The Dollars Trilogy (“A Fistful of Dollars” 1964, “For a Few Dollars More” 1965, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” 1966)

 

First of all, this trio of films by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood, is not a true trilogy. It is more of a cycle. Eastwood does not exactly play the same character in each film (nor does Lee Van Cleef, who co-stars in the last 2 films). Clint does appear in each film as a laconic, poncho-wearing gunfighter, whose name we are never sure of, such that he has come to be referred to in these films as “The Man With no Name.”

In “A Fistful of Dollars,” Eastwood's character, whom the locals end up calling “Joe,” rides into a town divided between 2 families. The Rojos and the Baxters are at war, with the townsfolk trapped in the middle. Joe hires on with one family, then the other, partly to help out the locals, but mostly to make himself a fistful of dollars.

The movie is a re-imagining of the samurai film “Yojimbo”, by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. It was not the first or the last time that a Kurosawa film was made into a western. 1960's “The Magnificent Seven” was based on “The Seven Samurai,” and 1964's “The Outrage” is a remake of “Rashomon.”

Clint Eastwood was not Sergio Leone's first choice for Joe. The role was offered to a number of famous American actors, including Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson. Eastwood was known for his TV role on “Rawhide,” but he was not a movie star. He did come cheap, however, and Leone, like all directors of European westerns or so-called “Spaghetti westerns,” was working on a tight budget, reportedly about $200,000. Both Eastwood and the $200K turned out to be good investments. Building on word-of-mouth, the film became a hit in Europe, then in the U.S., earning almost $19 million at the box office and becoming a classic. This is despite mixed reviews at the time.

Those negative reviews were, in some sense, justified. The film does border on self-parody, and it could have easily been titled “A Fistful of Cliches.” The reality, though, is that the whole western genre at that time was already a self-parody. Every character in a cowboy hat had come to be a cliché of one kind or another. Leone's genius was in distilling those cliches down to their essence, removing the white-hats-versus-black-hats moralizing, and elevating the spaghetti western to its own iconic genre. Eastwood's genius was in saying as little as possible. Most actors are hungry for as many lines in a script as they can get, but Eastwood understood that the less his character talked, the more mysterious and cool he seemed. 

 

 

Hot off the success of “A Fistful of Dollars,” Leone convinced Eastwood to join him for a followup the next year. Not exactly a sequel, “For a Few Dollars More” depicts Eastwood as a bounty hunter. His character is called “Manco,” which is Spanish for “one-armed” or “one-handed,” which may be a reference to his character's preference for a handgun over a rifle. Manco crosses paths with another bounty hunter, Colonel Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef), who uses an interesting variety of weapons to ply his trade, including a shoulder brace that he can clamp to his pistol for better accuracy. The two find themselves both pursuing an outlaw named El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte), and they reluctantly join forces.

Eastwood is as cool as ever, smoking his little cigars and keeping his mouth shut, and Lee Van Cleef doubles the film's cool quotient. Gian Maria Volonte plays El Indio with sweaty brilliance, his maniacal laughter and cold stare punctuating moments of cruelty or cunning. 

 

 

“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” is the third film in the cycle, but it is set during the American Civil War, predating the other 2 films. Eastwood's character this time around is referred to as “Blondie,” a drifter who teams up with an outlaw named Tuco (Eli Wallach). The two run a scheme where Blondie turns Tuco in to the law for a reward, then frees him by shooting the rope just as he is about to be hanged. They make good money off the scheme for a while, but eventually have a falling out. Meanwhile, a hired killer nicknamed “Angel Eyes” (Lee Van Cleef) becomes aware of a cache of Confederate gold, and begins searching for the rebel soldier who knows where it is buried. Eventually Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes all wind up hunting for the gold and gunning for each other.

