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“The right picture can win or lose a war.”

The Movie:
There’s no denying the impressive breadth of Clint Eastwood’s ambition in making two back-to-back WWII films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, each telling the story of the same infamous battle but from different perspectives. It’s a conceit that had been attempted previously within individual movies, notably 1970’s Tora! Tora! Tora! about the Pearl Harbor attack, but dividing the two sides into their own separate films enhances the purity of vision of each, presenting each viewpoint in its entirety without having to constantly switch back and forth between them. Unfortunately, anyone who’s seen the two will tell you that the American half of this diptych, Flags of Our Fathers, is certainly the weaker of the pictures artistically. While that’s true, it’s the combination of the two halves that make a unified whole stronger than either piece individually. Watching Flags of Our Fathers first makes Letters from Iwo Jima a richer, more involving experience.

Based on the non-fiction book by James Bradley, whose father participated in the famous flag-raising on Mt. Suribachi captured in the iconic photograph, Flags portrays a generation of young American men eager to fight for their country and save the world, unsure and unprepared for the horrific conflict in front of them. What seemed surely to be an overwhelming force of American might and technological superiority invaded the tiny Pacific island of Iwo Jima to face 12,000 Japanese defenders packed into an 8 square mile area, dug in, fortified, and proud to die protecting their sacred homeland. The battle was prolonged and bloody, thousands of men on each side torn to pieces in grisly combat. Eastwood stages the assault with imposing passion and realism. The extensive visual effects convincingly recreate the scale of the invasion, and the director never shies away from the grittier aspects of war.

But this isn’t just a combat picture. The movie also attempts to tell the story of the flag-raising itself, or rather flag-raisings, and the implications and aftermath of their public exposure. The initial squad of soldiers sent to mount a flag on the mountaintop did so as ordered, only to have it taken down and replaced with a larger flag set up by another squad. It was this second flag that was caught on film by photographer Joe Rosenthal and distributed worldwide as a symbol of American victory and hope. Three of the soldiers in the photo (the three not killed in subsequent fighting) were promptly shipped back home to America to go on a promotional tour to sell government bonds and raise money for the war effort. Faced with sudden fame and labeled heroes by a grateful public eager to shake their hands, these young boys were paraded around the country as mascots, ordered to sell a story written for them regardless of the truth. On the one hand, their performances did genuine good in raising money desperately needed by the military, but on the other hand they also trivialized the real tragedy of the war at a time while their brothers were still being killed in vicious combat. Each man faced this moral quandary in his own way: one with stoic conviction, one with enthusiastic attention hogging, and one wracked with guilt.

It’s juicy material, and the movie has very noble intentions in tackling it. The problem is that the screenplay by William Broyles Jr. (Jarhead) and Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby) is basically a mess. The picture begins and ends with sequences set in contemporary times where the elderly soldiers recount their stories, the war a giant flashback between these bookends. Within this are a further series of flashbacks and flash-forwards to various points during the invasion, before the men shipped out, during the bond tour, and at many other times throughout their lives. The structure is needlessly complicated and confusing, the constant jumping around making it hard to get a handle on who the characters are. Worse, the characters themselves are thinly sketched stereotypes with only the faintest hints of depth or complexity. Though the performances by the likes of Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Barry Pepper, and others are solid, we barely get to know who these men are, and often have trouble telling them apart from one another. Phillippe’s character, “Doc” Bradley, is the least defined of all, which is strange considering that he’s meant to be author James Bradley’s father so you’d expect him to play the most important role in the picture. The dialogue in non-combat scenes is clunky and unconvincing. Eastwood’s direction throughout the movie is assured, but too many of the domestic scenes are uncharacteristically melodramatic, especially the grating voiceover and cloying flash-forwards to the present day, which foist on us a tedious subplot about author Bradley writing the book and some really drippy father/son bonding crap that just has no place in this film. At a little over two hours in length, the movie also feels at least half an hour too long.

On its own, Flags of Our Fathers is a well-intentioned but deeply flawed war film. It has some terrific sequences, but is burdened with a problematic script and lack of focus. As the first half of an important pairing with the superior Letters from Iwo Jima, however, it takes on greater meaning and resonance. Put together, the two works form a fascinating portrait of an important moment in world history.

The HD DVD:
Flags of Our Fathers has been released on the HD DVD format as a 2-Disc Special Edition by Dreamworks Home Entertainment (distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment). A comparable Blu-ray edition is also available. Due to complicated financing arrangements, the movie’s Japanese counterpart Letters from Iwo Jima is distributed by Warner Home Video, who have released that film on both High Definition formats on the same day that Dreamworks released Flags.

The Flags disc automatically opens with a lengthy HD DVD promo that can fortunately be skipped but is a nuisance. If you should pause or fast-forward/rewind the movie during playback, a timeline meter will appear on screen to tell you how far along you are.

HD DVD discs are only playable in a compatible HD DVD player. They will not function in a standard DVD player (unless the disc is a Combo release that specifically includes a secondary DVD version) or in a Blu-Ray player. Please note that the star rating scales for video and audio are relative to other High Definition disc content, not to traditional DVD.

