For Your Eyes Only

For Your Eyes Only is maybe the best of the Roger Moore 007 films, and certainly has the best opening sequence of any Moore effort.

Of course, that's not saying a lot, as most of Moore's Bond films are ridiculous, but at least I don't have to sit through Moonraker yet.

I remember watching this one on ABC when I was maybe 12.  I was never able to stay up to see how the Bond films turned out — past my bedtime, of course — but I was always able to watch the openings.

For Your Eyes Only opens with Bond placing flowers at his deceased wife's grave, which is a throwback to On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  That's not the only thematic similarity.  For Your Eyes Only explores themes of revenge and gets the playboy-esque Bond back to more of the nitty-gritty realism, sort of.

A helicopter arrives to pick Bond up; this turns out to be a classic Blofeld attempt to kill Bond via remote-control.  Of course!  This sequence is both ridiculous and awesome at the same time, and sets up one of the best death scenes for any Bond villain.  In short order, Bond simply commandeers the helicopter, scoops up Blofeld's wheelchair with one of the landing struts, and drops Blofeld down an industrial smokestack.  I don't think Dad had seen the film before; he laughed hard.

Also, this film is the one with the guy who throws the motorcycle, and the other guy who eats the pistachios, and there are Greek people, and Q. disguises himself as a priest for some reason.

All the requisite Bond stuff is here: fast cars, exotic locations, car chases, gadgets, etc.  Julian Glover shows up here —you might know him as General Veers from The Empire Strikes Back, or as Walter Donovan from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  Carole Bouquet plays Melina, the requisite Bond girl.  Her hair is impractically long.

That's pretty much where I start drifting in and out.  There are some chase sequences, some on skis, some with dune buggies, and even the obligatory underwater fight scene that is not really that exciting.  Bond drives a Lotus throughout the film, beds a few women, kills a few men, climbs a mountain, goes off a ski jump, rolls a car and keeps driving.  If I didn't already know the drill, this might be more exciting.

Of course, this one is still good for light entertainment — but only just.  In fact, even Moonraker makes for some goofy entertainment on a Sunday afternoon or evening, provided one does not expect much.

But I'm not in the habit of owning films like that.  Why own this one at all?  The Bond films are a source of great internal strife inside the author.

In short, as an obsessive-completist, I tried to outsmart myself by first establishing a "no double-dipping" rule for myself as related to Blu-Ray upgrades from DVD, and then I purchased the 007 Ultimate Editions on DVD in order to keep from buying Roger Moore films on Blu-Ray.

Thus far, I have prevailed over myself, only having bought all of the Connery and Craig 007 films on Blu-Ray.  So like 1/4 of the series.  Look, I can't explain everything.  This all makes sense in my head, and I'd advise you not to contemplate.  Just keep reading and hush, like you do when you visit TMZ, and this will all go much more smoothly.

For A Few Dollars More

Of Sergio Leone's "Man With No Name" trilogy, I've seen For A Few Dollars More the fewest times.  Many argue that of all of Leone's westerns, this film is his finest.  I'm not so sure.

I've always preferred the rough-hewn style of A Fistful of Dollars, and the slick, refined cinematography in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  That's not to say this film is bad, or doesn't deserve a spot right in the middle.  I just rarely take this one out.

Actually, having taken another look, there's a lot to love here.  Lee Van Cleef is a total badass in this film, a sharpshooting bounty hunter with a saddlebag that unravels to reveal multiple rifles, and he frequently steals scenes from Clint Eastwood.  Van Cleef is not here as some kind of cold blooded killer, like his character "Angel Eyes" in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, though.  His intentions and true identity are revealed later in the film.

Lee Van Cleef was maybe the first character actor whose name I learned, simply because he seemed to show up in the B-grade action movies, such as Armed Response, which my dad rented when I was growing up.  In 1986, Van Cleef would've been more than 60, and even when I was much younger, I couldn't feel much excitement for an old, balding man running around with a gun — not exactly much of an action star.  But in Leone's films, Van Cleef owns the screen.  I always thought he looked like a vulture.