Where Lee Van Cleef played a heroic character in “For a Few Dollars More,” his Angel Eyes is bad to the bone, “the Bad” from the title. There is nothing wrong with Eli Wallach's looks, but he is “the Ugly”. He provides the comic relief for the film, but he doesn't let his character slide into sheer buffoonery. Tuco can be cunning and resourceful when needed, and he is the only one of the three whose past we learn about, when he visits his brother, who is a monk. Eastwood sticks with what works: smoking his cigars, looking cool, and saying as little as possible. As he described his approach to the character,

“I wanted to play it with an economy of words and create this whole feeling through attitude and movement. ... I felt the less he said, the stronger he became and the more he grew in the imagination of the audience.”

Each of the films in this cycle is a classic, but “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” is probably the first among equals, and it is the most indispensable film of the trilogy. A true classic, the film is a bit long, but worth every minute. Besides being a cool story, the movie makes some statements about the American Civil War, and, really, war in general. It also features the definitive Mexican standoff, with the 3 main characters facing off for a sweaty eternity before drawing their guns, a slow dance to Ennio Morricone's haunting score.

And that brings us to the music. More iconic than the gunfights, the cigars, or any of it is Morricone's classic music, punctuated by whistling, gunshots, and whip cracks. He did the scores for all three of these films. His creative use of sound effects, electric guitar, and voice was partly due to budgetary constraints. He didn't have access to the kind of large orchestra that was traditionally used for a western movie score. Necessity breeds invention, as they say, and Morricone's music has come to be more widely respected than any of those swelling orchestral numbers.

All of it comes together to create one classic series of westerns. “For a Few Dollars More” is the least known of the trilogy, but it is just as much a classic as the other two films, and its title could serve as a summary for all three. Each of these films is a story about the lengths men will go to, the killing and double-crossing, for a few dollars more.

4 stars out of 5 for “A Fistful of Dollars” and “For a Few Dollars More”

5 stars for “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (even if it does lack an Oxford comma)

The Suicide Squad (2021) ***1/2

 

2016's "Suicide Squad" was a turd, even by the standards of the DC Comics film franchise, which is saying a lot. This is the movie studio that brought us "Aquaman" and the Batman costume with nipples. You could be forgiven for assuming that their second attempt at a Suicide Squad movie would be just as bad. I was pleasantly surprised to find that 2021's “The Suicide Squad” is actually pretty fun.

This film wisely ignores anything that happened in the 2016 film, and it doesn't waste time on lengthy origin stories or tie-ins with other DC characters. It launches right into Agent Waller (Viola Davis) assembling a team of super-miscreants, or maybe I should say “incarcerated persons” who have superpowers. The deal, as she says, “...is the same as always.” Team members get time off their prison sentence if they complete the mission and survive. The mission: destroy a dangerous, giant, alien starfish that has fallen into the hands of an anti-American junta after a military coup in the small nation of Corto Maltese.

Without giving away too much, the team that ultimately does the mission is made up of Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman); a couple of muscular weapons experts called Bloodsport (Idris Elba) and Peacemaker (John Cena); Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), who controls rats; Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), who shoots destructive polka-dots out of his body; King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone), literally a walking shark; and, of course, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), the psychotic ex-girlfriend of the Joker.

The movie is absolutely ridiculous, but instead of trying to make something serious of itself, “The Suicide Squad” does something that you rarely see in movies from this franchise: It has some fun. The whole movie is like a surrealist fever dream, chock full of violence and humor, as when one character expresses his disbelief at a double-cross, “Blackguard betrayed us!”

It may be something of an accident that “The Suicide Squad” is as good as it is. David Ayer, who directed that crappy 2016 “Suicide Squad,” was set to do a sequel, but he got sidetracked by another project. After going through several candidates, Warner Bros. managed to snag James Gunn from Marvel Studios. Gunn wrote and directed the 2 “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies, the second of which is particularly good, and he brings a fresh, devil-may-care aesthetic. (His titling of the film as “THE Suicide Squad” was meant as a joke, but Warner Bros. liked it well enough to keep it.) The cast is excellent, and Margot Robbie has finally gotten the right tone with the Harley Quinn character. Put it all together with a giant starfish rampaging Godzilla-like, and I was able to do something I haven't done at a DC comics movie in quite a while – laugh and have a good time!

