MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > OT: This Marvel Comic Universe World

OT: This Marvel Comic Universe World

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
37 replies | jump to latest

So I was in a Cineplex a few weeks ago to see a one-day only showing of Vertigo and I saw a poster for "Avengers: Infinity Whatever It Is."

And I had to laugh: the poster had managed to stuff something like 36 of the Marvel superheroes(including entire teams like the Guardians of the Galaxy) into postage stamp size bits and bites until it seemed like the movie had 400 characters.

On the one hand: overkill to the max. On the other hand: I suppose if I were 12 again and I got a Batman movie with the Joker, the Penguin, the Catwoman, the Riddler, the Mad Hatter, the Puzzler, the Bookworm, King Tut, Marsha the Queen of Diamonds, The Archer...and 48 more villains in one movie...I'd go crazy for it.

I suppose. For me back then, an action movie was something like "The Professionals," where one showed up for a few big stars, a few action sequences and a lot of good talk in between.

"The Professionals" was a Western, and we are told that these ever-present comic book movies(now divided into two "Universes" -- Marvel and DC) are to this era as the Omni-present Westerns were to the 40s, 50s and 60s.

Ah...no.

I don't think Westerns ever made the kind of dough the biggest and best of these MCU movies are making(the DCU seems to be a struggling uncool Cousin -- Superman and Batman are just too square.) Just when one hopes that the comic hero genre will go the way of the Western -- it gets bigger.

The first big movie of 2018 was "Black Panther," which brought racial equality and social justice to the MCU, and the second big movie of 2018 is Avengers Infinity...uh, WAR, that's it, which brings everybody and his brother(including the Black Panther team)into some sort of semi-climactic but not really, "this is it" finale that isn't one.

"Black Panther" has made a gazillon dollars. Avengers is making a bazillon dollars. I'm guessing that Black Panther may actually end up the bigger grosser "but the thing of it is THIS"(as Richard Boone once said):

MCU runs our movie world in the late 2010's.

It seems to be what everyone wants -- kids, teens, young adults...MATURE adults who grew up on the commix and get to revisit their youths.

I suppose MCU offers some respite from the sexual madness and just plain madness of our national political scene in America....and the variations on it throughout the world. Fantasy is always better than reality.

I myself edged into the MCU before I knew what was happening. Superman with Reeve, Hackman and Brando back in 1978 started it all, and was pretty exciting(with John Williams most exciting credit music over the second best credit sequence to NXNW, you ask me.) But Batman in 1989 -- with a lot more purple-night cool, prestige superstar Nicholson doing a lot more than Brando, and Tim Burton exercising his Early and Welcome Gothic touches -- well, THAT one was my favorite movie of 1989 and stands tall today(and no Robin, Thank God.)

We staggered through the 90's and ever-declining Batman sequels before 2002 finally brought the first of the Marvels -- Spider-Man, with Sam Raimi stylishly at the helm and the announcement that henceforth. the producers wouldn't give all the money to a Nicholson or a Brando when a Willem Dafoe or an Alfred Molina would suffice.

I liked the Spidermans -- especially II, with Molina as "Doc Ock" -- a villain made for CGI (eight arms to hold you.)

But I still didn't sense the MCU universe forming.

The word is that "Ironman" (2008) got the ball rolling. A superlative star in Robert Downey Jr -- aged from cute to manly handsome; quick with the snappy patter dialogue(note: RDJ and Richard Boone use a lot of the same speech patterns, I've learned, smashing together their words in a sudden atonal rush: "WellthatsthewayitsgoingtobecuzIsaysoITSTHATORNOTHING."
A superlative villain in Jeff Bridges. A Best Actress female lead in Gwyneth Paltrow.

With Ironman as the launch, past , present and future superheroes started turning up, at first one at a time(Thor and then Captain America and then The Hulk) and then all mashed together in different teamings until we ended up with The Avengers a few years ago and now two past those.

Wow. I, for one, just didn't see this coming at this level and at this strength. Meanwhile, for some weird reason, Supes and Bats just couldn't generate the same excitement with Justice League -- though the beauteous and righteous Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman gave that franchise what chances it has to compete(her solo movie made more money than Justice League, though.)

It seems to me that these MCU/DC franchises will now run through time...and long past my life, frankly. Just keep recasting the parts and reshuffling the deck and reintroducing the next generations to them and...immortality.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Were the movies meant to come to this?

