Tag: Westerns

Little Woods: Poverty During Boom Times

Picture of Lily James and Tessa Thompson in the film Little Woods

Little Woods

Directed by Ni DaCosta
Written by Ni DaCosta

The review:

A quality dramatic film with about the life of a person facing economic challenges is always a win in my book, which makes this film a winner.* In this “modern Western**” Tessa Thompson and Lily James play sisters who are doing what they can to hold onto their family home and vanquish other complications. For both actors, it’s a chance to be not glamorous while flexing their serious drama skills so we can see their characters’ fight for survival,*** set in the North Dakota oil boom.****

The verdict: Good

Cost: $12.99 (monthly Disney+ and Hulu combo fee)
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*They’re difficult to make. Poverty is grinding and it’s harder to wring dramatic tension out of a story about ends continually not meeting than one where, say, a meteor is going to hit earth, or a ship is sinking.
**The synopsis on IMDB calls it a modern Western. I’m not sure I agree with the term.
***In the grand tradition of always questioning poor people’s choices, I found myself wondering why they didn’t rent out some rooms in the house. I think maybe the mother had just died though, so perhaps that was hampering the process.
****I enjoyed seeing this particular slice of life, which I had only read about.

Questions:

  • What past events do you think have shaped the relationship between the two sisters?
  • Breaking the law? Necessary or avoidable in this instance?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The story was initially conceived as a modern retelling of Othello, which is where the names Deb and Ollie/Oleander come from.

Other reviews of Little Woods:

Text: Your choices are only as good as your options are. —Little Woods. Read the three sentence movie review. 3SMReviews.com

Shane: Manly but Not Toxic

The review:

George Stevens’ Shane is a manly Western, but not toxically so, and includes an interesting performance by Alan Ladd* and a terrible performance by Brandon De Wilde.** The farmer/cowman stakes are high in this film, and the movie is interesting, though not overly tense or gripping. There’s also a fight scene that had me marveling at how much fight scenes have changed in the last 60 years.***

The verdict: Good

Cost: free from the Multnomah County Library
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*Much like my view of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, Alan Ladd’s small frame (compared to today’s standards) and placid demeanor struck me as somewhat feminine in presentation. Somewhere in this phenomenon lies an interesting commentary about moving toward a society with gender equality and seeing men’s muscle mass increase, and women’s body size decrease.
**Good lord, if only they had cast a kid who could act! I spent the entire movie wondering where all the good child actors were hanging out in the 1950s, because I don’t see many quality performances from the under-10 set. Also, there seemed to be an industry-wide acceptance of terrible child acting because Brandon De Wilde was nominated for an Oscar for this performance.
***There was a lot of circling before the actual fighting got underway. It eventually got to some big fight action, but it took its time getting there. Also, the foley artists got completely carried away with the sounds of breaking glass, though they did a great job with the men grunting.

Questions:

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Having witnessed, during his World War II service, the profound effects a bullet could have on a man, realism was important to George Stevens during the making of the film. This therefore is one of the first movies to use stunt wires to pull the actors or stuntmen backwards to simulate when they’ve been shot.

Hostiles Does Go On

The review:

Scott Cooper’s Hostiles is full of good acting and is so very long it seemed as if a presidential administration had passed by the time I got to the last frame of the movie.* This was an interesting study of a quasi-kumbaya journey wherein an Army Captain comes to a deeper understanding of the treatment of American Indians and his part in it. I’m all for re-examining the many effects Westward Expansion/genocide had on the people who were already here, but I found this story to be mostly unbelievable.**

The verdict: Skip

Cost: Netflix subscription ($8.99/month)
Where watched: at home

Consider watching instead:

Further sentences:

*Good acting is good and all, but when the story is dragging its feet, good acting isn’t enough.
**Plus, it’s another Native American story told via the white people’s experience. Plus the body count was very high, and guess who made it to the final frame and guess who ended up dead? Plus, I didn’t believe the final arrangement of people. Not gonna work. Pretending so overlooks a lot of history.

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The book Captain Blocker (Christian Bale) is reading at the beginning of the movie is Julius Caesar’s Commentarii De Bello Gallico (The Gallic War) in the original Latin. The page shown is from Book V, describing the social and economic structure of first century B.C. ancient Kent. In 55 B.C., Caesar invaded briefly the south of the England.
(Thanks, IMDB commenter who can read Latin)

3SMReviews: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

3SMReviews: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Tom Waits is Prospector in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a film by Joel and Ethan Coen.

I was calibrated to the wrong type of Coen Brothers film when I sat down to watch The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.* What I found were six pretty good stories firmly set in the business-as-usual Wild West.** It had the usual Coen touches,*** but I found the short story format overall to be a little draggy.

Verdict: Good

Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($7.99)
Where watched: at home, with a lot of scenes viewed through my fingers

*I was thinking this was more of an O Brother Where Art Thou?/Hail, Caesar!/Intolerable Cruelty. Fun and peppy. But it was more of a No Country for Old Men. Bloody and sad.
**You know, white men wander about doing their thing, Indians attack, women are minor characters. There’s no new ground being broken on this front.
***Visually memorable, great acting via facial expression, some odd turns.

3SMR: The Sisters Brothers

3SMR: The Sisters Brothers

While The Sisters Brothers is a good addition to the Western genre, it didn’t dazzle me on many fronts. The acting was good, with John C. Reilly being the standout.*  This is not a movie for people uncomfortable with animals—horses mostly—in peril. 

Cost: $9.00 or some such nonsense, though free for me because I’m still drawing down that sweet, sweet gift card.
Where watched: Regal Fox Tower

*I’d love to see an Oscar nomination for him because he aptly captured his distaste for the outlaw lifestyle and his deep love of his brother.