3:10 To Yuma

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In 1967 A Fistful of Dollars was released and the western film genre changed significantly. Although the John Wayne western continued to be made, the fall of the mythological cowboy and the rise of the anti-hero gunslinger had begun, and each successive spaghetti western was just another nail in the coffin. Films like the Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid eventually buried the western at Boot Hill.

During the 50’s there were seventy westerns released, twenty-four in 1957 alone. I mention this because one of the first westerns released in ‘57 was 3:10 To Yuma, staring Glenn Ford as psychotic gunslinger, Ben Wade and Van Heflin as down-on- his-luck rancher, Dan Evans. Fifty years later the remake of 3:10 To Yuma has been released and the old fashion western is back in town. Over the past three decades there have been few exceptional westerns produced. Unforgiven, Dances With Wolves, Tombstone and possibly Open Range are standouts in the fading genre. 3:10 To Yuma deserves a place alongside these notables.

Russell Crowe as Ben Wade and Christian Bale as Dan Evens provide counterbalance roles as two tough men with opposing goals, locked in a head-on struggle. Evens has to have $200 to save his ranch, the love of his wife and the respect of his oldest son. After robbing a stage where he oversees the killing of the guards by his gang, Wade is captured by the sheriff and is to be transported to Contention City, the closest town with a rail connection to the federal prison in Yuma. The catch is that Wades gang of killers is returning to save him and there isn’t more than a handful of men brave enough or desperate enough take the $200 offered as payment to escort the outlaw to Contention. Dan Evens is both.

After reaching Contention City, Dan, his son William, and stage owner Grayson Butterfield (Dallas Roberts) are the only escorts left alive, the gang has just ridden into town, and the train is running late. As in all westerns the showdown between the good guy and the bad guy is reserved for the end and that detail isn’t changed here. Like the original, while traveling these two very different men have learned something about each other and one of them has changed. Unlike the original only one of these men will survive the final gunfight.

300

300 * * * *

300 ain’t Mary Poppins, but it’s not 300 either. What it is, is a film that recreates history as wild comic book adventure framed and presented as myth and nothing more. Over the past few years there have been several attempts to revive the“sword and sandal” genre film. The most successful of these was Gladiator, the worst being Oliver Stone’s Alexander, with Troy being somewhere in the middle.What really bugs me about the notable failures above is their attempt to impress us with the Hollywood notion of what history is all about. Troy came off like a smart weekend romp, where a lot of irate Greeks jumped in their boats sped off to Troy and did a kind of drive by on the poor Trojans. The facts of the matter are that the Greeks spent months searching for Troy, picked out the wrong city, beat the hell out of the occupants there, then with a shoulder shrugging “sorry,” they went back home without Helen. Eventually, they learned the whereabouts of Troy, jumped in their nifty little ships again, sped-off and attacked the real McCoy Troy. Only this time they spent nine years in front of the dominating walls of the city before it fell. Now I ask you, is there anything wrong with that story? It mixes a little Monty Python with Master and Commander and as verifiable history it’s kind of fun.

Zack Snyder, writer/director, has taken Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300 and created a sensory experience unlike anything prior, including Miller’s Sin City. This is a fantastical recreation of history where the film rolls by sponged and streaked with red, filled with skewering spears and flying body parts, but always with a sense of itself and it’s mission: to reintroduce the legend. The overall affect is as near to a Baroque painting as film can be. In one scene near the end, Gerard Butler (the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera) as Spartan King Leonidas, lay dying among his troops. The screen is filled with the bodies of dead Spartans, Leonidas in the center, poses, eyes open, arms spread out like Christ, the symbol of what Spartans gave in whole measure for their fellow Greeks.