Oh, probably. When Warner Brothers was making Giant and A Star is Born in the fifties, it was making bigger bucks (on smaller budgets) with The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and Them. Hitchcock broke free from his rather sedate romantic thrillers and suspense dramas with such forays into the fantastic as North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. (Mount Rushmore, Arbogast's fall, and the various bird attacks were CGI before its time) Ray Harryhausen's stop action monsters in the Sinbad movies, Mysterious Island and Jason and the Argonauts captured young minds and memories.

And on to...Star Wars. And Lucas/Spielberg in the 80's. And Batman in 1989(more than Superman in 1978) setting the pace for sequels and franchises.

And here we are.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Two stories from my youth that set my personal stage for the MCU:

ONE: In the sixties, my family moved into a house that was vacated by a family with boys. In my bedroom, a box of comics had been left behind. Marvel comics and a few DCs.

I read through the comic books, but I just couldn't relate to them. I liked the "linear" storytelling of TV shows and movies. I do recall liking the Batman comics the best; this was a year or so before the ABC series started and I came to the show fromt the comics.

But I simply didn't dig on the Marvel stuff. I think I threw that box of comics away. Imagine the 1,000s of dollars that may have gone out with the trash....ARRGH.

TWO: Flash forward to the teen and college years. I picked up a friend in high school. I'd say he was my best friend, but he seemed to be EVERYBODY's best friend. Very fit, muscular and charismatic -- not a nerd type -- and he had a Jones for Marvel. He named his dog Spidey. He knew all the comic books, all the characters, and would weave them and their phrases into his day to day dialogue("Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man," "Hulk SMASH"). I found his "personal Marvel universe" to be very amusing, but I was no closer to connecting to that world than I had been as a kid. I liked movies. BTW, I'd toss my Hitchcock trivia at him as much as he tossed his Marvel trivia at me; and he did watch some Hitchcock on TV on my recommendation.

He and I drifted apart over the decades but when the things started happening from 2002 (Spider-Man) to 2008(Ironman) to the various combinations -- well, I realized that my teenage buddy had "seen it all coming."

And a few years ago, I got to tell him this.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The occasion was not good: the funeral of a friend. OUR friend, our age. Various of us flew to gather and it was a reunion. But as I stood with my MCU friend and talked, I managed to get it out: "You called it. You called all of it. Way back in 1971. Marvel, man!"

He smiled and was matter of fact about it, "they needed CGI to get invented to properly film the Marvel stories," he said, "and there were decades of lawsuits to get the rights."

Fair enough, I replied. But there was something about how HIS world(Marvel) had become EVERYBODY'S world(Marvel) ...that I just had to marvel about. He got it, and he smiled and we agreed that I had gotten to come along on the ride of discovery with him 40 years before Marvel became the universe.

So...a box of Marvel Comic books in the 60's. A "best friend" Marvel fanatic in the 70's. Pays off for me personal in the Marvel universe of the 21st Century.

The journey of life moves on serious and fantastic tracks at the same time, I've learned. And both are equally important.

The Marvel Comic Universe is OK by me. I get it, now. But I still can't say that I much like what it has become. Still, a gazillion worldwide dollars says I'm wrong.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Fair enough, I replied. But there was something about how HIS world(Marvel) had become EVERYBODY'S world(Marvel) ...that I just had to marvel about. He got it, and he smiled and we agreed that I had gotten to come along on the ride of discovery with him 40 years before Marvel became the universe.

[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

Now that geek culture is the dominant global corporate culture, it has become disresputable and retrograde to be unenthusiastic about comicbook movies...

It's alarming how quickly things have changed as the economic rise of tech producers and consumers has shaped our current culture... It is very much from that post dot-com bubble period, although the seeds of manchildism and geek culture were planted decades earlier and nurtured with Star Wars/Trek and such...

There is something lost in this over fascination with and attachment to childhood... It is anti-erotic, unsensual and relies on numbing and somehow mundane CGI spectacle of recreating 9/11 at ever increasing size... There is no room for the adult, nor for the human scale of consequence, drama or tragedy...

I think the natural impulse to ridicule these manchild (and womanchild) tendencies of overattachment to comicbooks and such can teach us something... It locates a very natural aversion to stunted development... It's not entirely a 'hater' or 'bullying' sentiment...

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

@Renovatio. Well said! In *favor* of the MCU in particular, it's not entirely unpleasant to have a series of competently-made, well-cast, interlinked films function lot like watercooler- and must-see-TV did not so long ago. There *aren't* shows like Friends and Seinfeld and E.R. that almost everyone would see some of anymore, but there *is* the ongoing soap of the MCU to be the same sort of light, social lubricant that chatter about local sports teams also often effects.

