What qualifies it as a Western? It's set in the right time-frame, but are there any other qualifiers for There Will Be Blood? Does it involve cowboys, guns, and is it set in the American "West?" I mean, location is also a factor right?
If your personal definition of a Western is as narrow as cowboys, gunplay, and being set in a certain locale between certain years that is fine and valid for whether you want to include something on your personal ballot. But the genre does include films that do not have or subverts those basic elements. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a Western even though it is set in Mexico of the 1920s. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a Western even though it is set in Mexico of the 1970s and has cars instead of horses. The Proposition is a Western even though it is set in the Australian Outback. Lonely Are the Brave is a Western even though it is set in the 1960s and the protagonist is chased by a helicopter. Hud and Junior Bonner are Westerns even though they are set in modern day and have no gunplay. Rango is a Western even though it is a cartoon featuring anthropomorphic animals. Back to the Future Part III is a Western even though it is a Sci-Fi comedy.
And on and on.
I think you misunderstand. I'm not giving my personal definition. I'm just asking what makes it a Western because I genuinely don't know. If There Will Be Blood is eligible I will definitely include it on my list. It's a great movie, and at least the period is correct. I just never realised it was a Western.
I should rewatch The Three Amigos. I can barely remember it even though I over-watched it as a kid.
El Guapo should ring a bell, he is a legend! "Burn the village, rape the woman!"
I will select him or BTTF3 Buford Tannen aka the Usual Suspect, as temporary avatar when the countdown starts.
El Guapo should ring a bell, he is a legend! "Burn the village, rape the woman!"
I will select him or BTTF3 Buford Tannen aka the Usual Suspect, as temporary avatar when the countdown starts.
I like that idea, maybe it will catch on and MoFos will adopt western themed avatars....Did Orson ever appear as a cowboy
Or like a friend used to sell Magic cards back in the day: one for €2 or four for €10 I remember someone actually buying a full set of four for the inflated "discount" price.
Anybody want to make a final argument for or against including There Will Be Blood?
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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra
Anybody want to make a final argument for or against including There Will Be Blood?
Almost a week now... no arguments against.
Right! Sending my list in... at risk again of revealing anything, nobody took up the argument against Blood being included, so you can guess amongst yourselves as to whether or not it's actually on my list.
The recently departed Kirk Douglas was in many Westerns over his career. Seventeen of them! Some are damn good.
My favorite is most definitely Lonely Are the Brave (1962, David Miller). In dozens of interviews Kirk identified it as his personal favorite movie from his long career (save the title). Two years after Spartacus another script by Dalton Trumbo tells the story of a stubborn non-conformist, an anachronistic free spirit of a wandering cowboy named Jack Burns who with his trusty horse Whiskey tries to navigate the rules and annoyances of the middle 20th Century.
*this video contains major spoilers
Kirk is Doc Holliday to Burt Lancaster's Wyatt Earp in John Sturges' big budget Technicolor Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) complete with Frankie Laine theme song. It's not the most historically accurate of this oft-told tale but it still may be the most fun. A rousing, iconic Western though it doesn't have quite the perfect spirit and humor of Sturges' The Magnificent Seven that would come a few years later. It seems to me like all of the Earp movies that came afterward (Frank Perry's Doc, Cosmatos' Tombstone, Kasdan's Wyatt Earp, and even Sturges' own Hour of the Gun) are reactions to this version even more than to John Ford's My Darling Clementine. It was only the second Lancaster/Douglas pairing (they would appear in six films together total) and their chemistry is one of the many strong points. Physically the famously fit Kirk looks about as tubercular as Wayne Johnson, but the smirkingly combative Holliday is a great movie star role for him, the same year that he starred in Kubrick's Paths of Glory.
While no masterpiece I have always loved There Was a Crooked Man... (1970, Joseph L. Mankiewicz). It has some dated elements like the score and the titles, but this Western prison tale of a clever, charming sociopath (Kirk Douglas) manipulating the other inmates (including Warren Oates, Burgess Meredith, Hume Cronyn, and John Randolph) in an attempt to escape and collect his hidden loot, all under the watchful eye of the new warden (Henry Fonda) is a delightful game of cat and mouse. Douglas and Fonda are terrific, their only other pairing coming in Otto Preminger's all-star In Harm's Way. Double crosses abound, leading to a perfect ending.
The independent Kirk Douglas only directed two films in his career. The first was an odd pirate/Western hybrid of a kid's movie called Scallywag (1973). The second was a clever, subversive Western called Posse (1975). It's set up with Douglas as an upright Marshall with grand political ambitions and Bruce Dern as a famous outlaw he has to apprehend. But when the outlaw turns the tables on the would-be hero it ultimately results in his undoing. Too bad it wasn't a hit or Kirk might have been able to direct a few more projects.
The other Westerns Kirk Douglas starred in are Along the Great Divide (1951, Raoul Walsh), The Big Trees (1952, Felix Feist), The Big Sky (1952, Howard Hawks), Man Without a Star (1955, King Vidor), The Indian Fighter (1955, André De Toth), Last Train from Gun Hill (1959, John Sturges), The Last Sunset (1961, Robert Aldrich), The Way West (1967, Andrew V. McLaglen), The War Wagon (1967, Burt Kennedy), A Gunfight (1971, Lamont Johnson), The Villain (1979, Hal Needham), The Man from Snowy River (1982, George Miller), and "Draw!" (1984, Steven Hilliard Stern).
I'm struggling to understand how this works. For instance, I feel that I am overly harsh on westerns; Truly, I'm unfairly so.
But not because I hate them, but because the vast majority of them are flat out equal 6/10's with only one high score (IMO), and that's the cliched The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. That seems to disqualify me, but I'm not sure.
Honest question: Should I should abstain from voting then?
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Rules:
When women have a poet, they want a cowboy.
When they have a cowboy, they want a poet.
They'll say "I don't care if he's a poet or cowboy, so long as he's a nice guy. But oh, I'm so attracted to that bad guy over there."
Understand this last part, and you'll get them all.
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