VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[FLips]

Been working from home today and after sticking Star Wars Episode IV on and changing my mind, I decided to watch some stuff I've never seen before.

A Fistful of Dollars
Clint Eastwood stars as The Man With No Name, or Joe as he's called in this one. A stranger who turns up in a town with two rival gangs and decides to profit by playing them off against each other and reaping the rewards.
Excellent film with plenty of tension, gun fights and a surprising amount of physical comedy which reminded me a lot of Anime weirdly. Things like Donkey Konging a massive barrel into two guys, or when he sleeps fully clothed and jumps out of bed.
I heard it's based on Yojimbo, which along with the Seven Samurai is on my to watch list. There are too many classic films I've never got round to watching. Maybe it's less similar to anime and more similar to Japanese cinema in general? Some of the scenes reminded me a lot of things like Lupin III.

Could have done with a stronger bad guy as it feels more like Clint Eastwood just doing his own thing rather than fighting for anything in particular. It's charming but compared to the other two in the trilogy it doesn't feel like there's much as stake. Technically he doesn't even have a reason to be there in the first place.

I thought it was perfect Sunday afternoon viewing but that may be because I used to watch Rawhide on a Sunday round my Nana's when I was a kid.

For A Few Dollars More
Clint Eastwood stars as The Man With No Name, or Manco as he's called in this one. This one is more like it. Takes the wiseguy antihero from Fistful and gives him some proper baddies to sink his teeth into, and boy what a bunch of bastards eh!
The scene in the church is absolutely gobsmacking and cements El Indio as an absolute nutcase. That pocketwatch music and the way Morricone blends it into his own music is something else. Iconic stuff.

Absolutely love love love Lee Van Cleef as Colonel Mortimer. I read after watching these that Clint Eastwood started getting real arsey about sharing the screen after this one and I can tell why, because Cleef steals the show here as the former army officer out for revenge. It's more his tale than Manco's.

It takes everything about the first one and ramps it up. Better characters, stronger music, a great baddie, and fantastic action sequences. My favourite of the Trilogy by quite a comfortable margin.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Clint Eastwood stars as The Man With No Name, or Blondie as he's called in this one. Maybe it was the fatigue of watching them all back to back, or maybe it's because it's a torturous three fucking hours long but I could just not get away with this one.

Clint Eastwood's character isn't particularly linked between the three films but in this one particularly despite apparently being "The Good" he's more "anti" than "hero" when it comes to being an antihero. He's involved in some sort of moneymaking scheme with "The Ugly" Tuco where he turns Tuco in for crimes, takes the bounty and then shoots the hangman's noose to free him and escape so they can keep collecting increasing bounties on him.
In an absolute bastard move he rides Tuco out into the desert and leaves him to die there. Later in the film we're meant to feel bad for Blondie when Tuco catches up to him and does the exact same back.

"The Bad", a merc named Angel Eyes played by Lee Van Cleef again learns of buried gold in a cemetary somewhere and when Blondie and Tuco learn the same while out in the desert, the three of them work with and against each other trying to reach the hidden treasure.

I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt because again, it might have been the fact I watched them back to back, but I found this one very uninteresting. The American Civil war, which takes up a big part of the film, is quite frankly lame and as a non-American I'm totally uninterested in it. Clint isn't as likeable, Van Cleef's character is an afterthought and not as good as in Few Dollars More, and you could easily trim an hour off this and nothing would be missed.

That being said there's no denying that when Ecstacy of Gold kicked in at the end, I popped hard for it. What a brilliant bit of music and a fantastically tense standoff. Also shoutout to @Arch Stanton.

I'll watch this one again at some point and see if I come to another conclusion, but as it stands my order is 213. Coincidentally the same way I would rank the original Star Wars Trilogy as that follows an identical pattern. Solid establishing film, near-perfect sequel, then a bit of an average finale with too much going on.

 

[Mr_Danger]

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is probably my favourite one. Best score and best characters. I’d definitely give it another go. Get Once Upon a Time in the West watched as well. Maybe wait for a slow day for Once Upon A Time in America though, it’s not my favourite despite the excellent cast.

Edited April 9, 2025 by Mr_Danger

[FLips]

13 minutes ago, Mr_Danger said:

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is probably my favourite one. Best score and best characters. I’d definitely give it another go. Get Once Upon a Time in the West watched as well. Maybe wait for slow day for Once Upon A Time in America though, it’s not my favourite despite the excellent cast.