Video:
The Flags of Our Fathers HD DVD is encoded on disc in High Definition 1080p format using VC-1 compression. The movie is presented in its theatrical aspect ratio of approximately 2.40:1 with letterbox bars at the top and bottom of the 16:9 frame.

Paramount and Dreamworks deliver a truly stunning High-Def transfer for Flags. The picture is razor sharp with a terrific amount of detail. The movie has an intentionally bleached photographic style, largely desaturated but with tightly controlled use of colors, which is captured on disc with the utmost precision. Black levels and shadow details are richly defined, lending a solid sense of depth. The minimal presence of film grain is well compressed and never noisy. There’s not a sign of edge enhancement or digital compression artifacting anywhere to be found. The video on this HD DVD is simply perfect.

The Flags of Our Fathers HD DVD is not flagged with an Image Constraint Token and will play in full High Definition quality over an HD DVD player’s analog Component Video outputs.

Audio:
The movie’s soundtrack is provided in Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 format. Paramount has yet to support the lossless Dolby TrueHD format (as Warner offers on the Letters from Iwo Jima HD DVD), but even so there’s no faulting the quality of the sound mix here. War movies like this offer a virtual playground for sound designers, and the battle scenes in Flags create an incredibly directional and immersive soundfield. Planes swoop from speaker to speaker, rifles crack, and explosions rock the subwoofer. Sound effects are crisply recorded and delivered with excellent fidelity. Dialogue is perhaps a little low in the mix and the non-combat scenes are much quieter than those during the invasion, thus making the action scenes almost deafeningly loud in comparison, but I’m sure that was intentional. This is a very impressive audio track.

Subs & Dubs:
Optional subtitles - English, English captions for the hearing impaired, French, or Spanish.
Alternate language tracks - French DD+ 5.1.

The bonus features on Disc 2 offer the same subtitling options as the feature on Disc 1.

Extras:
The bonus features on this HD DVD title are duplicated from the DVD edition, though all are presented here in true High Definition video using VC-1 compression. All of the supplements from the 2-Disc Special Edition DVD have carried over.

There are no supplements on Disc 1. Aside from the movie itself, everything else is found on Disc 2.

• An Introduction by Clint Eastwood (5 min., HD) - The director explains how he was affected by the book, some of the background of the story, his attempt to capture a generation, and what it was like visiting Iwo Jima (”It’s not a place for sissies”, Eastwood declares).
• Words on the Page (17 min., HD) - Author James Bradley talks about his father and his inspirations for writing the book. His father never once discussed the war or the flag-raising: “My dad had a lot not to talk about”. Screenwriters William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis are also interviewed.
• Six Brave Men (20 min., HD) - Profiles of the real men the story is based on.
• The Making of an Epic (30 min., HD) - A fairly good overview of the project’s origins, Spielberg’s role as producer, working with Eastwood on set, casting, costumes, production design, editing, military technical advisors, staging the battle sequences, and shooting in Iceland.
• Raising the Flag (3 min., HD) - The historical accuracy of the re-creation is analyzed.
• Visual Effects (15 min., HD) - Effects artists from Digital Domain stress their emphasis on photorealism for this project. Many before-and-after comparisons are shown. The scale of the visual effects work in the finished film is quite amazing.
• Looking into the Past (9 min., HD) - Vintage newsreel footage of the battle on Iwo Jima and the war bond tour.
• Theatrical Trailer (2 min., HD).

Note that Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima were also released together on DVD in a 5-Disc Commemorative Collector’s Edition box set that contained an exclusive “Heroes of Iwo Jima” bonus disc. The contents of that extra DVD (an A&E Channel documentary) are not included in the HD DVD edition of either film.

Final Thoughts:
Although I had some issues with Flags of Our Fathers as a movie, the HD DVD edition has sterling picture and sound quality, as well as an impressive selection of bonus features in true HD video. Even with its flaws, the movie is an essential preamble for the superior Letters from Iwo Jima, and the combination of the two together make an indispensable package. For that reason, Flags comes highly recommended.

Related Articles:
Letters from Iwo Jima (HD DVD)
Jarhead (HD DVD) - William Broyles Jr.
Million Dollar Baby (HD DVD) - Clint Eastwood, Paul Haggis
We Were Soldiers (HD DVD) - Barry Pepper, war
HD Review Index
High-Def Revolution - DVDTalk’s HD Column
Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD Player

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DOWNLOAD MOVIE Barnyard Just $2.99 for a complete movie! No additional software or browser plug-ins required! You can play them for unlimited number of times whenever you want. Downloaded movies will work perfectly on any PC, DVD player, PDA etc.
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Barnyard: The Original Party Animals Reviewed By Peter Sobczynski Posted 08/04/06 14:04:29

"Udder Garbage" (Total Crap)

