65th Obsequious Banter Thread: Where everyone gets a passing grade

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The Rage Kage

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Apr 21, 2014
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I think the only 80's western I've seen is Young Guns. We're in the spirit world, *******!

I have the Dollars trilogy and The Magnificent Seven on disk so it's not like I'm completely out of the loop on the genre, although I was a late starter.
Seven Samurai > Magnificent Seven.

As far as modern westerns go Hell or High Water is one of my favourites.
 
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Amorgus

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Silverado is a great '80's western.
Also I would not classify some of the movies listed by other as "westerns" per se. Most have the classic tropes of a western (Hell...Star Wars has some as well), but in my mind a western is a movie that takes place in the period of the so-called "old west"
Just my humble opinion. YMMV
I put in a Google search for 80s westerns and one of the results was Near Dark, which most definitely doesn't take place in the Old West.
 
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Captain Dave Poulin

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the song>the movie

giphy.gif
 
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Amorgus

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Seven Samurai > Magnificent Seven.

As far as modern westerns go Hell or High Water is one of my favourites.
I really need to see Seven Samurai again because I only saw it once but I thought it was fantastic. Need to brush up on my Kurosawa. I did watch Ran years ago but don't remember much about it except it was epically long and had a very deliberate use of color.
 
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WestrnPhlyr

Go away or I shall taunt you a second time.
Jul 17, 2015
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OH good shout. It also had "North and South," which was a Civil War piece until the third book/part. I liked those books (and shows) a lot at the time.
I was (and still am to a point) a Civil War wonk as a teenager and I loved the first two installments of North & South. You're absolutely correct though, the whole Book III thing is a steaming pile.

Actually, the "Lone Ranger" movie from around 1981 was really good too, way better than you would expect. I haven't watched it probably since the 80s though, so I don't know if it holds up at all.
I also loved this movie as a kid. I have seen it, probably sometime in the last 5 years or so. It may not have as much magic as it did when I was 10 or 11, it's still a damn entertaining movie. Christopher Lloyd played a great asshole as Butch Cavendish in that movie if I'm not mistaken. It also is still miles better than that crap movie with Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer.
 

Captain Dave Poulin

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I also loved this movie as a kid. I have seen it, probably sometime in the last 5 years or so. It may not have as much magic as it did when I was 10 or 11, it's still a damn entertaining movie. Christopher Lloyd played a great ******* as Butch Cavendish in that movie if I'm not mistaken. It also is still miles better than that crap movie with Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer.

That recent one is as bad a movie as you will ever see.
 

Captain Dave Poulin

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BTW, anyone who didn't watch the first season of "Counterpart" should find it and watch it ASAP - 2nd season starting Sunday. I am probably going to have to wait and binge it later.
Great, great show.
 

Beef Invictus

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Dec 21, 2009
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90s had Unforgiven, Back to the Future III, Tombstone, Dances with Wolves, Thunderheart, etc. I think most decades have their share of great westerns, but it’s indeed a dying genre that tends to spit out movies in random intervals. The early 90s were where all the great ones occurred that decade, I reckon.

Then mid-late 00s snuck some masterpieces and good ones in: There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, The Proposition, 3:10 to Yuma, Deadwood (TV), Assassination of Jesse James, True Grit, Brokeback. A lot of dark, revisionist ones. Probably the best period since the peak 50-70s. Obviously, Tarantino twice gave it a go this decade. They don’t feel quite so clumped this decade though. Hell and High Water is one that comes out mind that’s recent. I somehow haven’t seen The Revenant but that too from what I gather.

I feel like it can be universally agreed that the 80s was THE worst decade for westerns. What do we have? Silverado.....and uhhh?


Don't forget Cowboys vs Aliens or whatever the f***
 
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Magua

Doer of Hoffific Things
Apr 25, 2016
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If the bolded is your threshold, you can probably throw the mid 80s Eastwood version of Shane whose name I can never remember in there.

When I started listing 90s westerns, I realized there weren't actually that many worthwhile ones and went searching my brain for anything else. It was a desperation heave. :laugh:

While I admit that was rather out of place with some others I mentioned, I have a major soft spot for that entire trilogy and have seen Part III alone probably 15 times. It's a very entertaining western. It's a bit of a cheat, as it's a sci-fi western and no standalone movie and heavily built on previous character build-up, but it's still a blast. And westerns, of all genres, are especially rooted in the endearingly low brow -- excitement for the masses. No snootiness allowed 'round these parts.

Also I would not classify some of the movies listed by other as "westerns" per se. Most have the classic tropes of a western (Hell...Star Wars has some as well), but in my mind a western is a movie that takes place in the period of the so-called "old west"

See, I would just refer to that as a "classical western," maybe add that word "American" in there. A sub-genre of the "western." Because there are so many movies about and from so many different cultures and time periods (even worlds) that don't take place in the Old American West, yet are unified by a tight identity. Italy......Japan.....etc. It feels criminal to not label Kurosawa movies, like The Seven Samurai or Yojimbo, westerns (Yojimbo was essentially remade as Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, starring Clint Eastwood).

I agree that the tropes of a western are permeated through our entertainment culture. But I don't think of Star Wars as a western; it's almost more an epic swords and sandals descendant. It just borrows a few things; mostly in the form of Han Solo and Tatooine. But it's hard to not find odes to the genre in most works.

And when you think about it, westerns are just descendants of medieval knights and whatnot. They didn't invent or monopolize violent morality tales; they just gave it their own dirty, frontier, low down, gun slinging spin. Those modern movies I listed I would call just that: "modern westerns." Those stories and landscapes -- think No Country or Hell or High Water -- could almost be transplanted in their entirety to the 19th century old west, though they'd lose something of course.
 

Amorgus

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Sep 22, 2017
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I stumbled upon a list of cult films on Wikipedia and spent my break checking off all the ones I've seen in their entirety. There's a lot of popular movies on it like The Dark Knight but I guess Heath Ledger's performance has given it a cultish enough following to be on there. Regardless I checked off about 433 movies and I probably own 70% of them. I wondered how many movies I own and it has to be at least 500 according to this list!

I added the Critters and Wishmaster collections to this year's Christmas/birthday list so that could be eight more. :naughty:
 
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