As for Eastwood, this film is a return to the poncho-wearing, gunslinging character he played in A Fistful of Dollars.  What's interesting here is how much Eastwood's look reminds me of my dad and uncles, many of whom grew beards and swept their hair back in a similar style to Eastwood's character (and many of whom kept their look that way, to this day).  I don't know, maybe this was the style of the times — virtually everybody had a beard.  Whatever the case, I can't see Eastwood in these films and not think of my dad and uncles.

For A Few Dollars More was one of the first westerns — if not, then one of the best— to put a spin on the idea of a bank robbery.  Most westerns depicted bank robbers as thugs showing up on horses, running inside, and taking all the money from the safe.  In this film, the villains steal the entire safe.

I'm still not convinced For A Few Dollars More is superior to the other two films in the trilogy.  In fact, sometimes I prefer Leone's Once Upon A Time in the West over anything with Eastwood.  I will say that one of Leone's funniest and most badass moments is in this film, when Van Cleef's character strikes a match — on Klaus Kinski's hunchback.  Leone sometimes used the old match-striking bit to great humorous effect, but I haven't seen one funnier than this one.

I guess that's another reason why I generally like Leone's westerns — even the ones I don't consider favorites.  He lets some humor happen.  Yeah, the writing is excellent and the violence is far ahead of most American films of the same period, but Leone also brings the funny, and is so comfortable with "badass moments."  In this way, Leone connects quite neatly to Quentin Tarantino's style.

Really, all Tarantino needs to do is make a true western.   Oh, look.

Following

Before Inception, before The Dark Knight and Batman Begins, before The Prestige, before Insomnia, and before Memento, Christopher Nolan made a little, 71-minute feature film called Following.

I bought Following on DVD this summer.  I was in Half Price Books, as is my custom on weekends when I get antsy, and I saw they had shelved this DVD among the out-of-print/hard to find titles.  I didn't know Following had gone out of print, nor did I know the film had gotten scarce.  Sold!

I came home and price-checked the DVD online.  I paid a few dollars too much.  Ah well.

I've mentioned previously that my DVD buying has all but stopped as I migrate to Blu-Ray and get more conservative with my shiny disc collecting.  But that's not the only reason for the near-cessation.

After 10 months of this project, I'm still on "F."

At this rate, I'll get through the alphabet sometime around 2014.  That's troubling in a way, and comforting in another.  At least I have a goal.  I often feel as if I don't.

I still buy the odd DVD here and there, usually when I realize there's a specific film missing from my collection and not available on Blu-Ray (yet).  Following deserved a place on my shelf.  The completist in me rides again.  I have all of Nolan's films on DVD now.

Nolan shot Following guerrilla style, with virtually no budget, no permission, and not much in the way of equipment.  Although the results are not perfect, what Nolan manages to accomplish is admirable.  He gets these quick shots on the streets of London with no permits and gets great takes in public without people blowing his shots.  He used available light as often as possible, recruited friends and family for roles, and ended up making one of the more critically acclaimed independent films of the 1990s.

A lot went right, in other words.

"Everyone has a box," Cobb says to the inexperienced Bill as they rifle through a stranger's home.  He finds that box — you know the one, with the mementos, photos, love notes, trinkets, souvenirs, all detritus of a life, all kept in a shoebox or a hope chest.  This is the flotsam of our past, evidence of what we've done, where we've gone, and maybe where we're going.  Our homes are places where we store our belongings, and they are the evidence of what we have accomplished to date.  If someone broke in and stole our stuff, would we have evidence of our progress?  Would we have anything to show for all those years of working?  Does the acquisition of "stuff" serve as an adequate substitute for the creation of art?

I ask myself that question all the time.  Every weekend, I get antsy.  On payday, the feeling is worse.  I'm compelled to go out, to collect, to acquire, and then never enjoy what I bring home.  Piles and piles of books to go along with shelves and shelves of shiny discs.  I started this blog to force myself to stop and to give myself a project.  I want more.  I should be writing.  I want more.