Because it is the third such film to appear in as many weeks, many industry analysts have been speculating that the new animated film ?Barnyard? may struggle at the box-office?having already shelled out plenty of money to see those movies, not to mention such earlier summer titles as ?Cars? and ?Over the Hedge,?some parents may resist doing it yet again, especially for one that doesn?t appear to bring anything new to the table. That may be true but I suspect that even if it were released at a time with zero animated competition, it would still bomb just because it is terrible?a lame, simple-minded stew of dumb comedy, dumber musical numbers and Very Important Lessons that are delivered with all the subtlety of the mule kicks to the head that make up one of the least funny running gags in a film chock-full of lame running gags.The conceit of the film is that when humans aren?t looking, barn animals act just like human beings?they walk on two legs, they talk and they love to party. The lead party animal is Otis (Kevin James), the screw-off son of the responsible barnyard leader Ben (Sam Elliott), a wise old cow whose motto is ?A strong man stands up for himself?a stronger man stands up for others.? Not the most profound philosophy in the world?frankly, it sounds like one of the lines that Elliott delivered in the immortal ?Road House??but before this can be debated, Ben is killed defending the henhouse from a group of ravenous coyotes, led by the fearsome Dag (David Koechner), in a scene just ugly enough to serve as nightmare fuel for more impressionable kids. As a result, Otis is made the new leader, screws things up and decides to run away for good rather than accept any real responsibility. However, the coyotes launch a sneak attack and the newly resolute Otis, backed by the love of heifer Daisy (Courtney Cox), stomps into action and defeats the coyotes once and for all. While watching this film, I began to get the uncanny sense that I had seen this particular story before. Let?s review the facts. We have an old cow who is a steely and resolute type that happens to have a son who is an irresponsible twerp who thinks of nothing but himself and of having a good time whenever possible. After a tussle with a foreign adversary leads to the early departure of the old cow, the younger one is thrust into his position of power (after a brief flirtation with putting an easily distracted hound dog in charge) and he immediately proves that he isn?t up to the task. However, after a tragic sneak attack (one of which there was some warning about), the son manages to pull himself together and, with a coalition of fellow animals, goes in and thoroughly thrashes the same bad guys who brought down his dad in an orgy of violence. Face it, ?Barnyard? is essentially the George W. Bush story?the only difference being that the war in the film actually does end quickly and decisively. As a result, the film may prove to be mildly diverting for grad students who love decoding political commentary in stories about barnyard animals but are sick of re-reading George Orwell?s ?Animal Farm.? For everyone else, ?Barnyard? is little more than a haphazard collection of elements that we have seen in virtually every other recent animated film. We get a long and pointless sequence of people hurtling down some precipice at top speed (something about ?hill surfing?), gross gags for the kids (including a bee that get stuck in a pig?s snout not once, but twice), out-of-place musical numbers (including Ben kicking coyote butt while singing Tom Petty?s ?I Won?t Back Down?), blatant commercial plugs (including Nike, Motorola and Paramount?s upcoming adaptation of ?Charlotte?s Web?) and weak contributions from a cast that may look good from the perspective of someone trying to book people for talk show appearances (besides those mentioned, the film also finds room for Danny Glover, Andie MacDowell and Wanda Sykes, playing yet another sassy best pal) but whose voices aren?t distinctive enough to make much of an impression. There are a couple of fleeting bits of amusingly off-center humor?I especially liked a glimpse of cows riding a mechanical man and chickens throwing darts at a photo of Colonel Sanders?but even they seem like they were just cribbed from an old ?Far Side? book and have little to do with anything else. At this point, some of you may be ready to point out that ?Barnyard? is a film that is pretty much aimed squarely at the under-10 set and that I am simply not its intended target audience. That may be true but that doesn?t mean that writer-director Steve Odekerk (the auteur of ?Kung Pow?) had to make it so resolutely juvenile??Monster House? is a perfect example of a film that is skewed towards younger viewers yet still perfectly delightful for anyone whose age has stretched into double-digits. Besides, I?m not even sure that the film works that well even for those tykes?at the screening I attended, a little girl behind me turned to her father about an hour in and began asking when it was going to finally be over.Look, if you want to take your family to see an animated film this weekend, you should go see ?Monster House? without hesitation. If you?ve already seen that one, you should either see it again or give ?The Ant Bully? a shot. As for ?Barnyard,? there is nothing in it that you haven?t seen done before in a far smarter and more entertaining fashion. I?m not even sure that it is worth checking out on DVD?unless, of course, it includes a deleted scene illustrating exactly what would happen to any farmer attempting to milk a cow voiced by Sam Elliott.
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DOWNLOAD MOVIE Two for the Road Just $2.99 for a complete movie! No additional software or browser plug-ins required! You can play them for unlimited number of times whenever you want. Downloaded movies will work perfectly on any PC, DVD player, PDA etc.
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Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Some of Stanley Donen’s films don’t hold up as well as they should but the visual invention of Two for the Road is still refreshing forty years later. Frederic Raphael’s top-drawer romantic comedy drama mixes insightful marital observation with both satire and slapstick and in general comes out ahead; and the film has a surprisingly adult view on infidelity. Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn are an excellent couple viewed exclusively through four different road trips through France at different stages of their relationship.

Synopsis:

Architect Mark Wallace and his wife Joanna (Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn) speed toward a party given by Mark’s wealthy benefactor, Maurice Dalbret (Claude Dauphin). As they consider getting a divorce the trip becomes mixed up with other cross-country memories from earlier days: When they met on the road; travelling with an annoying American couple (Eleanor Bron and William Daniels) and their brat of a child; footloose in an unreliable MG roadster; and an unhappy trip traveling with their young daughter.