3.5 stars out of 5

Jonah Hex (2010) **1/2

 

Sometimes it seems like all movie studios want to make these days are movies based on comic books. Franchises like The Avengers are a license to print money, and studios are falling all over themselves to buy the rights to adapt what they hope will be the next cash cow. “Jonah Hex” is an example of a gamble that did not pay off. Based on a DC comics series, with a big-name cast and a budget of $47 million, the film only managed to earn $11 million. It flopped with critics as well, and I can understand why, but I have to say that I actually found it entertaining.

Josh Brolin plays Jonah, a Confederate soldier who refused a murderous order from his commander, Quentin Turnbull. During the mutiny, Jonah was forced to kill his best friend, who happens to be Turnbull's son. As revenge, Turnbull (John Malkovich) kills Jonah's family, brands his face, and leaves him for dead. An American Indian shaman uses magic to revive Jonah, rendering him nigh-immortal and with the ability to talk to the dead. The scar-faced Jonah walks the earth as a bounty hunter, until the U.S. Government recruits him to stop Turnbull from unleashing a powerful weapon.

Besides Brolin and Malkovich, the film features Will Arnett (“Arrested Development”), Michael Fassbender, and Megan Fox. With such an impressive cast, it is hard to understand how “Jonah Hex” was such a financial flop. I have noticed that there are two kinds of comic-to-film adaptations. Most, like the Avengers and other MCU films, as well as the Wonder-Woman and Batman movies, look like regular action movies. A few, like “Sin City,” "Watchmen," and "Polar," retain their comic-book sensibility. “Jonah Hex” is one of the latter. It looks like it was ripped, panel-for-panel from the pages of a comic, and that film-making style may turn some audiences off. I happen to like the style, and I found “Jonah Hex” moderately entertaining. It's full of action, it's visually interesting, and Megan Fox is really pretty. Sure, it's a silly story, but the A-list cast do their best to elevate the material. Full disclosure: I watched it while working out, which significantly lowers my demands for a movie. I'm giving it 2.5 stars, but it probably would not have fared even that well watching it from the couch.

2.5 stars out of 5

Mickey One (1965) ***

 

“Is there any word from the Lord?” - Jeremiah 37:16-17

Warren Beatty, in one of his early films, plays a stand-up comic, living the high life of fast cars and beautiful women. Then it all comes crashing down. He is told that he owes a debt to the Mob, but no one will tell him why, how much he owes, or how long he has to work to pay it off. From this Kafka-esque situation, he flees to Chicago with nothing but the shirt on his back. Given the new name “Mickey One” by an abusive boss, the homeless comic saves his money and starts building himself a new life. Cautiously returning to the stage, Mickey avoids popular clubs where he might be recognized, but he eventually finds himself being judged by unseen, inscrutable forces he cannot escape.

The biggest mistake you can make with “Mickey One,” the mistake I made, is to go into it thinking this is a noir film. Because of the Mob association, the film tends to get promoted as such, but what it really is is a French New Wave art movie, made in America. Director Arthur Penn was heavily influenced by Truffaut ("Jules and Jim") and Godard ("Breathless"), and it seems to me he also watched Orson Welles's 1962 classic “The Trial.” The movie also reminded me of Fellini's "8 1/2," with its grotesque characters and disorienting flashbacks.

Using these art-house elements, Penn has created, not a noir crime movie, but an existentialist exploration of the human condition. Mickey's predicament is our predicament. When he stands on stage, with a blinding spotlight shining down on him, afraid that he may be struck down at any moment for unknown reasons, his cri du coeur is the Bible verse repeatedly quoted by the local Salvation Army volunteers, “Is there any word from the Lord?”

