflix queue. We were advised that the other one was to boring to watch so it will not be reviewed.
My big worry for foreign films is cuteness. Sometimes the cuteness is really fun and creative, ala Amelie. However, other times, it seems like cute is the overarching message of the film. While Joe, the starmaker, does film some pretty cute people doing screen tests in Sicily; he is decidedly uncute. In fact, he is a little disturbing. Now does the blending of cuteness and an unsettling plotline yield a great movie? Not in this case, but it does make for some surprises and interesting scenes.
