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3 items from 2012

25 March 2012 6:57 PM, PDT | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »

The Western was a movie staple for decades. It seemed the genre that would never die, feeding the fantasies of one generation after another of young boys who galloped around their backyards, playgrounds, and brick streets on broomsticks, banging away with their Mattel cap pistols. Something about a man on a horse set against the boundless wastes of Monument Valley, the crackle of saddle leather, two men facing off in a dusty street under the noon sun connected with the free spirit in every kid.

The American movie – a celluloid telling that was more than a skit – was born in a Western: Edwin S. Porter’s 11- minute The Great Train Robbery (1903). Thereafter, Westerns grew longer, they grew more complex. The West – hostile, endless, civilization barely maintaining a toehold against the elements, hostile natives, and robber barons – proved an infinitely plastic setting. In a place with no law, and where »

- Bill Mesce

28 January 2012 7:31 AM, PST | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »

“When we speak of 'seriousness' in fiction ultimately we are talking about an attitude toward death.”

This quote—which comes from Thomas Pynchon’s introduction to his collection of early stories, Slow Learner—was brought to my attention by Ben Sachs. Though, broadly applied, Pynchon’s thesis is debatable, it goes a long way toward explaining what makes The Grey—a Liam Neeson vs. wolves movie from the guy who did Smokin’ Aces and The A-Team—one of the most serious and, in many ways, most accomplished movies to come out of Hollywood (or whatever we’re calling the fractured American studio system nowadays) in a while. It’s “an attitude toward death” that shapes every part of The Grey—from the pacing and structure to the restricted color palette, which often casts characters as wispy figures against a blinding blank whiteness—and that attitude is unsentimental, harsh, and, above all, »

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20 January 2012 1:33 AM, PST | Obsessed with Film | See recent Obsessed with Film news »

It’s likely you’ve heard-of but never seen this early seventies road movie, which features nameless wanderers in a nominal cross-country race. It follows closely the tracks laid down a couple of years earlier by Easy Rider. But this is a more cerebral film than Hopper’s ramshackle classic, and less dated. The years when we couldn’t see Two-Lane Blacktop have been kind to it and now we can, we really should! Two-Lane Blacktop is available on Blu-Ray from January 23rd.

So, why was it unavailable for so long? Blame the lawyers! When films are made, pieces of music used on the soundtrack are licensed for that use but, back in the days before home video, these rights did not include ‘any other medium not invented yet’. So, if a film is to be released on DVD or Blu-Ray, the music has to be licensed all over again. »

- John Ashbrook

3 items from 2012