Two for the Road still makes us sit up and pay attention even if its central time-tripping gag became a clich&eacute even before it started. Mark and Joanna will be sitting in their junky sports car when a fancy Mercedes passes. One hard cut later and we’ve jumped to the future when they are riding in the Mercedes. The loving couple with their fun times and rough spells don’t seem to realize that the road they’re traveling is a time machine to the past and the future … it’s the Road of Life, get it?

Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller surely approved of this storytelling method, which allows for maximum flexibility while keeping the tale from congealing into linear episodes - there is no need for flashbacks to relate to the past as everything in the movie is a flash- something or another.

The device never becomes invisible but it does help us to pay attention, as we never know how long we’ll be in one time frame. Finney and Hepburn make an extremely attractive couple and their meet-cute device of a misplaced passport becomes an (overworked) gag that follows them the rest of their lives.They’re thrown together by the unpredictable chicken-pox virus, which decimates the rest of Joanna’s choir group, including gorgeous “Jackie” Jacqueline Bisset. Soon it’s just Joanna and Wallace hitchiking together, and they quickly become inseparable.

The time-shifting story structure invites dozens of visual comparisons that in another format would have to be handled through dialogue. They start off with one small bag but subsequent trips require more and more luggage. What eventually becomes a predictable air-conditioned traveling arrangement begins with crazy adventures in the rain, and misadventures like sneaking cheap food into a posh hotel only to discover on checking out that gourmet meals were included in the room rates. Everywhere they go they see examples of other marriages - bored couples, newlyweds and the horrible Manchesters, obnoxious Americans imposing their narrow views and their vile daughter on everyone within earshot.

Two for the Road has a lot of well-timed comedy but also a tendency for lame slapstick. Joanna and Mark fall or are pushed into pools and the ocean about 5 times too many, which isn’t bad considering how freshly the actors perform such slapstick duties. Eleanor Bron (Alfie, Donen’s Bedazzled) and William Daniels (The Graduate) are Ugly Americans providing a world-class bad example for marriage, and stop just short of being a bad satirical exaggeration. Unfortunately, people like that are all too real.

Joanna and Mark are far from perfect themselves. Mark is predictably the butt of jokes when he panics over his lost passports and lets his bad temper get them kicked out of hotels. He conducts half his dialogue in a Humphrey Bogart accent. He’s also no saint, as when a silent-movie style flirtation between two cars ends in an extramarital one-night. If there’s something dated about the film it’s that it finds almost no fault with Hepburn’s Joanna - until she causes every female in the audience to hold their breath by admittng that she’s slept with another man. Not our Hepburn … not Sabrina! That revelation disabuses us of the notion that Two for the Road is going to resolve as a light-snack romance.

Perhaps Heburn is the key to this whole thing, as she represents an image of perfect womanhood that goes back at least to 1953’s Roman Holiday. Women have looked up to Hepburn as the pinnacle of grace and charm, the 1950s romantic anti-sex symbol completely opposite the blonde bombshell Monroe image. Here it is thirteen years later and she’s still completely convincing as a college-age woman. Hepburn was seven years older than Finney, as well. She looks good in all the various costumes (the credits list seven or eight designers), even the ridiculous Mod fashions. If there is a fault to the basic framework of Two for the Road it’s that Joanna doesn’t seem to have many flaws. When she strays from Mark, we immediately think of her as the victim of boredom, or of inattention by her (observed) wandering husband. Ethically challenged viewers might take the film as an “it’s inevitable” apologia for poor marriages.

---

Fox’s Studio Classics disc of Two for the Road looks splendid. The only time Savant tried to watch this picture was pan-scanned on TV with commercials, and soon gave up. Christopher Challis’ cinematography must have stimulated French tourism, and Henry Mancini’s lush but unobtrusive score is very pleasant.

The disc has a restoration comparison (Fox comparisons are always too technical but unconvincing anyway), a short still gallery, an original trailer and a commentary by Stanley Donen. It quit about a half hour in and I got tired of waiting for it to start again (it comes back after a couple of chapters). We enjoyed his track on Charade and he’s just as charming here. His is an enviable life, working with such pleasant people on such worthwhile projects. I wish Fox would bring out his wonderful Bedazzled so that uninformed college kids could feast on the comic talents of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore at full power.