I've known many people over the years who've had dreams of making a full-length film or writing a novel or screenplay.  Most of those people were just talking — idle chatter no different from the offhand comment about how they'd like to go to Paris someday, or how they'd like to own a Jaguar.

I bring this up as a contrast to what filmmakers such as Nolan, Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, and Richard Linklater were able to accomplish before turning 30.  All of them took that initial leap of making a full-length picture.  They didn't shoot on 35mm film.  Most of them shot on 16mm stock or Super 8.

All four made a critically acclaimed film with little money and went on to successful filmmaking careers.  They found ways to cut corners and make their vision into a real film.  They got antsy in all the right ways.  They got off their asses and stopped talking and started doing.

I'm happy doing what I do and living this life, but I'd be lying if I said there was nothing missing.  I have these moments when I stop and consider how much I've done with myself by age 35, and I have bouts of self-loathing and general dissatisfaction.  Acquisition does not provide long-term satisfaction.  Thoreau's bit about leading a life of quiet desperation comes to mind, but I don't want this to devolve into some whiny, navel-gazing mess.  (Too late.)

Films like Following remind me that one can get up at any time and make a start.  Whether I will is another prospect entirely.

Fletch/Fletch Lives

"I don't shower much."

I've previously written about Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase's influence on my behavior, but no Chevy Chase role had a greater influence on me, my sense of humor, or my general level of smartassery than Fletch.

"Fletch" is short for Fletcher.  That's Irwin M. Fletcher, or Fletch F. Fletch, or Jane Doe, or Don Corleone, or Harry S. Truman, or John Cocktoastin (my favorite), or Dr. Rosenrosen, or Victor Hugo, or Hank Himmler, or Nostradamus, or Claude-Henry Smmoot.  Fletch has many names.

He's a reporter for a Los Angeles newspaper, but he always seems to find much more than average news stories. He goes through disguises and aliases with cartoonish frequency, but his dialogue is some of the funniest I've ever heard, and what makes me watch again and again.

"This house is obviously infested with Reticulermes mariocuomos."

Sure, Chase's other films — Spies Like Us, Funny Farm, and Caddyshack to name a few — feature plenty of lines I rattle off in everyday conversation, but the Fletch films provided the heaviest helpings of Chevy's smartass comments, outright bullshit, and physical comedy.

Adult males of a certain age and disposition (typically in the Gen-X/Gen-Y range, and with a penchant for annoying nearby women) all seem to love — and quote — the Fletch films.  Maybe that's the Gen-X/Y tendency toward irony with a dash of condescension, or maybe that's just the XY.

Probably both.

I've often heard of Fletch described as "the one where the guy hires him to kill him" and Fletch Lives as "the one where he goes to the south."  The plots, if you call them plots, are half-baked and convoluted, but who cares when you have this great vehicle for Chevy Chase?

"What can I do to y--for you?"

I taped Fletch Lives one random day in the '80s, and I watched that glorious VHS tape until I had the entire film memorized.  This means I've probably seen the 1989 sequel a few dozen times more than the first film.

In a few cases, I watched Fletch Lives with my parents.  There weren't many films that would stand up to repeated viewings at the King Ranch.  Even the Blu-Ray.com reviewer gets nostalgic about watching this film with his dad.  I'm not the only one who gets a little misty.

In high school, I wrote a radio play that was hopelessly derivative of the Fletch films and whatever other films were influencing me at the time, and by "hopelessly derivative" I mean that I miraculously avoided accusations of plagiarism because my high school teachers were either too busy to care or too uncool to notice.  I'm not proud.

"I would've used your razor, but it looks like you've been doing some gardening with it."

Fletch Lives also seems edited with a greater sense of comic timing.  What I mean is that for the first half hour or so, this film is just riddled with great-line-then-cut editing.  The jokes come quickly, even as the Klan show up to torment Cleavon Little's character.  This is where Chevy Chase really shines.

Of all his great lines and funny moments, for me the quintessential Fletch moment is when Chevy Chase picks up the Klansman's bullhorn and says, "Zulu!  Zulu!  [nonsense]  Gene Hackman kick your ass!  [nonsense]  You want to pay you have to buy!"  I've probably rewound and re-watched that bit dozens of times, trying to get exactly what Fletch says there.  The above comes from the DVD subtitles, with my best guess there at the end.

