The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I love this movie, its fantastic. I might be a bit biased as I LOVE Clint Eastwood and I think it would be an awesome movie if it was just him reading the phonebook. I recommend everyone to see this movie, you won’t regret it. Yes, its nearly 3 hours long but whatever, its still good.

You’ve heard it a billion times but I just worry that people will read this and think I’m crap. I’m just really tired. And I think I’m, once again, loosing my determination for this challenge. I won’t stop but I am so close to just going ‘yeah, I watched it, done.’ My challenge isn’t to watch and review 212 films, its just to watch but I feel bad if I don’t review because… I don’t know but whatever, I do. Not that anyone reads these except my mum lol.

Dirty Harry

Clint Eastwood?! In a suit?! Where’s the horse?!

The killer left the shell casting. Dumbass.

This movie is just filled with quotes!!! “When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher’s knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn’t out collecting for the Red Cross!” bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!

I love that as Harry shot the bank robbers, he was still eating his hotdog. Only Clint Eastwood, John McClane and Gene Hunt could get away with that.

I’m sorry, I know it’s the 70s but my God, they could of used something better than bright pink paint for blood.

“I know what you’re thinking. ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” Classic. And I loved that he repeated it at the end of the film too but its changed from being comical to being very sinister. I actually knew this ‘speech’ before I watched the movie because Ryan Stiles said it on Whose Line Is It Anyway? as Carol Channing. I love that people can know lines from a film without ever seeing it, I think that’s an incredible achievement!

I don’t know whether it was intentional but whatever, I loved that as soon as we see black bank robbers, we then see a black doctor. I know racism was big in the 70s so I thought it was great of them to show that the stereotype of black people being criminals is not the case at all.

Doctor: Sure, Harry. We can save the leg.
[takes out some scissors]
Harry Callahan: What are you going to do with those?
Doctor: Going to cut your pants off.
Harry Callahan: No. I’ll take them off.
Doctor: It’ll hurt.
Harry Callahan: $29.50, let it hurt.

I didn’t like the casting for the killer. He’s a great actor and does psycho well but he just looks too young! He looks 12!</li

I looked it up and Clint Eastwood was 41 when he made this movie!!! 41!! He looks damn good for 41! And with the most gorgeous hair ever!

After Harry is called a peeping-tom after looking through a window, his ‘partner’ Gonzales says “I’ve another thought about why they call you Dirty Harry…” it doesn’t seem as funny in typing but in the movie it is. Espeically as moments later, he misses the killer opening a door because he’s watching a naked girl through another window through binoculars.

Boo at Die Hard 3 for stealing the plot line of getting directions via telephone booths from Dirty Harry!

Another reason why the actor playing the killer was a bit wrong was because when Harry stabbed him, he makes the most hilarious facial expression and noise! It just doesn’t work because it feels like he’s playing him comically rather than mental.

I don’t know if its because I’ve watched too much Ashes to Ashes and therefore think about the mind of the criminal but I caught on pretty quickly that the killer killed for pleasure rather than for the money. Especially as he was able to take money twice and didn’t do it either times. And it really, really annoyed me that the killer was all like “OMG YOU TRIED TO KILL ME! WHAT THE HELL! I WANT MY LAWYER! I HAVE A RIGHT!” its just… ergh, it made me hate the character that little bit more and I was just begging for Harry to kill him there and then or shout at him at least.

The killer’s not old enough to drink, he’s 12!!!

I loved the shot of Harry on the bridge. He’s just standing there, watching the bus. And it’s a wide shot so you can’t see his face but you can totally tell its him. He just has this presence! Also, who else could it be, lol. But what’s even more amazing and awesome is that Mr Eastwood did his own stunt! He jumped from the bridge and onto the bus! Good on him!

Great film, can see why it’s a classic and how it sparked so many great cop movies and shows.

101/212

Kate
xoxo

Unforgiven

6.10pm – 30min till dinner so will try and squeeze in some of this film before then and watch the rest after because I’m still a teenage girl and I want to watch Joan Rivers on the Fashion Police on E! at 10pm ^_^

11.29pm – Clint Eastwood, Richard Harris and Morgan Freeman. Dirty Harry, Dumbledore and God. You don’t get much better than that.

The opening shot was very beautiful, it’s a stunning silhouette of a house, tree and a man [Eastwood] digging up the ground. This shot could mean a lot of things but then writing comes up on the screen and it kind of explains it. Anyways, it’s a gorgeous shot/technique that Eastwood uses a few times in this movie and rightly so.

Vicious opening [after the beautiful silhouette] where a woman [a prostitute] is horribly attacked by a man with a knife. I felt that this was a good contrast to the previous beautiful shot.

I had to double check when this movie was made because Eastwood’s style made me think it was from the 70s but its actually 1992! Eastwood managed to capture the classic Western style, I could not tell that it was shot in 1992.

I thought that it was incredibly sweet and yet so sad that Munny [Eastwood] constantly thought of his dead wife but it starts to get a bit repetitive about halfway through. I know she changed him from a murdering drunkard into a loving, caring father but jeez, not every sentence needed to be about the wife.