---

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Two for the Road rates:

Movie: Excellent

Video: Excellent

Sound: Excellent

Supplements: Commentary by Director Stanley Donen, Restoration Comparison, Trailer, Still Gallery

Packaging: Keep case

Reviewed: November 3, 2005

---

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DVD Savant Text &#169 Copyright 2005 Glenn Erickson

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DOWNLOAD MOVIE Ice Harvest, The Just $2.99 for a complete movie! No additional software or browser plug-ins required! You can play them for unlimited number of times whenever you want. Downloaded movies will work perfectly on any PC, DVD player, PDA etc.
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Ice Harvest, The
Dark comedy is a tough line to tread. Make it too funny and outlandish, nobody will buy into it. Make it too dark for the sake of being dark and edgy, you wind up with a film that will depress or disgust. And not in a good way. It’s a tough genre, but when it works it’s fantastic. And I’m happy to report that The Ice Harvest succeeds. The Ice Harvest is the latest film from Harold Ramis, the man who brought us Caddyshack, Groundhog’s Day, and Analyze This, among others. The man is a comic genius, and he knows how to direct a flick. What I was amazed with the most was how at ease he was at shifting gears from black comedy into film noir, as he does with The Ice Harvest. The film stars John Cusack as Charlie Arglist, a lawyer for the “mob” in Wichita Falls, Kansas. Charlie and Vic (Billy Bob Thornton), an all around sleazy guy, join forces and steal $2.1 million from local crime boss Bill Guerrard (Randy Quaid) on Christmas Eve. They grab the cash but stick around until Christmas morning when they’ll go to the airport and leave everything and everyone behind in Wichita Falls. Being that a plan is just a list of things that never happens, naturally complications arise. Thus ensues a number of twists and turns that include characters such as Renata (Connie Nielson) who owns a strip club and wants a certain incriminating photograph from Vic. It doesn’t help that Charlie is in love with her, by the way. Also on their tail is Roy Gelles (Mike Starr, whom you’ll recognize instantly by his voice, even if he remains in shadow for most of the film) who is the kind of man that eliminates problems for a man like Bill Guerrard. In a side story, Charlie has to help his drunken friend Pete (Oliver Platt) who wound up marrying Charlie’s ex-wife and now lives in a loveless castrating marriage. Both Charlie and Pete exist in a world of lost masculinity. And both want out, but aren’t too sure how to achieve this. Charlie believes that stealing the money and running away (with Renata, no less) will solve this. Pete just has no clue. So there’s this twisty, noir infused plot I just tried to summarize without giving away any big twists, and it doesn’t sound like the movie would be too funny. But it is. Oh my, it is hilarious. I can’t even begin to get into it, but the comic highlights usually revolve around Pete’s drunken antics. (Platt plays drunk very well, and seeing how the movie takes place in one night, he’s gotta keep it up for the running time). But most of the humor, some sight gags aside, comes out of character, which I responded to in this flick a lot. What can I say about this movie? The acting is top notch. Cusack doesn’t appear to be phoning it in (unlike recent romantic comedies) and is having fun with his character, who would not normally be in these situations. And Thornton you can tell just loves roles like this. He’s truly in his element and having a grand old time, but he’s not stealing the picture or hamming it up. He’s very much in control of this character. And Oliver Platt is a comic god. Pretty much anything he says or does in the film made me laugh out loud. The dinner scene is quite good. But it’s nice to see someone playing drunk and making it believable. Connie Nielson does well as the femme fatale (check out how they light her eyes, just like in the old noir films) and looks damn fine doing it. Damn fine. She is one good looking lady. Quaid is good and not over the top, but he really only has one scene, don’t let the previews fool you. Even the supporting actors, who might not have a lot of screen time, manage to bring their A game to the table, making every scene a joy. Harold Ramis, did a great job. There might be a few missteps in his career path, but he’s definitely in control here. he gets great performances and manages to tell a great story. The screenplay is based on a novel by Scott Phillips, and is adapted by Richard Russo and Robert Benton, who also wrote Nobody’s Fool and Twilight together. (But Benton has also written some greats in the past like Kramer vs. Kramer  and Bonnie and Clyde, among others). The characters are fleshed out well enough to not be caricatures looking for the next “edgy” event to happen. And when the humor element makes way for the more noir-ish twisty last third, Ramis makes the transition with such ease you would have thought he had been making film noir for years.    The cinematography is quite good, by Alar Kavilo, who also shot the snowy thriller A Simple Plan (coincidentally also starring Thornton). The use of colors and neon in the strip club scenes (and there are a lot) match well with the diffused wet and cold outside. Seriously, as I watched the movie I forgot I was in southern California and was expecting a frigid outdoors upon leaving the theater. (I guess I get sucked into movies when I like them). Going along with the strip club theme, the production design is outstanding. Very sleazy and low rent. These clubs are not upscale at all. And there are a few of them in the film, as they point out Wichita Falls has as many strip clubs as churches. The editing is crisp and moves things along at a nice pace, never overstaying it’s welcome. All around, I enjoyed this movie. Right up there with Die Hard and Bad Santa, this will become a holiday favorite at my house, which should give you a sense of how twisted I am around Christmas time. I have a feeling that a lot of people won’t like this movie as much as I do, but if you like your comedy dark, and your femmes fatal, this is your kind of movie. Go see it. Seriously. Why are you even still reading this. GO!

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DOWNLOAD MOVIE Once Upon a Time in the West Just $2.99 for a complete movie! No additional software or browser plug-ins required! You can play them for unlimited number of times whenever you want. Downloaded movies will work perfectly on any PC, DVD player, PDA etc.
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Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

A modern classic that’s grown in stature steadily since its 1968 debut, Once Upon a Time In the West (affectionately known
to Leone fans as OUATITW) is a Western like no other. It’s been described as sagebrush Kabuki, as Grand Opera, and by
detractors as Sergio Leone telling a 40 minute story in 160 minutes.