"When it comes to stewed prunes, are three enough?  Are four too many?"

Fletch Lives is my favorite of the two films, even though most people prefer the first film.  For me, the sequel has better one-liners, a better cast (Hal Holbrook, Randall "Tex" Cobb, R. Lee Ermey, Cleavon Little, Phil Hartman, and Richard Belzer), and the writer, Leon Capetanos, makes the inspired choice of giving Fletch a fish-out-of-water story rather than basing this film on one of Gregory Mcdonald's mystery novels.

Curiously, Capetanos hasn't had a produced script since Fletch Lives, in 1989, but since then he's made a career out of real estate — not unexpected given the film's themes of estates, realtors, plantations, and whatnot.  Information on this writer is hard to find and sketchy at best.  As for Fletch films, there's been some chatter about a reboot, and the idea's been tossed around Hollywood like a hot potato covered in Belle Isle toxic waste.  So far, nothing.

I've often thought that Ryan Reynolds would make a perfect Fletch if a reboot ever happened, but Reynolds once called the role "hallowed ground" and said he would not go there.  "Hallowed ground" my Cocktoastin.  This is the same guy who basically channeled Chevy when playing Van Wilder.  I'm not the only one who noticed.  I don't understand the holdup.

I've spent more than 20 years watching and re-watching the Fletch films, popping off the lines of dialogue in mixed company, and hoping somebody would catch the reference.

Sometimes, somebody does, and it's at those points, I know I have a friend in smartassery.
As far as you know.

Five Easy Pieces

Every selfish, stunted male should watch Five Easy Pieces.

This film is sort of similar in themes to High Fidelity, but without the record shop, or like About A Boy, but without the new friends.  Five Easy Pieces has no happy ending and no great awakening, but the film works anyway, if only as a rumination on the angst of an aimless generation and a reminder to me to not be such a selfish asshole.

Jack Nicholson plays Robert Dupea, a classical pianist who for some reason has taken to a life of working on an oil field and shacking up with a waitress (and other random women).  He is a classic example of an underachiever, a man who has squandered his talent and found himself going nowhere.

Karen Black plays Rayette, Robert's girlfriend, a ditzy but sweet woman who loves him to pieces despite his faults.  She's going nowhere as well, but the difference is, she either doesn't know or doesn't care (maybe both).

Robert doesn't fit well with the blue collar folks he surrounds himself with, including Rayette and his oil rig buddy, Elton.  Robert is verbally abusive toward Rayette, and he can't stand Elton's little boy.  The idea of having children of his own is repugnant to Robert.  He seems to think his life has a greater purpose, but he doesn't know what.

And then he finds out from Elton that Rayette is pregnant.  And then he flips out a little.

He chews out Elton, then walks over to his foreman and quits his job.  Then he turns around to see two guys in suits chasing Elton down, beating him up, and cuffing him.  Turns out, Elton robbed a gas station a year previously and his past is just catching up to him.  Robert puts up a brief struggle, but once he realizes the men in suits are cops, he doesn't resist.  He watches Elton hauled away, and that's pretty much the end of their friendship.  Elton is not heard from for the rest of the film.

Robert runs from every challenge, gets annoyed at anything outside of his control, and reacts like a petulant child when he doesn't get what he wants.  There's a famous scene in a diner when Robert attempts to order breakfast his way, but the waitress won't allow substitutions.  Go here and scroll down to read a transcript.

Five Easy Pieces was one of my first rentals from Netflix in February 2003.  My initial thoughts about the film were colored because I was experiencing films in a slightly new way.  Renting a DVD but not getting the box seemed like a foreign concept.  I was more apt to rent films that my local Blockbuster didn't stock, so I was digging into catalog releases, older films, rarer films, and often, whatever Netflix recommended.  I was in a master's program in English at the time, so I was interested in character studies and quiet little films.  I was renting some strange films, and I was initially very disappointed in Netflix.

