Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

A former gunfighter on his search for peace has to defend a family of farmers from the gang trying to take their land. The interesting part of this movie is that the 'bad' guys have quite a strong motive for acting their way. They see their hard-earned paradise endangered by the growing influence from the outside modern world, symbolized by such things as 'the new laws'. In certain ways their 'nation-building' is a doomed enterprise. The interests of the locals are too different, their backgrounds too diverse as they could form a united party to defend their little piece of heaven. Even our protagonist is reluctant to pull the trigger. It is only when he adopts the moral values of family life and is threatened – by him as a potential lover for Marian - he starts to take some initiative. I am reluctant to draw a conclusion about Stevens' (AB Guthrie, the screenwriter) motives behind the story, but couldn't shake the feeling ...

Two petty criminals are hired by a former police officer to protect his village from an evil gang. This is the first of the 'classic' Bollywood movies from the early days that I watched. There is an acceptable amount of singing, the over-the-top comedic acting and the Western-inspired morals. Most of the scenes seem to have been lifted straight out of the American films and some suspiciously simple comedy films - I suspect mostly cartoons and silent comedies. Things become more original when our two heroes settle in the village, fall in love and act so incredibly dumb that I couldn't help myself smiling. The characters are grotesque most of the time. The screenwriter came up with a very exaggerated idea for the old police officer, but it still worked nicely. There are some of the more absurd details and the situations in the film that are interesting for pointing out. They are all here for comedic relief and I was trying to find with some 'typical' comedy s...

A sick Japanese soldier is dismissed from his unit during the war on the Philippines and tries to reach the point of evacuation on his own. As the naive soldier Takamura tries to find his way out of the jungle and back to his fellow militaries he encounters a number of increasingly inhumane men.  He seems to be highly suspicious of the locals, but entrusts his nasty comrades with his life. Very quickly the subject of cannibalism emerges in conversations between the hungry soldier. The Americans, who have more or less won the war are depicted as an anonymous force. There is much speculation if they are benign to POWs or would simply slaughter them. Our poor hero witnesses a botched attempt of a surrender and decides to proceed on his own. When he descends into the bottomless swamp of savage-like soldiers-turned-zombies he tries to hold on to his last remains of human dignity. His journey is also a spiritual one, as in his naivete he strongly believes that the Fires on t...

The coming-of-age of a teenager stuck in a rutting Texan village in the 50s. The story in the movie revolves mostly about relations in the small town. Some of the relations are of a sexual nature, or about sexual discovery. The adultery committed by the wife of the school coach (who is secretly homosexual), all the women in the movie live in warped relationships - Jacy's mother has had different lovers, and Genevieve seems to be happy in her role as a cafe "mum", I'm not quite sure about her relationship with Sam. The other relations are forged to secure vertical social mobility - Jacy, who seems very unsure about her own sexuality is already deeply influenced by the pragmatic approach that her (unhappy) mother has had towards marriage and relationships in general. Duane, who is definitively on the lower end of the scale - the Jackson's house is more of a shack - cannot comprehend this, at least on an emotional level. There is one thing strangely lackin...

The grandiloquent Gen. Custer (with a wrong name) tries to bring glory to the forlorn military outpost he is delegated to, but brings war and death. I've made the great mistake of watching this film, before I've watched "They died with their boots on". Not being familiar with the grand story and glorified legend of Gen. Custer I viewed this as a rather weird stand-off between Fonda and Wayne. Many of Honda's actions don't make the least sense, but compared to the 1940 antecedent this is obviously the much more insightful movie. Henry Fonda really manages to get across as a stuck-up, yesteryear's hero and I deeply disliked the character. That was best achieved by showing the bizarre pedantry for protocol and the total absence of humor. That the man is also safe-guarding his daughter (ineffectively, in the end) illustrates a humane side which makes him all the more real. There are some amazing scenes and the battle scenes are fast and breathtaking. I...

The half-blood gypsy orphan is taken in by a family and is wooed by two brothers, one of them a criminal, the other a law-abiding moral man. The strong moralistic overtone and the rather bizarre depiction of an ethnic majority caught my attention foremost when watching this film. The beautiful Technicolor looks incredibly bizarre with those browned faces and ultra-white teeth. The story in itself meandered a bit and only the showdown was of some minor interest. If the brother hadn't married the story might have been much more interesting. This way, the woman doesn't have to make the choice herself, everything is plainly laid out for her. The half-baked offer to go with Cotten's character into the city is laughable the moment it is said. But the movie is drenched in morality that much more would have had to be changed for this film to work. On a side note, Peck seems to have chosen his roles (though not always the scripts) with quite some care, not to come of as a ra...

When the ruthless father drives an enormous herd north of Texas, his son decides not to support his brutal leader style. Most of the story took me in. A lot of the tension came through the relentless brutality that Wayne's character displayed to everybody. The development of the story let me feel the rising madness, paranoia and control obsession of the leader of the trail. There were two or three historical hints, but in general it felt pretty convincing as a story in itself. On a sidenote: I have never seen written text in a movie presented so fast - I could barely follow the text on the page whenever excerpts of the diary were presented.  The cast was perfectly chosen and the drift between Clift and Wayne was deepened by the knowledge at how far those two actors were in real life - in pretty much every sense. One or two things bothered me slightly: The "other" gun hero and Clift never get that showdown that the story promises in the beginning. There is some ri...

A posse sets out to revenge a cattle farmer's murder and soon they find three possible cattle thieves. It is a comparatively short picture but nevertheless I was extremely impressed. It's a very moral play, and basically it all takes place in one and the same place, but there are so many layers that it is an enormous pleasure to watch all the actors. Fonda is amazing, so is Andrews and all the smaller actors are brilliant, and full of little surprises. Despite its shortness, this is an emotional ride of a lot of hopes and ups and downs. What I really enjoyed here is the "matter of fact" situations - like when everybody stops from the lynching and has a bite to eat. This scene is so eerie that I can still remember my feeling vividly. It gave the three characters a break, but actually it made me catch my breath too - and made all the following actions even more intense. Study this one!

Two drifters set out to dig gold with an old prospector in a remote area. When they find it, the problems start. Very straightforward and still gripping - I felt that the film's pacing is very even throughout the very different chapters, which gave it a somewhat documentary or even "slice of life" feeling. Bogart goes through an interesting transformation although sometimes he was a little bit over the top, I thought. Walter Huston is amazing to watch and although his character doesn't change a lot through the movie he adds an amazing depth and reality to the prospector he's portraying. When Bogart's character is killed I was amazed by the situation before - the bandits didn't seem really dangerous (unless to the deranged mind of Bogart's character, of course) they were portrayed amazingly stupid and simple. The ending was predictable but still quite amazing.

Two bounty killers hunt the same insane criminal escaped from prison. There is something really strange about the structure of this film: although Eastwood is definitively the leading man, he lacks of the ultimate motive to go after the bad guy. So the lead is somehow shared between Van Cleef, who has a real (and totally clear) motive to follow and Eastwood only being a facilitator for the greater mission of the guy. It works somehow, but I couldn't help the feeling that Eastwood (the actor) tried to minimize his lines and his impact on the story wherever he could - that could just be my own interpretation. The title sequence is hilarious, even comic. There is an interesting quality to the lighting in most of the scenes - strong and hard kicks and sidelight - this visual style is more perfected in other films.