Few Spaghetti Westerns are particularly good movies, and few besides those of Sergio Leone approach anyone’s idea of Art.
After the
Dollars trilogy, Il Maestro moved from comedic cynicism
to a serious posture that would be pretentious if not held aloft by all the magic cinema can offer - wonderful faces,
beautiful cinematography, rapturous music. Once Upon a Time In the West is like a valentine to the American
Western, made by an outsider who couldn’t speak English. If you’re already a Leone convert, you’ve perhaps seen it too many times
already. For those who haven’t seen it, it will either be a frustrating exercise in
slow cinema, or an opportunity for a revelation.

Paramount’s Special Collector’s Edition has extras produced in England for a recent Region 2 release. The English love
and revere both our Westerns and those of the Italian persuasion, and the disc set presents Once Upon a Time In the West
with as much respect as they would Citzen Kane.

Synopsis:

Jill (Claudia Cardinale) shows up in Flagstone, Arizona to announce her secret marriage to Brett
McBain (Frank Wolff), a landholder with water in the path of the oncoming railroad. But hired killer Frank (Henry Fonda)
has already killed the entire McBain family, to seize the property for railroad tycoon Morton (Gabrielle Ferzetti).
Jill’s survival throws a wrench in the works for Morton when notorious outlaw Cheyenne (Jason Robards) and a mysterious,
nameless gunman known only as Harmonica (Charles Bronson) intercede on her behalf. The opposite sides spar and maneuver,
getting ready for the epic showdown all know is inevitable.

It’s true that Sergio Leone took himself and his movies extremely seriously after the snowballing success of his first
three Clint Eastwood picures, and OUATITW departs from the half-joking rakishness and nonchalant violence of those
films. This time we get a serious saga told with a delicacy one would expect in a Visconti film. Leone still infuses the
proceedings with his visual acumen, but this time he stretches to achieve different effects. This time the picture centers
on a woman, and the gundowns are more mythic and ritualized than ever before. Clint Eastwood strolled through his pictures
like a bulletproof bill collector,
wiping out everyone he met with a wry sense of humor provided by screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni. Here, there’s almost a
touch of Alain Resnais self-consciousness - all the cowboys and gunmen walk and move as if they were in a dream. Is this a
Zen Western?

Henry Fonda is the most abstract of the exalted gunslingers. He’d previously played a villain in the minor film Firecreek,
but nothing prepared fans for the sight of his blue eyes staring over a sneering mouth here. He’s a villain as black hearted
as they come. He moves carefully, calculating in everything he says and does. He’s tall, dark, sunburned and magnificent
whether riding a horse or just holstering his gun. In the film’s central flashback, Fonda is made to look not only younger but
more feral and wild, like Gian-Maria Volont? in the first two Dollars films - totally different than the calm,
almost angelic Henry of Drums Along the Mohawk or The Grapes of Wrath.

Cast against type, Jason Robards is supposed to be Mexican in the script but comes off as a bandit-philosopher. He’s easily
the most talkative of the bunch, but much of his speechifying doesn’t seem to be addressed exactly to the
person he’s talking to - they’re dream words as well.

As the patented Leone Man With No Name type, Charles Bronson would seem an expressionless brick - until his green-eyed gaze
soaks in. His dry, squinting face looks like an unfinished clay sculpture, a Golem wearing a cowboy hat. Relatively short in
height, he nonetheless convinces as tougher than the rest of the cast put together. Bronson’s the least talkative character
in the Leone canon - he’ll stare for thirty seconds before returning a three-syllable answer.

Modern movies are so afraid of losing their audience they fill in every moment with action and empty ‘activity’. With this
film, Leone began staging his action in terms of drawn-out, ritualized
set pieces. Just the act of handing a person a gun, and that person placing it on a table, becomes a careful 30-second event
that’s less stage business and more like motions rehearsed since the beginning of time. The style emphasizes
staring eyes, constant closeups of faces and eyes that tell stories of their own. It’s a different kind of storytelling.

The plot follows the basic situation of Johnny Guitar, with Spaghetti trappings added. A full twelve minutes passes in
an amusing title sequence that exists for its own sake, a static observance of gunslingers waiting in ‘High Noon’ mode for
Bronson
to arrive at Cattle Corner. Leone cast recognizable American stars to get gunned down, Woody Strode and Jack Elam, and
gave them a third henchman for bad luck, Al Mulock, the fool that Eli Wallach blasts from his bathtub in GBU.?²
Italians Paolo Stoppa and Gabrielle Ferzetti are on hand for serious roles, with Ferzetti playing the complicated
character of a powerful man who grows physically weaker as he gets richer.

Some critics think that Leone’s storytelling style broke down with OUATITW. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
(GBU) already
ran so long that its continuity suffered in shorter versions; even at full length, OUATITW has some gaping story
holes that can frustrate a simple desire to ‘read’ the plot. Leone will let characters stare at one another for what seems
minutes at a time, but can’t be bothered to clarify major character relationships. How exactly Henry Fonda ends up in bed with
Claudia Cardinale is more than a bit muffled. Is it an all-out rape, or what? The scene at the cave dwelling, and the one
where Bronson and Robards start building the Sweetwater station appear to be radically out of sequence.