Historically there wasn’t much of a B story, so the writers came up with one that does attempt to march along with real account. In the complicated world of the Greek city states much was considered sacred and one did not mess with the gods. It is true that spiritual politics kept most of Greece from taking up arms against the Persian invaders. So in 300 a roll was provided for the exceptional Lena Heady (Queen Gorgo) as wife of the brave King. While Leonidas marches away with only his honor guard of 300 men to battle what Greeks reported as an army of two million, Queen Gorgo attempts to persuade the Spartan council to send the entire army, nearly ten thousand. Of course her movie attempt fails and as history reveals, after three days of battle, the Persians overwhelmed the Spartans, killing them to the last man. Oh, except the two Spartans that were sent away on important missions … but 298 doesn’t sound as good.

The film is filled with inaccuracies like many historical films made today, but its aim is not accuracy. If you like comic book movies, if Victor Mature and Steve Reeves were your favorite Saturday afternoon movie matinee stars, if you have a copy of Jason and the Argonauts in your film collection and you like all these myths and legends just the way they are, then you’ll want to see 300.

Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeny Todd

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Todd opens abrupt -- the prow of it‘s sinister intention moving forward without apology to Oscar or Hammerstein. Your eyes are barely adjusting to the dimming of the lights when you find yourself confronted by the strains of the opening song; a gloomy piece as dark as the ship carrying the Demon Barber of Fleet Street toward his bitter aspirations.

In the roll of Sweeny Todd, Burton’s primary instrument Johnny Depp finds a macabre body to inhabit; the merciless shell of a man whose only dimension is measured by revenge. Right from the beginning there is the sense that Todd has traveled a inestimable road, each step of it pierced with anguish over the loss of his once brilliant life at the hands of Judge Turpin a corrupt judicial official, played by the ever evil Alan Rickman. Like Alexandre Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo, Todd’s transformation from caring human to vengeful demon hides his identity from everyone except Helena Bohnime Carter as Mrs. Lovett. When Todd returns to the flat where he and his beautiful wife resided some fifteen years earlier, Mrs. Lovett discovers Todd’s true identity and offers herself as willing collaborator in Todd’s plan to murder Judge Turpin; source of Todd’s anguish.

There are few light moments in this story with one being a barber showdown, where Todd out-shaves a rival barber and comes to the notice of the judges henchman, Beadle Bamford (by the brilliant Timothy Spall). The plan to is lure Judge Turpin into Sweeny’s barber chair where Turpin’s throat can be neatly unzipped from the outside with the quick, mean steel of Todd’s razor. What transpires is that Todd is nearly identified by the rival barber. Todd remedies this near fatal slip by dispatching his opponent to barber hereafter. From that moment the film becomes a gore fest of the demon’s revenge on society, in particular the privileged men of power. The bodies are unceremoniously dumped down a chute, into the basement of the building where Mrs. Lovett turns the fresh protein into the most lovely meat pies in all of London.

There are no vast choral pieces here. No vibrant melodies to lighten your mood; nothing to take you beyond where Tim Burton wishes you to go. But what is here is the tale of evil meeting evil on it’s own terms. To do this without wavering with guilt or remorse for not presenting even the smallest splinter of light or hope or belief that some good will come from this story takes courage and the ability to understand completely the nature of the Demon Barber. Burton does his part as well as he ever has and Depp, Carter and Rickman are as good or better as any of them have ever been. The rest of the cast shines in the bleak drama and even the small love interest of Todd’s coveted daughter and a young man do nothing to buff up the shades of gray. There is only one thing that brightens the films dark roll; the crimson of spurting, spraying, pooling blood.

My Recommendations:

* If your favorite composer is Mendelssohn - Go back to sleep

** If your favorite composer is Willie Nelson - First set your alarm for “Next Lifetime,” then, when the alarm sounds, wake up, and rent the film.

*** If your favorite composer is Glenn Miller - Well, it ain’t nothing like The Big One. Rent it when you want to see what listening to Miller has led to.

**** If your favorite composer is Andrew Lloyd Webber - Rent it anytime after lots of champagne and a very bad date.

***** If your favorite composer is anyone from the Beatles on - This is a good bet for an afternoon-skipping work-missing go-to-the-movies jaunt.

****** If your favorite composer is anyone within the past decade - This is prime film for late night. Higher prices, but just the hits from being seen out at night, paying big bucks for a great film, will be worth every penny.

marc