But, boy, are these films trying.... the origin story eps are the best but even they, without fail, get more boring as they go along (once the third act punching and wrestling begins just hit fast-forward is the smart option) and also more preposterous and inconsistent as they go along. E.g., I was quite enjoying Antman but became overwhelmed by its breaking of its own rules: we *think* we understand that when Antman shrinks he's not losing mass, he's just moving his atoms closer together (building on one of the most famous experiments in all of science which showed that most of atomic space is empty), so a small Antman can land on someone's chin and knock someone out. It makes for good jokes and sequences! Alas, whenever Antman wants to jump in a toy car or hang from a twig or ride on an ant, he evidently weighs only as much as an ant. In Civil War, Antman can get big as well as small but if his mass were conserved he'd be Mr super-flimsy at that scale.

And where does one stop? In Civil War it became clear that Scarlett Witch could do almost anything to machines etc. with her mind....and she was on Team Cap. America. Why didn't she just mentally tear Iron Man's suit and electronics off him? In Infinity War where apparently it's enough to stop Thanos to get his glove off, she could save her boyfriend Vision by mentally whipping that sucker right off.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Do these guys really have their powers or are their uses strictly functions of the plot? Why am I watching this stuff? For the banter? Really? For the water-cooler conversation and social glue in a fractious time? Probably.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Now that geek culture is the dominant global corporate culture, it has become disresputable and retrograde to be unenthusiastic about comicbook movies...

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Well, I was enthusiastic about some of them. Superman for its cast(though it really sped up and fell apart in the third act), Batman for its cast AND its cool. I've almost liked my superheroes on a "case by case basis" -- the first Captain America had a great 40's nostalgia(that was taken away forever when Cap went to the future); Gal Gadot has proved all the right things as Wonder Woman(sexy, tough, caring) and a good period piece was built around her, too.

I saw the first Avengers and immediately got a sense of overkill: nobody seemed to have worked more than two weeks on the film, it was a bunch of movie-long cameos.

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It's alarming how quickly things have changed as the economic rise of tech producers and consumers has shaped our current culture...

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As I like to point out, "CGI"(which I realize can be a myriad of things) took the wonder out of Hollywood and made Hollywood a sub-sector of Silicon Valley.

The example I use is The Birds. In 1963, what Hitchcock achieved with fairly rudimentary special effects and matte paintings -- along with some dangerous REAL birds -- was a triumphant achievement outside of the story they served. Today, any studio with a checkbook could get Silicon Valley to whip up all those birds easy...stat.

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It is very much from that post dot-com bubble period, although the seeds of manchildism and geek culture were planted decades earlier and nurtured with Star Wars/Trek and such...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I'm thinking now that for all the press given to Star Wars at the start of all this...Star TREK might be more on point. It drew audiences of future scientists, doctors and lawyers who BECAME scientists, doctors and lawyers and REMAINED fans, dressing up and going to conventions in their 30's -50s.

The nascent Trek fans leaped at Star Wars, and brought a next generation with them. And...here we are.

I suppose the "deal" with MCU is that thanks to those hundreds of comic books...there is an endless supply of plots and ideas. Trek and Wars had to work at it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

As recently as, say, 2000 it was still mildly disresputable for an adult to have any persisting interest in Superheroes. It was a running gag on Seinfeld that Jerry and George constantly think about themselves and their lives in superhero comic-book terms.

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And yet sometimes attacking each other over it:

(Jerry says he's dating a woman who is pretty sometimes, ugly sometimes...depending on her lighting)

George: Oh. You're dating a Two-Face.
Jerry: You mean like the Batman villain?
George: (Pausing, mild disgust) If that HELPS you...

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It's taken for granted that it's one of the signals that they are man-children.

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I recall reading something about the Seinfeld regulars as being man-children for any number of reasons. Single. Won't commit. Can't commit. No kids -- but so many PARENTS hovering around them.

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And precisely because back then superheroes were an (obvious wish-fulfillment) thing of childhood and *not* regular parts of adult lives egghead writers could use fascination with superheroes as a window into childhood, the immigrant experience, and so on... The whole tone of the interviewees was 'Golly, I haven't given superheroes a thought since childhood, so let me see....'). None of these more high-brow projects even make sense anymore...