I thought that it was really good [and funny] that Munny was rusty when it came to getting on a horse and shooting. It felt a bit more realistic because 1. He IS an old man and would struggle with it all and 2. He hasn’t done any of that for 11 years. It just funny seeing Clint Eastwood fail to get on a horse.
MORGAN FREEMAN!! Him and Eastwood have fantastic chemistry together. I just knew that their characters had been friends for years and years. They’re just fantastic together. Even though this movie isn’t a comedy, them two bounced off each other a few times. They talk about sex and its all awkward because they’re old and Ned [Freeman] says “so… do you just use your hand?” its just weirdly hilarious seeing Freeman and Eastwood talk awkwardly about sex. Also, the script on this Western felt a bit more relaxed and modern, especially some of Freeman’s lines “We’ve got a storm riding up our asses.” “There’s no hawk, you can’t see for shit, can you?”

“She gave me the evil eye.” Sorry but that line just makes me think of young teenagers who start fights because “she gave me well bad evils!!”

I thought it was a nice change to see Clint Eastwood playing a character that wasn’t always in control. I also thought it was a nice touch to have Ned & Munny to have lost their joy of murder because they’re older, wiser and appreciate life now. It was also a good contrast to the young one they were with who was so excited about killing someone then when he did, he hated it and said he’d never do it again.

It was so frustrating to watch Little Bill and his people chase after the wrong bad guys! The real bad guys are the ones that sliced the woman up, not the ones who are going to kill the bad guys. Though, I suppose when I put it like that, they’re both as bad as each other but its been filmed so it looks like Ned & Munny are actually really good guys which they are but just going to kill two people. Also, Little Bill is just as bad as the murders, maybe even worse because he tortures them.

“This is what happens to assassins round here” is written on a sign in front of a dead body. Its just a big sign of hypocrisy.

Richard Harris should have been in it more, his character could of done so much more.

I think I only really liked this film because of Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood, I think if anyone else had starred or directed it would have been too boring.

66/212

Kate
xoxo

The Outlaw Josey Wales

FINALLY! After 5 crap films in a row, I finally get a good one! Normally, if I were channel surfing on TV and something like this came on, the teenage in me would change it over straight away. I regret that now. The westerns are actually pretty damn cool. Especially Clint Eastwood who, because of this movie, is slowly becoming one of my favourite directors.

The movie begins and we’re straight into the action and the reason why he is ‘the Outlaw’ Josey Wales. We get a small glimpse of the Wales’s family life and how normal it all seems. Next thing you know, the house is on fire, his wife is taken away to be raped and murdered and you hear the screams of his poor son who, I think, was in the fire. The next scene is beyond tragic. A parent should never have to bury their child. I think its only something like 10 minutes in and I was already attached to the Wales character and felt everything he felt. I almost cried when you saw how damaged Josey was when he buried his son and broke down on his cross; such a powerful scene. It’s the only real emotion that we witness throughout the whole movie. We see the emotion at the beginning so we know that he does care [so much!] and that he’s doing it all out of pure love, even if he doesn’t necessarily show it.

There is a montage after this opening and the opening credits run on top of it. I like the idea of introducing the story first and then showing the opening credits. The montage also pushed the story along so that the audience know what Josey has been doing with the group of people he joined; the pro-Confederate Missouri guerrillas. I felt rather inspired by this montage as its not just one clip after another but clips overlap each other. You have the main clip and then a slightly faded clip on top. it’s the perfect way to use all the clips you’ve shot and show more of what’s happening!

This film had some awesome lines which I took notes of [they may not be word for word, sorry!]: “…before I kick your ass so hard you’ll be wearing it as a hat”, “don’t piss on my back and tell me its raining” and “…there are three types of sun; sunshine, sunflowers and sons of a bitches.” The ‘piss on my back, raining’ one is one that I think I’ll probably use if someone ever backstabbed me, it just sums up backstabbing perfectly! And those three were only some of the fantastic lines that were said in this movie; round of applause for the writers!

One of the reasons I think made this film so brilliant and non-boring, is that there are so many camera angles! Unless you’ve done film studies in your education, you probably don’t notice the camera angles. After studying films studies for 2 years, I can’t help but notice! I honestly don’t think this film would of worked if all the shots were done at the same level and angle. I think Eastwood used every angle in the book which makes it so interesting for the audience as its not repetitive. You have some classic shots of beautiful landscape and the character using up only a small part of the screen. This was used by Ang Lee as well, so know I see where he got his inspiration from!

There was one scene that unintentionally made me laugh. Josey Wales has just bought groceries [I think, well, its food supplies anyway] and he’s walking out the shop and someone goes “Oh my God, its Josey Wales!” and I couldn’t help but go “and he has groceries!” Yet, even though he had neatly wrapped packages of food, he still looked menacing. Not many people can do that.

One of the last scenes made me think about humanity and psychology. Josey dry fires his pistols at the man who was responsible for his wife and child’s deaths. He does it with a look on his face that you’d associate with a mass-murderer. He looks like he’s really shooting his pistols but there are no bullets. I don’t know why this is more terrifying! I honestly can’t explain it. I suppose he wanted the man to be nervous and scared for his life, or something. I don’t know! It was just an awesome scene.

This was my first western that I’ve seen the whole way through and its certainly changed my mind about them! In a couple of days, I’m watching The Magnificent Seven, and I wait with great anticipation! However, it oddly made me want to watch a romcom after it.

Oh, and Clint Eastwood snores like my mum [tehehe].

20/212

Kate
xoxo