This film was among the disappointments.  My first impressions of Five Easy Pieces were not good.  I found the film ponderous and thin at the same time, just full of bitchy, unhappy, selfish people, led by Jack Nicholson.  Without likable characters, I was left wondering why I should even care about these people and why I was even watching.

Because of the apparent lack of a traditional plot, I was bored and a little frustrated.  Much of the film didn't make sense.  If Robert Dupea is supposed to be such a great classical pianist, why doesn't he play the piano?  What happened?  Why does he only play the piano when he's either clowning around or trying to seduce women?  What is the freaking point of this film?  There were few easy answers.

Something about the film nagged at me, though.  I had the feeling that I'd missed the point, that I'd need to look at this one again.  I kept the film in the back of my mind and eventually snagged a used copy on DVD, but hadn't re-watched until tonight.

I have thought about the film many times since 2003, though, and as I've thought, I've wondered about that nagging feeling.  What was this film saying, and why couldn't I pick that up the first time?

Part of the explanation lies in that this film is not designed to speak to Generation X, of which I'm a member.  Many of the nuances in this film were lost on me the first time, and I needed more context to really get what the filmmakers were saying.

So I started thinking about context.  What was going on in the world and in cinema at the time of this film's release?  This is a post-Woodstock, post-hippie-dream, early '70s disillusionment think piece and character study.  That really matters to one's understanding of this film.

Oh.

But that's not the only nagging bit.  In my efforts to understand the film, I had to understand Robert, and now that I'm a little older and in a different place in life, I do (I think).

My life is the reverse of Robert Dupea's.  I grew up in a blue collar home.  My family is unrefined by traditional standards.  This is not a slight to them, but just the way I was raised.  I battled against that for years.  I don't talk like them...most of the time.  I don't think like them...most of the time.

In a way, I rebelled and went the opposite direction of Robert.  He embraced a blue collar lifestyle.  I embraced a traditionally white collar profession and the "elite."  I frequently find myself trying to reconcile the differences between the two worlds.

I also used to be a selfish prick.  In my own search for identity, I dated around a lot and often found myself dating someone who was not at all what I wanted.  But I didn't want to be alone, either.  I found myself in situations that were so uncomfortable, I wanted to run (and a few times, I did).  I once stopped calling a girl because I found out she read Harry Potter books.  I'm not saying I was right.  I'm saying I was wrong.

But I never abandoned a pregnant woman at a gas station a la Robert Dupea.

With another viewing, I see and understand much more of the conflict within Robert.  So much of this film is understated that viewers accustomed to something more plot-driven or containing obvious character arcs will struggle here.  I did the first time.

This film takes place in the early 1970s, and Robert typifies the alienation and rebellion of adults around his age at that time, backing away from his upbringing because he feels he doesn't belong, and disenchanted with the world ahead — the world he created for himself.

"I move around a lot because things tend to get bad when I stay," Robert confesses to his catatonic father toward the end of the film, betraying his restlessness and alienation.  His whole life is one big existential crisis driven by his id.  He reacts to difficult situations with all the wisdom and maturity of a teenager, as though his evolution as a human being stopped when he stopped playing the piano early in life.

He plays the piano for his brother's girlfriend and moves her to tears, but feels nothing inside himself.  He confesses that he chose the easiest piece to play for her.  He doesn't get a charge out of much of anything.

I get the feeling he's looking for that charge, but every time he thinks he's found what he wants, he realizes that he's wrong...again...so he abandons it.  He abandons people and responsibility, and in the end, has nothing to show for his life.

"There isn't anybody gonna love you AND look after you as good as I do," Rayette says to Robert in the car as they drive away from his family home together, toward their future together.  He wants no part of that future.

Five Easy Pieces is not an easy film.  I despise Jack Nicholson's character and feel for those around him, who are so often hurt by his selfishness and immaturity.  Five Easy Pieces also is a funhouse mirror for a guy I used to be or could've been if I'd given in to my base desires, and as such, the film is a reminder of what not to do with my life.  Sometimes I need that.

A Fistful of Dynamite (a.k.a. Duck, You Sucker!)