We’re looking at a style that can be economical one moment but opaque the next, as a great deal of relevant action happens
off screen. Jason Robards is constantly being caught and rescued, and we frequently wonder if something was left out because
we see almost none of it. Ellipsis is a good thing, as when Henry Fonda discovers the remains of a couple dozen gunmen
next to Morton’s idle train. Are we supposed to divine that Cheyenne’s men had a battle with Morton’s gunfighters? Did everyone
get killed or mortally shot, down to the last man? That Cheyenne escaped from his train ride to Yuma, organized an attack, had
a big battle, and rode away to the McBain homestead seriously wounded? It’s a lot of content to be skipped over, and we can’t
escape the feeling that more story was intended but the film just got too darn long.?¹

If Robards didn’t clock in so much good character time, we’d think him shortchanged for action scenes. I’m not sure he
ever shoots a gun except in the train-roof scene. What’s mostly missed is the confrontation with Morton that would lead up to
the battle between two outlaw bands. We wouldn’t want to see the actual battle (the reveal of Fonda finding the aftermath is
excellent in itself) but Robards is robbed of a standoff all his own, for us to see how he measures up to the other, more
stoic gunfighter heroes. The odd effect of this
elision is that at the end when Cheyenne prepares to draw his gun, not knowing whether Frank or Harmonica will come through
the door, we’ve practically forgotten that he’s a fancy pistolero and not just a talker.

OUATITW works best in the present tense, in sequences conceived to make men move in the landscape like gods in a
ritualized pageant. The pace is set by the glorious Ennio Morricone score which cues movements and moods with sweep and
majesty. After the frantic cutting at the end of GBU, the showdown here might as well be something out of a Noh play.
Bronson and especially Fonda move and face-off in slow motion, striking poses that look like they belong in an Italian
fashion magazine. Here is Western cool that has more to do with Milanese design than the real West. But it is as powerful as
Dimitri Tiomkin’s ‘Russian’ music for American Westerns.

The final showdown is one of the purest in film. With Fonda no longer on the Morton payroll, he’s reduced from an
arch-villain back down to the level of an honest samurai-like gunfighter. He and Bronson meet as equals, following through
on a pact carved in stone.

The music is organized into leitmotifs, and if any complaint can be legit, it’s that each theme is repeated at least two times
more than it should. It’s easy to understand why Paramount (Bob Evans, I guess) lopped off the ending scene of Cheyenne’s
surprise revelation - it’s slow-paced, seems an extra climax that wasn’t needed, and starts with the meandering Cheyenne theme
starting up for what must be the tenth time. John Carpenter is trying to de-intellectualize when he describes the tone of
the film as Opera, but ends up elevating the film. It is like Opera in that the music drives the visuals more than
anything that was written on paper. Leone’s direction is musically inspired, and in this dreamlike situation that’s not a
bad thing. For Morricone fans, it’s like dying and going to heaven.

Savant saw OUATITW when it was brand new on a double bill with The Green Slime, which might tell you how much
respect it got from distributors. I can’t claim to have been one of the enlightened few who appreciated it on first sight. Even
cut by 20 minutes, it seemed uncontrollably slow and confusing, especially the flashback structure. Most fans now agree that
OUATITW has the best-engineered, most
compelling flashbacks in any Leone film. He started with a tale told by a musical watch in For a Few Dollars More,
and the one here is threaded beautifully into the narrative, wordlessly explaining a huge chunk of the story and making
the final gunfight one of the most unforgettable in Western history.?³

Somewhere about 1980, a restored print surfaced and was showcased in LA at places like the Nuart and the Vista theater, but I was
in a periodic unemployed state and missed it. I didn’t really catch up with it until home video, and a Paramount laser disc
of exceptional quality.

Once Upon a Time In the West’s epic approach to pulp has had a lot of influence; there’s definitely a change in 1970s
Japanese Samurai films (especially the Sword of Vengeance series) that seems touched by Leone, even though
Leone’s architecturally stoic standoffs were originally inspired by Kurosawa. At Cannon we groaned
when Albert Pyun ripped off entire scenes and dialogue for his abominable Cyborg. Real exploitation cognoscenti
may know better, but I saw a lot of the stoic ritualization of OUATITW in Kill Bill, too. It has the same
kind of pulpy seriousness. The tongue’s been in the cheek so long, all has returned to the straight and level.

The western loosening of censorship that occurred between OUATITW and Duck, You Sucker! didn’t help Leone’s
commercial palatabilty. About the roughest thing that happens here is Cheyenne’s patting of Claudia Cardinale’s behind. Leone
apparently decided he was free to get nasty after this, for Duck, You Sucker! is a string of relative crudities. (It
was later interpreted as the second installment of another trilogy - titled in France Once Upon a Time … The
Revolution.) Ants
are urinated on in the first shot, as if commenting on the beginning of The Wild Bunch. Leone’s next and last film
Once Upon a Time in America is a mass of directorial excess that
alienates more people than it impresses.