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Interesting literary approaches.

Well, I'm not sure what to make of exactly WHO these movies are for, anymore.

Look, I was interested when Brando assented to do Superman(as Pops), and VERY interested when Nicholson(my favorite star at the time) assented not only to do Batman, but to don the Joker make-up. The extent to which the producers of these seminal films landed "the greatest actors of all time" to do them was...pretty cool. And drew me in as a young adult(Supes) and a 30-something(Bats.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And once the MCU started to form, the early reliance on "sort of stars" like Dafoe and Molina reverted back to BIG stars(though not at the prestige level of Brando and Nicholson.)

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Though the bigger names generally didn't play the superheroes, we got Jeff Bridges in Ironman, Anthony Hopkins in Thor, Michael Douglas in Ant Man, Robert Redford(as a murderous villain!) in Captain America, Nick Nolte in The Hulk, etc. And on the distaff side, we've had Oscar winners Gwyneth Paltrow, Natalie Portman and Cate Blanchett in these, too.

I suppose you could say the movie stars pulled me into the MCU more than my affection for a comic book past.

BTW, Tom Hanks has said he wishes he could be in one of these -- but I'm guessing he's turning them down. Because: how come he hasn't BEEN in one yet? Everybody else has?

Speaking of superstar Toms, Tom Cruise turned down Ironman. D'oh! But RDJ turned it into a "life's work": he committed to a personal quarter billion or so to be in all The Avengers and occasional guest gigs in things like Spider-Man. And he got a two-film franchise as a two-fisted Sherlock Holmes. I think RDJ has made only one movie OUTSIDE of MCU and Holmes franchises since 2008 -- The Judge, which also had Robert Duvall, Marisa Tomei(sigh no matter how old she gets) and...ta da... Billy Bob Thornton in it. OK movie, great cast.
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[–] SavageBeauty (61) 7 years ago

I'm not really "into" the numerous comic book movies. I've watched a few and they are OK, but they are not really my taste.

I think their popularity is mainly because the stories are recycled Greek/Roman mythology. It strikes a nerve with people... even if they don't know why.

If you view the superheros as half-gods and compare their stories to the Greek dramas, I think you will see these stories in a different light. There is also lots of Gnostic themes of duality regarding good/bad or light/darkness (if you know what to look for). There are aspects that are very scholarly, and would appeal to the nerd in all of us.

Yes, it's easy to see why you would think these movies have "arrested development" and a fan base of man-children. I can't help but agree with that as well. My neighbor is outside right now wearing Spider Man shirt and shorts playing volleyball, he is over 40 years old. Try to imagine that in the 1950's and 60's. LOL!

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

the stories are recycled Greek/Roman mythology

And Norse Mythology (Thor) and Christian (the person who stops Thanos in the comics, Adam Warlock, is full-on space-Jesus), and so on. That's not progress! The fact that 21C culture is dominated by a mode of thinking (wishful, personifying, hierarchical (space etc. controlled by various *things*/stones - wtf?), etc.) that goes back to the dawn of recorded history is depressing. Forget the man-children, it's the immature childhood of humankind as a *whole* that's being recapitulated.

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 7 years ago

Most of those comic movies are not my taste, but their themes are really not immature if you know what you are looking at. If you really want to analyse all film and television, there is nothing new under the sun, it's all recapitulation or recycled stories. Even themes of trans-humanism go back to the half gods of ancient drama. Psycho is about good vs. evil and duality too. Christian & biblical ideas are also recycled stories from earlier times.
Drama originated (for the western world, at least) from the ancient view of acting as liturgy or dramaturgy, or ritual invocation of the gods. Comparative religion scholar Dudley Young writes:

“The earliest gods were invoked by ritual act (dromenon = the thing done) such as a sacrificial dance, commemorating the fact that our life begins and ends when they call upon us. Subsequently the thing was said (legomenon) as well as done, and the dromenon was on its way to becoming the drama. Once speech within the temple precincts has been endowed with the power of word-magic, we have “the invocation” properly so called.”

The nature of mankind doesn't change, and the stories that strike a nerve with people are also the same. If you read Plato's The Republic, it's amazing how humanity hasn't changed very much. Most sci-fi movies are about Apotheosis and deification of a human, whether they are done in all seriousness or not. What is progress in comic book story telling? What standard is used to judge so called progress? Isn't it supposed to be fantasy fiction? The tone and overall way these comic movies are done is silly, so I can understand why some people have the "eye roll" about them. Not my cup of tea either.

