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"We are rough men and used to rough ways." — Bob Younger
Cowboys, stage coaches, gunfighters, saloons... it's hard to imagine anything more American than the trappings of Westerns, yet many of the most memorable movies of the genre were actually shot in Europe with mostly European casts and crews. In fact, the enduring popularity of Westerns owes a great deal to Italian director Sergio Leone, who not only introduced the world to a then-unknown squinty-eyed TV actor named Clint Eastwood, but started a craze with his "Spaghetti Westerns" that resulted in more than 600 Westerns being produced in Europe between 1960 and 1980 while American movie studios slowed down or stopped producing Westerns altogether.
Whatever the origin of the movie or the nationality of the director behind the camera, a good Western is one that transports us back to a wild, dangerous time, to a place where the people are nearly as harsh as the landscape and there were still amazing discoveries to be made by those with an adventurous spirit. Help us choose those movies that deserve to be called Westerns, those with true grit.
Rate the Top 10 Best Western Movies >>
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Posted 12.06.12 by BrentJS -
Everything Old Foreign is New Again
To the entertainment writers and movie critics who have grown cynical in the face of the seemingly endless stream of sequels, prequels, remakes, and reboots hitting theaters these days, the recent news that Charlize Theron will be starring in an English-language remake of Park Chan-wook’s Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is just another sign that Hollywood is fresh out of ideas. However, according to the writer of the adaptation, William Monahan — who took the already exceptionally good Chinese crime thriller Infernal Affairs and turned it into a script worthy of Martin Scorsese and the Academy called The Departed — that couldn't be further from the truth:
[Screenwriting is] the only popular literary form we’ve got left. Adaptation is a very traditional and honorable endeavor in writing for dramatic performance, and if people don’t know that it leads to a hell of a lot of originality and invention in the right hands, well, I’m not going to provide a reading list."
Monohan describes screenwriting as "drama in English" and said foreign movie remakes are the equivalent of Shakespeare taking foreign stories and doing his own "departures from the material." While we have a hard time comparing the vast majority of foreign movie remakes to Shakespeare, there have been several exceptional ones over the years and even a few that managed to surpass the foreign originals. Turn off the subtitles and help us choose the best English-language adaptations of foreign movies.
Rate the Top 10 Best Foreign Movie Remakes >>
Posted 12.03.12 by BrentJS -
Throughout his long career, actor Tom Cruise has received three Academy Award nominations, the last of which was for Magnolia, director Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 ensemble drama. Anderson's latest work, The Master, recently debuted its first trailer. Cruise and Anderson apparently remain friendly, as the director screened the movie for him, The Wrap reports; however, Cruise apparently wasn't completely impressed.
According to the report, Cruise's disenchantment stems from his devotion to the Church of Scientology. The Master centers on a family man (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who starts his own cult-like religion, which has long been reported to be loosely based on Scientology. Apparently, two sources close to the movie claim that Cruise "had issues" with some parts, and that Anderson was hoping to head off conflict over the movie from the growing religious organization. The report also claims that The Master's distributor, The Weinstein Company, intends to show the movie to John Travolta, another follower of Scientology.
For now, The Wrap report should be considered a rumor since Cruise's spokesperson and another for the Church of Scientology have both declined to comment.
cruise wants to ride with The Magnificent Seven >> Posted 05.24.12 by Ryan -
Isn't there something inherently great about watching people set aside their individual differences, tap their inner resources, and apply themselves to a greater goal?
Well, a large number of moviemakers must think so — they've taken the basic team-building idea and run with it in so many directions that not even a 'copter piloted by The A-Team's "Howling Mad" Murdock could track them all down. If we weren't busy building a tank out of a water cooler and some stuff we found in the stationery closet, we'd provide a comprehensive list. Instead, here are the 10 most-memorable team-ups.
See Top 10 "Rally Your Forces" Movies >> Posted 06.10.10 by reelz