---

Paramount’s DVD of Once Upon a Time In the West has been a long time a-comin’, as they say; even Savant used an article
to whine about the
need for this genre staple on DVD back in 1999 or so. The special edition won’t disappoint. With no need to flip laserdiscs
twice to get through the show, it’s a pleasure to watch on DVD. The clean picture looks like a near-perfect transfer that’s
been encoded with a slightly stingy bit rate; every once in a while, backgrounds go softer than they should. Colors are rich,
not Technicolor rich, but far better than any previous video incarnation.

Sir Christopher Frayling provides a commentary that said all the wrong things to me. He’s joined by several
other contributors, but spends far too much time with a play-by-play rundown of what we’re seeing on screen,
going over details we can see for ourselves. I’m not kidding: his eloquent explanations for the significance of every gesture
and event might make his commentary an excellent choice for sightless movie fans (who exist in large numbers). By contrast, Alex
Cox’s comments on the film’s cut scenes and oddball continuity had me at rapt attention.

These English critics are sometimes superior to American commentators, simply because they aren’t afraid to be aesthetes. When
you hear a
top American critic talking about film as cinema, there’s often a folksy, apologetic tone, as if trying to encourage a pact
with the
listener: If we were the types who analyze movies to this degree, this is what we’d have to be thinking about this
scene … Frayling’s comments are all valid and good, but a DVD commentary doesn’t seem to be the best venue for
them. He’s much better on the documentary.

Disc two contains a 3-part docu that would be over an hour long if allowed to run as one piece. It has great interviews with
the few surviving contributors to the film and some name directors put their two cents in as well. Shooting took place
in Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris and Rome on carefully designed settings; it must have been an expensive show.

Sir Christopher is on the money here, economically sketching Leone’s life and the environment of the Italian
film that gave rise to him and his Spaghetti Westerns. Actors Gabrielle Ferzetti and Claudia Cardinale are now the only
surviving stars, and each offers pleasant reminiscences, as do cameraman Tonino Delli Colli and writer/director Bernardo
Bertolucci (who comes off as both likeable and brilliant). Directors John Carpenter, Alex Cox and John Milius are also on
hand to champion the cause of Leone’s reputation.
Each has strengths and weaknesses. Carpenter’s not afraid to call things as he sees them. Milius appears to be
rehearsing for a role as Ernest Hemingway, actually lighting and smoking a cigar during the interview in the interest of
projecting a manly image.

Beyond the docus, the general appeal drops off somewhat. A featurette on the role of the railroad in the West is clumsy and
only partially relevant. A gallery of location comparison stills are rather interesting. The original trailer (calling the film
Once Upon a Time … In the West) is a beaut I’ve never seen before, and there’s an edited sequence of production
stills. All are accompanied by the Morricone score. If the music isn’t overused in the film itself, it definitely is in the extras.

Visually, the extras are a bit fuzzy, possibly because they’re all converted from PAL originals to NTSC. The film clips look
particularly strange, a bit stretched and with odd action because of the 24fps / 25fps / 30fps conversion difference. If I claimed
a full understanding of the conversion process, I still doubt that I could explain it well.

A real thrill is a new 5.1 mix. Morricone fans will flip. There are also alternate tracks with the original English mono
(a thoughtful touch for purists) and a French mono for Leone fans in Quebec, I suppose.

Once Upon a Time In the West is a big must-have. Back in ‘99 DVD addicts were screaming for titles like this and
Indiana Jones, and now they’re finally here. I hope we appreciate them!

---

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Once Upon a Time in the West rates:

Movie: Excellent -

Video: Excellent

Sound: Excellent

Supplements: Trailer, Commentary track with John Carpenter, John Milius, Alex Cox, Sir Christopher Frayling,
Dr. Sheldon Hall; docu in 3 parts - An Opera of Violence, The Wages of Sin, Something To Do With Death;
Railroad: Revolutionizing the West featurette;Location & production galleries

Packaging: Keep case

Reviewed: November 9, 2003

---

Footnotes:

1. A friend sent me a VHS from German television of
a slightly longer version. Were any of these continuity issues addressed? Nope. I don’t know how much longer it was, but all
the extra material
were short extensions on scenes and shots, and extra bits of business here and there that added very little to the
experience. The famous missing scenes, such as the beating of Harmonica mentioned in the docu, wouldn’t seem to flesh out the
continuity gaps either. What really makes Jill auction her house? Why does she allow it, when Frank isn’t even there to
intimidate her? Scenes like this just have to be taken for granted.
^Return

2. I don’t know what the story was, but Mulock reportedly killed himself while the movie was
being shot - at least that’s what the Leone fan web pages say. He can be seen about ten years earlier as a baddie conspiring
with Sean Connery and femme fatale Scilla Gabel in Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure.
^Return

3. There seems to be an odd rivalry between Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah: Peckinpah has been quoted
as dismissing Il Maestro by saying, “Gee, he sure likes those closeups.” On the other hand, Warners’ insistence on using ‘ripple
dissolves’ to cue Peckinpah’s flashbacks in The Wild Bunch looks like a throwback to the 1930s, in comparison to Leone’s
effective and modernistic hard cuts to repetitive, dreamlike flashback visuals.
^Return

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