Friday, June 27, 2014

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Movie Review: A Million Ways to Die in the West

In the follow up to his directorial debut with Ted, Seth Macfarlane travels westward in order to upend the former Hollywood tradition of glorifying old frontiersmen with decades of films centered around cowboys and gunslingers, sheriffs and bandits. It was once believed there was a nobility to the rugged individualism of Cowboy life; living off the land, working hard, a statement about social and economic hierarchy in the position of labor against their capitalist employers/barons, etc. It was also cheap to make movies out of them. The most notable were the westerns that came out of Italy, so named "Spaghetti Westerns". Hundreds were made in the span of two decades, of which the ones that come out on top were directed by Sergio Leone and starred Clint Eastwood. They generally follow an understood path. A law bringer comes to a lawless territory and cleans up, be the criminals bandits, killers, or Native Americans. Lessons about honor and loyalty are had at the expense of innocents caught in the crossfire.