Unfortunately, like the New Wave films that inspired it, “Mickey One” is confounding and difficult to watch. It is such a classic example of Americanized New Wave cinema that I would definitely recommend it for true film buffs, not so much for everyone else. The film deserves its cult classic status, with emphasis on the “cult” rather than the classic.

3 stars out of 5

Jennifer's Body (2009) ***1/2

 

Way back in 2009, an independent movie called "Juno" made a splash. It was the first film written by Diablo Cody, who has gone on to write several more, including the excellent "Young Adult" and "Tully." I had never gotten around to seeing her second project, “Jennifer's Body,” but Amazon Prime started promoting it to me, with a picture of Megan Fox. Let's just say that Amazon knows what makes me tick.

Fox and Amanda Seyfried play high school BFFs, with Fox as hot cheerleader Jennifer, and Seyfried as cute nerd Needy. When Jennifer gets possessed by a demon that requires her to feed on blood once a month, it puts a strain on the friendship.

Neither Fox nor Seyfried is likely to be the next Meryl Streep, and, in fact, I would say the acting in “Jennifer's Body” is mediocre across the board. Even the usually-excellent J.K. Simmons seems to have trouble figuring out what tone to hit at times. Fortunately, the story is good enough to overcome that, exploring the dynamics of teen friendship, lesbian attraction, sexual politics, and even the plight of independent rock bands. (Also, the actresses are pretty easy on the eyes, especially Megan Fox, who is so good-looking, it's difficult to look directly at her. One caveat: Despite the stars looking great in lots of cute outfits, and despite all the gory violence, there is no nudity in the film.) Diablo Cody and director Karyn Kusama blend a little bit of horror with a lot of satire, with a result that is reminiscent of “Heathers,” and definitely better than the typical teen horror flick.

The film has a number of themes, and if you wanted to dig deeply, you could probably write a graduate thesis on the movie. Jennifer's monthly thirst for blood is obviously an allegory for menstruation. The movie also explores the limits of sexual power. Jennifer is a girl who has learned she can use her body, as many girls do, to get attention and to get what she wants. Being an object of desire turns out to be a pretty blunt tool, though. It's a weapon whose effects tend to spread beyond the intended target (including to Jennifer's best friend), and it doesn't really work out for Jennifer. It isn't just the demon; everyone wants to possess Jennifer's body.

3.5 stars out of 5

Antlers (2021) **1/2

 

Director Guillermo del Toro and actor Jesse Plemons (“Breaking Bad”) were busy last year. Del Toro released “Nightmare Alley,” and Plemons is in “The Power of the Dog,” and both films have garnered their share of Oscar nominations. “Antlers” represents a collaboration between the two, with del Toro producing the film, based on the short story “The Quiet Boy,” by TV writer Nick Antosca, and Plemons in a major role. While it's a reasonably entertaining horror film, I don't think it's going to be winning any Academy awards.

The story starts with a couple of meth-cookers, who discover something dangerous in an old mine. A few weeks later, we meet Julia (Keri Russell), a local teacher. Her student Lucas, the son of one of those meth cookers, is acting strangely and drawing horrifying illustrations. Julia and her brother, who is the sheriff (Jesse Plemons), discover that Lucas's family is harboring an ancient evil.

As a horror premise goes, it's a good start. Director Scott Cooper ("Crazy Heart") creates an appropriate sense of dread, with good cinematography that makes use of the gray, Oregon skies and dense, foreboding forests. He's working with a great cast here, including the excellent character actress Amy Madigan as the school principal. Even the child actors are good. The story, though, feels half-baked. I found it entertaining, but unsatisfying. Somewhere between a psychological drama and a creature feature, “Antlers” loses its way.

2.5 stars out of 5

Interview with the Vampire (1994) ****

 

Author Anne Rice died recently, so when I saw the movie adaptation of her first novel, “Interview with the Vampire,” on a streaming service, I figured it was time to re-watch it. I hadn't seen the film since it came out, when I was one of the pathetic, Rice-fan-boys picking the movie apart over how faithful it was to the book.