I'll confess; I've never seen this film.  This one was long out of print and never available on DVD prior to 2007.  Even glorious VHS copies were dodgy, hard to find, and expensive.

My wife bought me the Sergio Leone Anthology a few years ago, thereby hooking me up with beautiful DVD transfers of Leone's classic westerns with Clint Eastwood.  I've owned Leone's "Man With No Name" trilogy twice before, on VHS and DVD, but those versions were no frills, dodgy looking, and sounded terrible.  

Here, MGM went back and restored those films, plus this one, adding a metric shitload of special features.  Plus, the completist in me loved the chance to get Leone's last western — this film — on DVD.

Unfortunately, like a couple dozen other films, I acquired a copy of A Fistful of Dynamite on DVD but never made time to watch.  Then again, that's why I'm here.

Originally titled Duck, You Sucker! upon initial U.S. release in 1971, this film has many names, including A Fistful of Dynamite (to take advantage of the notoriety of Leone's earlier film) and Once Upon A Time... The Revolution, which recalls another.  

Why not bundle Once Upon A Time in the West here, too, and make this a definitive Leone western collection?  The answer is pretty simple; that film belongs to another studio.  MGM had four out of five, and that'll work.

With so many titles, the placement of this film in alphabetical order is a little tricky.  I considered just going with the original Italian title, Giù la testa, but that seemed more pretentious than even I could abide.  In the end, I decided to watch this one under the film's alternate English title in an effort to get this one as close to the rest of the Leone set as possible.

This is a fantastic film; though far from Leone's best, this might be his most sensitive and cynical.  James Coburn plays an Irish explosives expert wandering Mexico, and Rod Steiger plays a bandit with a crew made up of his own illegitimate children from his relations with multiple women.  

Coburn's Irish accent isn't bad...for an American in an Italian western.  He had Irish roots, at least.  Steiger's Mexican bandit sounds an awful lot like Marlon Brando's Don Corleone in an angry mood, or maybe John Belushi doing an impression of Marlon Brando.  

Don't believe me?  Then how come when I search for Belushi doing Brando, I get Belushi doing Steiger?

Leone's only bad film is The Colossus of Rhodes — a colossal mess if you ask me — but even though all of his westerns are rock solid, this is probably the one that stumbles and meanders the most.  In an effort to set compelling characters against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, he creates a story that seemingly wanders from sequence to sequence.  Steiger is channeling a little of Eli Wallach's Tuco from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and Coburn's laid back schemer reminds me a little of both Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef's previous efforts, with a dash of Jason Robards or Charles Bronson.  Interestingly, Eastwood was offered Coburn's part but refused, saying the role was too similar to the other films, and Wallach eventually declined the role Steiger took.  

This could have been "Man With No Name" #4.

While serving as Leone's last western, this film also works as a bridge between Once Upon A Time in the West and Once Upon A Time in America.  If viewed as a trilogy, the viewer can see how Leone's view of western history plays out over the three epic films.  Like Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, here we see the influence of the industrial revolution on the American west, not just in how one traveled, but also how one fought.  Machine guns and automobiles appear throughout, mowing down the victims of circumstance, mowing down time.  Most Hollywood westerns keep things quaint, but both Leone and Peckinpah are right to examine other periods of the west — especially the end.

I love owning a copy of an artist's entire oeuvre, if only to give me more opportunities to use the word "oeuvre" correctly in a sentence.  Taken as a whole, an artist's body of work is a work itself, with logical starting and ending points and an evolution along the way.  I can see Leone's views about the American west reflected in his work, as well as his views on how Americans depicted their own history.

I love Leone's films because he seems to capture more about the American west than any American western director ever did, and he does so with dry humor and a keen eye.  In fact, I'd argue that most of the Italian western directors did a better job of celebrating the west than anyone out of Hollywood not named John Ford or Sam Peckinpah (and those guys had their missteps — Leone didn't).  I suppose one could argue for Clint Eastwood's own efforts as a filmmaker, but I can't watch his westerns and not see the influence of his work with Leone.  That leaves me with only David Milch, whose "Deadwood" redefined how modern audiences view the west (mostly with colorful language many say was heretofore unheard).  

