A few more movie reviews

I'd heard that Lord of War was a pretty awful flick. After a viewing, I certainly don't think it should've been nominated for any Oscars or anything, but it wasn't that great flick, but I also didn't think it was all that awful.

There's slick cinematography throughout, begining with the title sequence in which we follow a single bullet from its creation on the factory floor through to its gruesome ending in a bloody African conflict. But the smooth coregraphy doesn't make up for the fact that the films's main character doesn't garner any sympathy from us. He is an amoral man who is doing what he does because it's what he does well. He simply never gives us a reason to care about him. His marriage is a sham; his relationship with his brother isn't a truly caring one; and he passes on his lone shot at redemption. Cage never gives us a way in, so we never care.

The Magnificent Seven, on the other hand, presents us with morally questionable characters but allows us an insight into each one, giving us something to connect to for every man, allowing us to hope against hope that each one will escape the death that he'll certainly have earned by the final gunshot report.

If you've not seen the film yet, I certainly won't ruin it for you by telling who doesn't make it to the end, but know that they all fight gamely and either live or die with honor.

The cast is outstanding - Yul Brenner, Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Eli Wallach - and are matched note for note by one of the most stirring film scores in the history of the screen. The plot is a simple one - village hires seven gunslingers to defend themselves from banditos - and is an adaptation of Kurosawa's Seven Samauri, but I enjoy the Western version infinitely more than I do the Japanese.

Where many of the great Western films focus on the outsized vistas of the west, pulling back to reveal mesas and canyons dwarfing the heroes, this film stays small, focusing on the characters who are allowed to be flawed heroes for perhaps the first time in a Western film. On the DVD extra documentary, a comment was made stating that this was the beginning of the end for the great Westerns, the palate shifting from the larger-than-life heroes of John Wayne and Gary Cooper to the anti-hero of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti Westerns, and this film indeed allowed for that change - highlighted masterfully in a discussion among the stars explaining the math of the life they've all chosen:

Homes - none

Wife - none

Kids - none

Prospects - zero

Suppose I left anything out?

Yeah.

Places you're tied down to - none.

People with a hold on you - none.

Men you step aside for - none.

Insults swallowed - none.

Enemies - none.

No enemies?

Alive.

It's a chilling scene and one that sums up their way of life beautifully.

The movie rightfully dseserves its place among the greatest half dozen Westerns ever made.


And then there's the lone new flick of the week - Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. The reviews on this one have been decidedly mixed, but I can honestly say that for this was one of the rare films that I was okay paying full price for (a whopping $18.50 for two prime time tickets at the local Rave).

The movie's hilarious, and Sacha Baron Cohen provided a wonderful foil to Will Ferrell's stereotypical NASCAR driver/fan. The two make for a great constrast in styles - Farrell in cowboy boots, stright leg jeans without a worn spot on them, Garth Brooks shirts to the hilt, and living for nothing more than racing and being an over-the-top ass while Cohen's gay, French, cultured, Formula One import challenged everything about Ricky Bobby's world, right down to his love for pancakes.

The supporting cast all do great jobs - Gary Cole as Ricky's father, Amy Smart as Ricky's assistant, Jane Lynch as Ricky's mom, Michael Clarke Duncan as Ricky's crew chief, John C Rielly as Ricky's best friend, Molly Shannon in a three-minute part, Leslie Bibb as Ricky's wife, Andy Richter in a thirty-second part, and even Ricky's two children - helping carry the film and hitting all the right notes to make the whole thing click. (Thanks to Bill Simmons for help with all the names there, by the way.)

And Will Ferrell continues doing his great George W. Bush impression throughout much of the film - always a bonus.

I'm going to have to say that Talladega Nights has officially surpassed Anchorman as my favorite Will Ferrell flick.

Updated Favorite Will Ferrell flicks:

1. Talladaega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
2. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
3. Elf
4. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
5. Zoolander

The following films were exempted because they're not really Will Ferrell films because

• (a) he just kinda cameos to greater or lesser degrees: Wedding Crashers, Starsky & Hutch, Dick, Austin Powers 1 & 2
• (b)I haven't seen them: A Night at the Roxbury, The Ladies Man, Superstar, The Wendel Baker Story, Kicking & Screaming, The Producers, Curious George or
• (c) because the parts I did see stunk: Old School.