Brad Pitt plays Louis, a plantation owner lost in despair after losing his wife and daughter to illness. Louis spends his time drinking, gambling, and whoring, little caring what happens to him, and little knowing that he is being stalked by a vampire. When the vampire Lestat finally confronts Louis, he offers him the choice of a pleasant death or to join Lestat in dark immortality. Louis accepts the offer to become a vampire, a choice he quickly regrets. The hunger for blood, especially human blood, tortures Louis, who is too moral to sadistically hunt people the way Lestat does. With Louis's morality driving the pair apart, Lestat converts an 11-year-old girl into a vampire, to give Louis someone to care for, and to bind them all together as a warped, vampire family.

Lots of people in 1994, including Anne Rice, complained about the casting of the movie. A common refrain was that Tom Cruise has dark hair, while his character, Lestat, is described in the book as being blond. Wigs, people! It turns out that the casting was just perfect, Cruise's blond wig worked just fine, and director Neil Jordan (“The Crying Game”) does a masterful job capturing the spirit and the beauty of Rice's classic novel.

The themes are timeless. There is the Gothic family drama among Louis, Lestat, and Claudia. There's Lestat's struggle to survive immortality and adjust to a new era. There is Louis's moral misgivings over his blood hunger. Then, too, as terrible as the vampires' struggles are, every human who meets them begs them for the dark gift of vampirism. For humans, with our hearts pounding out our time for a limited number of beats, nothing, it seems, beats the dream of immortality.

4 stars out of 5

Reno 911! The Hunt for Qanon (2021) ***

 

Man, I used to love me some “Reno 911”! The “COPS” parody ran on Comedy Central from 2003 to 2009, and featured several actors from the old Mtv show, “The State.” The show was in a mockumentary style, with a camera crew following the incompetent officers of the fictitious Reno Sheriff's Department as they interacted with a variety of Reno, NV miscreants. They revived the show for the Quibi app in 2020, and now we have a new streaming movie.

2021 finds the team a little grayer and thicker, but still enforcing the law the only way they know how – badly. The department becomes interested in the activities of the conspiracy-theory-promoting website, Qanon. When Lt. Dangle (Thomas Lennon) learns of a booze cruise for Qanon enthusiasts, he wrangles funding to send himself and the deputies on the cruise to enjoy some free drinks and hopefully uncover the identity of the mysterious Q.

The movie is just as silly as the original TV show. Is it as delightful? I would say that the movie is in the same spirit as the show, but that this humor works better in small bites. I have no specific complaints, but I'll admit to getting a bit tired of the movie by the end of the hour and a half. Still, it's good fun, and if you are a fan of the TV show, it would be a crime to miss it!

3 stars out of 5

The November Man (2014) **1/2

 

Fans love to debate who was the best James Bond, despite the fact that there is clearly no question: it's Daniel Craig. I'll tell you who definitely wasn't the best: Pierce Brosnan. Maybe it was more the fault of bad writing than bad acting, but his Bond films were puerile and forgettable. I just watched a couple recently, and I can't remember a thing about them. This is all the more surprising because, before he started playing Bond, everyone agreed that he would be perfect for the role. Back when Brosnan was stuck in his “Remington Steele” contract and couldn't take the Bond role, everyone thought it was such a shame, because, really, the guy seemed like he was designed on a computer to play 007. Once he finally got the chance, the movies were just meh.

With “The November Man,” Brosnan takes another stab at a spy franchise. There are 14 novels in Bill Granger's spy series, published from 1979-1993, the first of which is titled The November Man. This film, however, is based on the 7^th book in the series, originally titled There Are No Spies. After the movie came out, they started printing the 7^th book with the title The November Man. I have no idea how they expect book buyers to keep all that straight. Anyway, the series features CIA agent Peter Devereaux, code-named “November Man,” because after he comes through, nothing is left alive.