Ah, but A Fistful of Dynamite has plenty of F-bombs — brave for a western released in 1971.

Before tonight, I'd never seen A Fistful of Dynamite.  At 157 minutes, this isn't something I'll return to often, but having seen the film now, the rest of Leone's work sits in a new context, and I can't stop thinking about this one.  I can barely stop writing.

A Fistful of Dollars

Shopping for my dad is always difficult.  What do you get a guy who never expresses an opinion one way or another about anything in your price range?

I mean, sure, I know he'd love a '57 Chevy, but you can't exactly get those at Target.

We only have so much money to work with, and we had even less when we were growing up.  One Christmas, Mom put in our heads that Dad liked Clint Eastwood westerns.

You know how when you have someone to shop for, and they're really difficult, you latch on to that one thing and that's all they ever get?  Well, you know how sometimes you're wrong, and you end up buying something over and over — something the person doesn't really want?

I got him a copy of High Plains Drifter, another classic Eastwood western, on glorious VHS.  To my knowledge, that VHS tape remains unopened.  We're talking at least a decade, still in the wrapper.

I never bought him another Clint Eastwood film.  This is not to say he didn't appreciate the gift; he just wasn't interested after all, and that's fair.  Maybe I need to try harder.

I've been trying ever since.

When I was growing up, westerns were always on television.  Usually, my granddad would keep John Wayne films on television when he wasn't watching football or "Hee Haw."  So when we'd visit, often we'd watch a movie on TV.

Dad enjoyed those John Wayne films as well, I think.  The Sons of Katie Elder, Rio Bravo, Big Jake, and True Grit were on from time to time.  This was a different time, when the Saturday or Sunday matinee film on television was a total crapshoot, so when a John Wayne film was on, you'd lucked out.

Of course, Dad never spent much time in the house on his days off.  He was always outside working in the yard or the garden, or on some project, or in the garage.  Or he'd be out trying to find a bargain at some auction or garage sale.

Sometimes, though, a random hot or rainy day would line up with a John Wayne film on television, and he'd stay in with us.  Those days were rare.

A Fistful of Dollars is the first of Sergio Leone's "Man With No Name Trilogy," in which Clint Eastwood plays the mysterious main character, usually a drifter, fast with a gun, highly intelligent, and darkly humored.

Whereas John Wayne is the archetypal protagonist in so many of his films, Clint Eastwood's work with Leone was as an antihero: terribly dark and much more violent.

Sure, John Wayne's films often explore dark themes, but I always feel like I'm watching a sanitized Hollywood western, and at any point a character will say, "Gee willikers!"

But that's me.

A few years ago, I lived with Dad for a summer.  I watched The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly that summer, mostly because I was unemployed and living with my dad, so I had nothing but time to watch old movies and write.  (I should've started this blog years ago.  I might be on letter G by now.)

One night, Dad and I got to talking about the "spaghetti westerns," because I'd picked up a great book on the topic.  With this conversation, I almost figured him out a little.  He said, "Those films are just too violent for my taste."

This is a man who, in 1986, took his 6-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 11 and 8, to see Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra at a drive-in double feature.

But I didn't press.  Maybe his tastes have changed in 25 years.

One thing is certain.  Dad's not a fan of foreign films, even if some of the characters speak English.  He always calls them "dubbers," because the dialogue doesn't match, and that's distracting.  Add to that, the voice actors are usually terrible, and that's even worse.

Subtitles?  Not an option.

I look past the bad looping of a Sergio Leone film, and I'm willing to watch a subtitled film.  Dad is different that way.  But he still watches movies.  I just have to keep trying.

Last Christmas, my sister and I pooled our money and bought Dad a Blu-Ray player.  He's had this astonishing 52" flat-panel television for two years, but he only watches over-the-air programming out in the country.  He had his DVD player connected via RCA cables.  He was satisfied.  I wasn't.

His first disc was not a Clint Eastwood film.  I got him The Searchers, and we watched some — not all — of that film on his 52" television, and what we watched was glorious.