Once Upon a Time in America was my Mam’s favourite film growing up. Don’t think it is now, I think last we talked about it, it was The Accountant.

Reminded me I need to watch all the Godfathers, Goodfellas and Casino too. 

[davertfnewman]

Once Upon a Time in the West is a movie that I bought years ago, in cardboard packaging that the glue has since dried up on, and have watched about an hour of but not got any further. Hard to think it gets better than this scene. Frank and his gang coming out of the brush to that music are like wraiths.

 

Edited April 9, 2025 by davertfnewman

[gmoney]

Monkey Man

Very satisfying and audacious revenge film. I spent the first half hour or so tepid on this, but by the end I was punching the air. I'm glad I got around to watching this because it very easily could have stayed in my 'to watch' pile forever and I would have missed out. 

[Devon Malcolm]

3 hours ago, Mr_Danger said:

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is probably my favourite one. Best score and best characters. I’d definitely give it another go. Get Once Upon a Time in the West watched as well. Maybe wait for a slow day for Once Upon A Time in America though, it’s not my favourite despite the excellent cast.

I don't care for Once Upon a Time in America at all but West is certainly one of the greatest films I've ever watched and probably Sergio Leone's best.

[LaGoosh]

I watched The Host yesterday and I didn't know going into it that it was mostly a comedy. Had me cracking up throughout. It also manages to be a pretty effective thriller too and even though the creature effects are ropey as hell the rest of the film is so well done it never took me out of the moment. I don't always love Bong Joon-Ho's films and find the whiplash effect of the tone changes don't really jive with me at all but I think this is probably the one I've liked the most.

[Carbomb]

For A Few Dollars More is my favourite Western ever. Eastwood is great, but I always preferred babyface van Cleef (although he is also sublime as a villain). If Eastwood is comparable to Mifune, van Cleef is comparable to Nakadai, who is also one of the greats of samurai films.

I love Yojimbo - it's an absolute classic storyline, and Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing are very good remakes, but it's the better, I think. For A Few Dollars More feels much more balanced, tighter, and more vibrant - Indio, for example, feels like a bigger villain than Ramòn. Just feels like a lot more happens in it in general.

There's also a challenging bit: the scene with Klaus Kinski. He demonstrates his brilliance as an actor, and it makes for an amazing moment of tension, but knowing all the stuff about the actor makes me wonder how much was separable from his performance.

Edited April 10, 2025 by Carbomb

[Chris B]

16 hours ago, FLips said:

I heard it's based on Yojimbo, which along with the Seven Samurai is on my to watch list.

Both are brilliant, and Kurosawa's letter to Leone after seeing A Fistful of Dollars was magnificent.

“Signor Leone, I have just had the chance to see your film. It is a very fine film, but it is my film. Since Japan is a signatory of the Berne Convention on the international copyright, you must pay me.”

[Dr. Alan Grant]

I’ve had a Kurosawa samurai boxset with Yojimbo and a few others that I’ve been meaning to watch for ages. Might be time to crack on with it.

[Devon Malcolm]

The thing about Akira Kurosawa is that there are almost no disappointments. It wasn't just that he made great films, he made them consistently. Stuff like Red Beard, Kagemusha, The Bad Sleep Well, Stray Dog - they're not spoken about often as among his best known films yet for almost every other filmmaker in history they would be their masterpieces.

[Chris B]

26 minutes ago, Dr. Alan Grant said:

I’ve had a Kurosawa samurai boxset with Yojimbo and a few others that I’ve been meaning to watch for ages. Might be time to crack on with it.

They're much easier, and more fun, watches than you may expect. There's a tendency to assume that, because it's so highly regarded, it'll be homework. They're not - part of their greatness is how easy they are to watch.

[LaGoosh]

Speaking of Kurosawa I also watched Throne of Blood yesterday and it was so goddamn good I was buzzing afterwards for about 15 minutes.

[FLips]

Quickly popped into CEX after work on the way home and grabbed a few more for the DVD collection.

Seven Samurai - £6
Dredd - £2
Sanjuro - £8
Jackie Brown - £1.50
Goodfellas - £1.50
Clint Eastwood Collection (Fistful, Few More, GBU, Hang Em High) - £5

[Chris B]

2 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Speaking of Kurosawa I also watched Throne of Blood yesterday and it was so goddamn good I was buzzing afterwards for about 15 minutes.

It's by far and away the best version of Macbeth I've seen. The visuals are incredible throughout. And Mifune. Jesus. What a man.