The movie finds Devereaux retired, living a quiet, pleasant life, when his old CIA friend, Hanley, shows up to ask a favor. A Russian double agent is ready to defect, with a key piece of information on a Soviet politician who is in line to be their next president. The Russian agent was once Devereaux's lover, so he agrees to come out of retirement to help her cross over. The job goes sour (of course), and Devereaux finds himself trying to protect a gorgeous social worker (Olga Kurylenko) from a rogue CIA boss and a beautiful, Russian assassin. 

 

 

It would be faint praise to declare “The November Man” as good as any of Brosnan's Bond movies. In some ways, it is better. The movie doesn't have any of the one-liners or arched eyebrows that got so tiresome in the Bond series, and the older, grizzled Pierce Brosnan is way more interesting than the late-90's, pretty-boy Bond version. And then there's Olga Kurylenko, who played a Bond girl opposite Daniel Craig in "Quantum of Solace." The Ukrainian model/actress may not have the broadest acting range, but she is so damn gorgeous that it doesn't matter.

That's not to say that this is a great movie, or even a great spy movie. The supporting cast is weak, including the wooden Luke Bracey as Devereaux's protege and Bill Smitrovich, who hams up the Hanley character as if he were in a completely different movie from everyone else here. This is the kind of movie that you would be pretty disappointed in if you paid to see it in a cinema. For a Netflix movie to watch while working out, though, it's not bad.

2.5 stars out of 5

The Last Duel (2021) ****

 

Rape is a tricky subject. It is rightly considered one of the most heinous crimes, but our legal system struggles with it because it involves activity that can be perfectly legal between consenting adults. We seem to vacillate between the goals of treating victims with respect and belief on the one hand, and respecting due process for the accused on the other. We get it wrong a lot, and “The Last Duel” makes it clear that this is not a new phenomenon.

Matt Damon plays French knight Jean de Carrouges. While he is away from home, his wife, Marguerite (Jodie Comer), is raped by his former friend, Jacques le Gris. At least, that's what she says. Jacques contends it was a consensual affair, and since he has powerful friends, Marguerite finds herself disbelieved, her charge dismissed. Seeing that he will get no satisfaction from the traditional courts, Jean demands a trial by combat.

“The Last Duel” is mis-promoted as being about the last legal duel in France. It was certainly not the last duel, not even the last legal duel. It may have been the last judicial duel, in which a fight to the death determines the outcome of a trial. It's an important distinction in this story, because, if Jean loses, Jacques will be considered to have been acquitted, and Lady Marguerite will be burned at the stake for bearing false witness. High stakes, indeed!

The movie is based on true events, but they happened in 1386, so writers Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener had to use artistic license to fill in quite a few blanks. There are many details that now are not and cannot be known, including whether or not Le Gris was actually guilty. The writers approach this conundrum by breaking the film into 3 parts, each one relating the events according to one of the main characters. It's fascinating to see how their stories differ in small details, such as which man was first to reach out for a handshake, and how these small details shape each character's perception of himself. All three paint themselves as the hero or the victim, never as the villain, a reminder of what unreliable narrators of our own story we are.

More than anything, the tale is about sexual ignorance and as chauvinism masquerading as chivalry. We are reminded that, under French law at that time, the victim of any rape that occurred was not the woman, but her husband, whose property had been violated, which is still the case in many parts of the world. Marguerite faces ostracism and possible death for reporting her rape, just as women in India and the Middle East often face today. She also faces disbelief based on the fact that she may have been impregnated by Le Gris. Her judges assert that a woman can only become pregnant if she experiences pleasure. This was considered established science at the time, and it would be laughable if we did not, in the 21^st century, have leaders like Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, who explained his opposition to abortion in cases of rape this way: “If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

“The Last Duel” is about all these things, but is also, after all, about a duel, and when the duel comes, it is riveting action. Le Gris and Carrouges go at each other with lances, swords, daggers, and fists, and it is a brutal, realistic sequence that had my heart pounding! $8 gets you the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge!

4 stars out of 5