I'm not sure if he's watched the film since, except to demo the picture quality to friends and relatives.

But at least he's demo-ing the picture quality.

This is a step in the right direction, but this hardly means I'm safe just getting him John Wayne films instead.  The solution isn't so simple.

All this leads me to a little realization.  Dad doesn't consume films in the same way I do.  For him, films are disposable entertainment that he doesn't have time to obsess over.  I blog and pick apart and navel-gaze and watch and re-watch stuff.  We're different.  As I get older, I'm more okay with that.

Dad's birthday is this week.  I have no idea what to get him.  Maybe I'll just get him Paint Your Wagon and see what happens.

The Fisher King

I used to do improv with this guy Dan, who used to sing "How About You?"  He sang a lot of showtunes, actually, because he was a musical theatre major.  Took me a while to make the connection to The Fisher King, though.  Dan's a fan of this film, methinks. I know I am.

The Fisher King might be Terry Gilliam's best film, in that, by far, this is his most coherent effort with the most compelling story.

Your usual Gilliam touches are here — he loves twisty plots and off-kilter camera techniques and medieval symbols and filthy locations and downtrodden, misfit people.  He also goes for the gut punch with characters who are so deeply flawed you wonder how they live with themselves, and then he makes them worse.

Gilliam's films are usually style-over-substance affairs, but not The Fisher King.  In this one, the narrative is as strong, if not stronger, than Gilliam's typical vision.

Jeff Bridges plays Jack Lucas, a shock jock on a New York radio station.  We see him hanging up on people, telling people off, and at one point, he tells a caller that all of the yuppies "need to be stopped."  The caller turns somber, ominously, and that's the end of the call.

Lucas' career is on the upswing.  He's going to read for a part in a terrible television show — one of those sitcoms with a catchphrase — and he has to rehearse the line, "Forgive me," until he is convinced that he has the line delivery down cold.  Then he turns on the news to find that the somber caller went crazy, took Lucas seriously, and shot up a restaurant, killing seven people.

Flash forward to three years later.  Lucas now works in a video store with his girlfriend, played by Mercedes Ruehl, who pretty much disappeared from any screen I've seen in 15 years.  The sitcom with the stupid catchphrase is now a milquetoast hit with American audiences, and Harry Shearer, not Lucas, got the part.  People on the street say "Forgive me!" to Lucas as he walks by.

At his lowest point, Jack is ready to kill himself when two thugs show up to try to set him on fire in one of those senseless set-a-bum-on-fire type killings.  But then Perry, played by Robin Williams, shows up out of nowhere to save him.

Perry gives Jack a place to recuperate, which is in Perry's makeshift home in a boiler room.  Before Jack can leave, Perry tells Jack that he knows where the Holy Grail is located.  Some rich man has the grail, Perry says, and he needs help stealing it.

Confused and alarmed, Jack gets out of there, but not before the owner of the building stops him on the way out and tells Jack all about Perry's story.

Perry was in the restaurant, with his wife, who was killed.

Perry spent a year in a mental institution after the shooting.  He was a professor.  Now he's a homeless man with a fixation on medieval lore, and he hallucinates.  He's a pathetic figure.  He's by turns enchanted by an awkward female office worker, and tormented by a demonic, red knight.

Helping him isn't as simple as throwing money at him, Jack finds, and that kind of sensitivity to the plight of the less fortunate is never preachy here — just obvious if you're not an idiot.  Williams and Bridges are in top form here (both would have to wait a while for Academy recognition).

Add The Fisher King to the miles-long list of films I wish I'd written — the kind of piece that combines all these fantastic set pieces with character arcs and real heart.  No shocker here — Richard LaGravenese's screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award.

I saw this film for the first time when I was 20, living in my first college apartment and checking out movies from the library as often as I could.  This is one of the earliest examples of me watching a film and being aware of the quality of writing on display — not just clever jokes or quotable lines of dialogue, but a fantastic story.  You might say this is one of the first films that made me want to write screenplays.

That's what keeps me coming back to this one.