September 18th, 2008 admin
2008
Starring: Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellwegger, Jeremy Irons, Lance Henriksen
Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Timothy Spall, Timothy V. Murphy
Director: Ed Harris
Runtime: 114 Minutes
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Rating: R
Not that it ever really went away but post-Deadwood, the great horse opera is enjoying something of a renaissance thanks to an injection of star power and a slow but calculated drift into the muddy waters of moral ambiguity. But while this film certainly packs a one-two punch in the star power department, this is not one of those fashionably cynical revisionist stories. No, sir, there are certain actors in this business that much like the doggedly upright men of principle they are duly attracted to playing time and again, just won’t allow that kind of thing. Kevin Costner and Open Range is one such example, Ed Harris and this fiercely traditionalist oats and outlaws fable is another.
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September 3rd, 2008 admin
1968
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Inger Stevens, Ed Begley, Bruce Dern, Pat Hingle, Charles McGraw, Ruth White
Director: Ted Post
Runtime: 114 Minutes
Distributor: MGM
Rating: R
This minor Clint Eastwood effort might be the most unfortunate western ever made. Despite being an excellent tale of revenge with delicate musings on man’s fallible nature, it has three major problems; It isn’t A Fistful of dollars, It isn’t For a Few dollars More, and it isn’t The Good The Bad And The Ugly. As the first post-Sergio Leone Clint Eastwood western, coming less than a year after the diminutive Italian forever altered the landscape of the American western, turning it on its head, Hang em High is thrown into a very harsh and somewhat unfair examination where everything about Leone’s masterful style that is absent just screams at you. It’s like showing up to watch your favorite football team play the local derby and finding out that they are fielding their reserve side. The shortcomings are ultimately not the film’s fault, but are also inescapable under the circumstances.
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