Drew's 'Ugly' Review

[bladestarr]

Wow, almost makes me want to actually watch a Western.

...Almost. ;D

[pfrsue]

Excellent review, Drew! (Uhm... there goes that rhyming thing again.)

One question for ya. Which movies preceded "Ugly"? You said it was the third of the spaghetti westerns?

Hmmm.. that was two questions, wasn't it?
Now it's three questions. Oh heck.

[Head Mutant]

I think those are two of the three movies he put down under the "if you liked this, check these out"... Fistful of Dollars and something else.

[TheLuckyOne]

pfrsue said:

One question for ya. Which movies preceded "Ugly"? You said it was the third of the spaghetti westerns?

Well, the third of Leone's, yeah. The first two "Man with No Name" movies were A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More. AFoD was a very faithful remake of a Japanese samurai movie called Yojimbo (and in fact, the director of that successfully sued Leone.) Both have got some memorable lines as well; my favorite is this one from AFoD:

Clint [walking past the town undertaker]: "Better get three coffins ready."
[Approaches group of men who'd mocked him earlier]
Clint: "I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. You see, my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughin' at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn't mean it."
[Men stare at Clint, then go for their guns. He's faster.]
Clint [walking back past the undertaker]: "My mistake. Four coffins."

And thanks for the praise, guys. I'm slightly embarassed because, upon rereading it, I realized that I've already made my first mistake- they were called spaghetti westerns because they were financed by Italian companies and produced in Italy, but I'm pretty sure Leone's, at least, were shot in Spain. D'oh!

-D

[TheLuckyOne]

Head said:

I think those are two of the three movies he put down under the "if you liked this, check these out"... Fistful of Dollars and something else.

Right. And the third one I listed, Unforgiven, doesn't officially star the Man with No Name or anything, but it seems to be sort of Clint's vision of what would happen if that character were to retire, try to go legit and raise a family peacefully, but then be violently drawn back into his former lifestyle, at the expense of his own redemption. Good, good stuff; I think he won an Oscar for best director for it. (Or was it best picture? Shoot, this is gonna bug me...)

-D

[pfrsue]

Ahhh, thanks for the clarification. I'll have to add 'em to the never-ending list. I've seen (and liked) 'Ugly', but not the others.

There's a John Wayne western I'm looking for too. It'd be great if I could remember the title. That might necessitate a daytrip to IMDB to track it down.

[bladestarr]

And you also forgot Pale Rider which is the ONLY western I've ever been able to make myself sit through (aside from episodes of Brisco County Jr.).

Also of note, the term 'spaghetti westerns' ALSO refers to the 'spaghetti thin' plotlines that they usually followed.

Finally, one of my favortite manga and anime of all time, Trigun, was made as an homage and parody of these types of movies.

Makes me wonder why I still loathe the genre so.

P.S. I realize that Pale Rider is technically not a spaghetti western, but to me one is the same as all the others so there.