Il Grande Silenzio or The Great Silence was something that Sperhauk saw recommended by one of his favorite movie bloggers. It's a 1968 spaghetti western starting Jean-Louis Trintignant and Klaus Kinski. It's directed by Sergio Corbucci who had directed Django two years earlier. I liked that movie a lot better than this one but according to the Wikipedia TGS is considered by critics to be Corbucci's masterpiece. Go figure. It's set in 1899 Utah during the Great Blizzard. Unusual for a western the whole movie is set in snow. That was kind of cool and some of the scenery is pretty astounding looking, all isolated and snow capped mountain filled. It's the Spanish Pyrenees Mountains filling in for Utah. The main theme of the story is pretty common for a western, the town is being controlled by scum who put bounty on the local poor who step out of line. Since they are the law, it's all legal like. There's a pile of poor folk hidden in the mountains that are being hunted for the cash on their heads. Klaus, the top creep in a group of bounty killers, what the citizens calls bounty hunters, keeps reminding us that they are doing everything legal when they gun down their victims. Wanted dead or alive! The bounty hunters are just a bunch of sadistic killers who kill with great glee. Jean-Louis is a gunslinger with a grudge against bounty hunters. His parents were killed by them and Jean-Louis had his throat slit to keep him from talking. He survived but can't speak. He's on a path of vengence, traveling the country, hunting bountry hunters whom he goads into gunfights. He's fast, so he can kill them while staying within the law by letting them draw first. Everyone is so legal there. Makes me laugh. Klaus and Jean-Louis meet in Snowcap and things go from bad to worse as the movie unfolds. It ends poorly for the side of good as everyone is gunned down and the bounty killers ride off into the snow. I'm not a big fan of the bad guy getting away, I like a movie where the good guys win, especially in a western. I like the more traditional western and this is not that sort of movie. Lots of people seem to like it over at the IMDb where it scores a 7.8. There's a nice score by Ennio Moricone. It's still a pretty good movie, especially if you like the bleak nihilisticness of it all, but it's not one that I would want to watch again. I'd watch Django again, I even bought a copy. To me that's more entertaining.
Malice In Wonderland is something Joe picked up on NetFlix. It's a 2009 movie directed by Simon Fellows, a guy I hadn't heard about before. His last two movies were Until Death and Second In Command, both Jean-Claude Van Damme actions films, and before that it was 7 Seconds, a Wesley Snipes action film. Malice In Wonderland is sort of an action film, sort of a crime film, sort of a romantic comedy, covered over with a light wash of Alice In Wonderland. It's pulled into the modern day and there's a lot of rushing about, but hardly anything happens, and it seems kind of dull at times. There's a sense of unreality though we are in familiar surroundings. A girl, Maggie Grace, whom some might remember from Lost, or Taken or the 2005 remake of The Fog, is running from a couple of guys at the start of the movie. She runs into the path of a cab and is knocked down. Whitey, the driver, is in an aggitated state, he's late, for a very important date. The gal, dazed but mostly unhurt, can't remember who she is and asks Whitey for some help. He's got a job to do, picking up a special tie for a guy's birthday, so she'll have to ride along. The main characters of the book are transformed into urban types. Whitey is the white rabbit, he's got two watches and mutters. The mad hatter is a mobile madam, prone to verbal outbursts, with a semi trailer house of ill repute. Tweedledee and Tweedledum are bouncers at a posh club with flames shooting up the front of the building. That's where the big bad guy has his party. The caterpillar is a pimp with his hooker at his side. They offer a ride. Smoke pours out of his car when they open the windows, so much that it can stop the cops chasing them. They were smoking some big joints. The red queen is the main bad guy. He's just out of prison and he's developed a taste for young boy bum. That special tie from earlier? It's not an article of clothing. It's a young Thai boy with boobs. Now that's special! The young bikini clad boy/girl is packed into a giant cake for the party, tossed onto of Whitey cab and he's off. There are these odd elements in the story and sometimes they are pretty entertaining but the short 87 minute movie seems much longer. Glad I got to see it but it's another in a long list of movies I'm pretty much not going to see again.
Comments