TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

Seven Samurai peters out a bit by the time they've picked off so many of the bandits piecemeal that the samurai/peasant force outnumbers them 5:1 and it's become apparent that the bandits are terrible strategists, tacticians, and even individual fighters.  You almost kind of wonder why the peasants needed the samurai in the first place, when they had access to a cache of arms and pikemen are easy enough to train.

Magnificent Seven overcame this difficulty, thanks both to having a bandit as a character in his own right (this movie really needed an Eli Wallach) and also by having truly cringing villagers, changing the plot so that the peasants betrayed their heroes and the Seven had to fight their way back into the town and inspire the villagers' resistance, instead of always having the advantage of the defensive against foolishly headstrong enemies and the unalloyed loyalty of what were in effect their troops.

And, in this case like Mag Seven, it also suffers from content and technological limitations--lack of blood, pikes obviously going behind people to imply impalement, etc.

I was, further, annoyed when Hayashida (the funny one, that's not Toshiro Mifune's Kikuchiyo) died from a musket shot because Kurosawa failed to set up that the bandits were actually armed with muskets (but only three, two of which get taken during the course of the film).  I guess this maybe counts as a twist, but I thought the gunshot noise was part of the burning bandit fort collapsing and for a minute I thought he died because he slipped and hit his head on a rock.

And I was pissed that Samurai Robert Vaughn did not get married to the peasant girl, in another unfavorable comparison to Mag Seven.  I guess it's implied he goes away because of class division or something.  WTF is this shit?  The last shot's on the burial mound.  Fucker didn't even stay around to make sure she wasn't pregnant.  Perhaps he busted on her face in true samurai fashion, but he was young and inexperienced, and we are not privy to this information.

I think this is a legitimate flaw in the film.  An opportunity to skewer the bullshit samurai lifestyle, which they'd done a pretty good job of doing, was wasted, and it kind of made me despise the character.  I dunno, maybe that was the point.

Lack of resolution to Samurai Robert Vaughn aside, I loved everything that was not directly about the battle scenes, all of the daily interactions between the Seven, and indeed how class played out in the Samurai ensconcing themselves in the life of the village and basically acting as their petty nobility (with all its attendant duties, leading to four of their number dying).  Indeed, I even loved a fair amount of stuff in the battle scenes, even if the bandits were ultimately weak and stupid and there's at least one too many attacks for the purposes of efficient drama.

B+

[Barrister]

I know this will make me unamerican or something but......


I don't care for the spaghetti westerns.

Meh, I don't like them very much, either.

You both suck.

[Ed Anger]

I know this will make me unamerican or something but......


I don't care for the spaghetti westerns.

Meh, I don't like them very much, either.

You both suck.

Eat a dick

[Admiral Yi]

you hate the original too?

Haven't seen it.

[Admiral Yi]

Also watched most of a movie called Anonymous.  Terrible title.

Yet another Queen Elizabeth story, in this one half the English are bastards of Liz and Shakespeare is a phony who is handed his stuff by some noble dude.

Really well done CGI scenes of London.

[Ideologue]

I really hope Spellus is annoyed that I gave another Kurosawa Klassic a B+.

[Tonitrus]

I know this will make me unamerican or something but......


I don't care for the spaghetti westerns.

Meh, I don't like them very much, either.

You both suck.

They're just moving into that old, curmudgeon "everything sucks" phase of life. 

[Barrister]

I know this will make me unamerican or something but......


I don't care for the spaghetti westerns.

Meh, I don't like them very much, either.

You both suck.

Eat a dick

Cock sucking sounds like something a hater of spaghetti westerns would know a lot about.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I know this will make me unamerican or something but......


I don't care for the spaghetti westerns.

Ditto.  Not something I'd seek out.

[11B4V]

I really hope Spellus is annoyed that I gave another Kurosawa Klassic a B+.

Probably not. Your ratings suck. 

[Ideologue]

I dunno.  It could be an A on quantity, kinda like The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur.  Really long movies that manage to stay entertaining have a very immersive quality to them.

P.S. Mifune is a blast as always.

[11B4V]

P.S. Mifune is a blast as always.

[CountDeMoney]

They're just moving into that old, curmudgeon "everything sucks" phase of life. 

And we like it that way.  Harrumph.

[Ideologue]

P.S. Mifune is a blast as always.

The more I've been thinking about, the more I think I underrated Sanjuro too.  I said then that I was conflicted between a B+ and an A.  Of the three Kurosawa jidaigeki movies I've so far watched (does Rashoman count? I guess it's a "period drama"), it's really the one most legitimately lauded as great (the irony being that it seems to be often included only along with Yojimbo and as an afterthought).

Btw, the BD transfer of Sanjuro is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot better looking than my the copy of the copy my dad pirated off TCM.   No RGB tracers, for one thing.

[11B4V]

P.S. Mifune is a blast as always.

The more I've been thinking about, the more I think I underrated Sanjuro too.  I said then that I was conflicted between a B+ and an A.  Of the three Kurosawa jidaigeki movies I've so far watched (does Rashoman count? I guess it's a "period drama"), it's really the one most legitimately lauded as great (the irony being that it seems to be often included only along with Yojimbo and as an afterthought).

Another remake I enjoyed was, Hara Kiri. Well done. I need to find the 1962 original.