[–] yatzo376 (7717) 7 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Beam me back to 1968, age 6 , and watching a low budget cartoon called Marvel Superheroes.
Each episode a different hero; Hulk, Iron Man, Sun mariner and Captain America.
Shortly after, Spider-Man got his own cartoon.
I was hooked and wanted more.

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I remember that series! I had forgotten about "early Marvel"

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So with $1 , I went to the local stationery store and bought six Marvels for 15 cents apiece.
By the time middle school rolled around in 1975 , I amassed a huge collection of Marvel merchandise.

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Yes, I had at least one friend like that.

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Jump ahead to 2002 and I was literally in tears watching Raimi’s Spider-Man, which was obviously patterned after 60s/70s Spidey

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They even brought in the old TV "Spider-Man" theme song at the end, yes?

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...., my Spidey!!!
I turn d to my wife and said “this movie was made for me” lol

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That's how these films connect absolutely the best...at the emotional level, at the nostalgia level.

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long live the MCU!

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Nothing seems to be stopping it. Some folks were believing that eventually it would "die out" and yet the two 2018 offerings so far are the biggest grossers yet.

Much as I can join in with the arguments "con" on this thread, I certainly understand "pro."

Which I guess makes me pretty wimpy.

But I get to be....

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

we are told that these ever-present comic book movies(now divided into two "Universes" -- Marvel and DC) are to this era as the Omni-present Westerns were to the 40s, 50s and 60s.
Ah...no.
I don't think Westerns ever made the kind of dough the biggest and best of these MCU movies are making

The Western is just a much stronger genre. It has its elements of fantasy and wish-fulfillment built in, but it also has its grittily real sides of back-breaking work, struggle against the elements, the elegaic note of the coming closing of the frontier. The great historical events of the period - The Civil War, the enclosure of land with barbed wire, the arrival of the railroad and the telegraph, the first wave of feminism building (1890s Wyoming is one of the first places in the world to give women the vote and *was* the first place to allow women to be Representatives/Members of Parliament), the clearing out and near-genocide of natives, and so on... can all impinge as a writer or director requires. Meanwhile, almost for free, nearly every western gets to have core binary themes (normally built from the visual ground up): humans vs. nature, the individual vs. community, the law and right vs. communal consensus (and how it often forms around money and might and blind tradition and prejudice).

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The Western is just a much stronger genre.

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Oh, sure. I suppose the point I was trying to make is that someone noted that the superhero cycle has a "match" in the proliferation of Westerns that were at the theaters at one time -- and on American TV by the choking multitudes in that 50s/60s cusp(Gunsmoke, Rawhide , The Virginian, Maverick, Have Gun Will Travel, Wyatt Earp, Lawman, Wanted Dead or Alive....and on and on.)

But whereas the Western "cycled out" with new young generations, the superhero cycle (a) won't quit and (b) keeps earning multi-mega-millions in this era of worldwide release on millions of screens.

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i

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It has its elements of fantasy and wish-fulfillment built in, but it also has its grittily real sides of back-breaking work, struggle against the elements, the elegaic note of the coming closing of the frontier. The great historical events of the period - The Civil War, the enclosure of land with barbed wire, the arrival of the railroad and the telegraph, the first wave of feminism building (1890s Wyoming is one of the first places in the world to give women the vote and *was* the first place to allow women to be Representatives/Members of Parliament), the clearing out and near-genocide of natives, and so on... can all impinge as a writer or director requires. Meanwhile, almost for free, nearly every western gets to have core binary themes (normally built from the visual ground up): humans vs. nature, the individual vs. community, the law and right vs. communal consensus (and how it often forms around money and might and blind tradition and prejudice).

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That's a nifty overall paragraph of what drew we Western fans TO the Western -- particularly the way historical realism was paired with a kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy -- of fast-drawing good men(and some women) taking on the powers of corporate evil(the land bosses) and their villainous minions(Jack Palance in Shane, Lee Marvin as Liberty Valance) or just plain villains(Richard Boone vs. John Wayne in Big Jake; Bruce Dern vs Wayne in The Cowboys.)

Westerns were like Hitchcock thrillers: murder was part of the story, the villains were bad, the good guys were good, the drama was resolved in violent action and often, death for the villain. Perhaps this is why Westerns generally did as poorly at the Oscars as Hitchcock films -- the "genre conflicts" and violent resolutions were "too easy."

No matter, and not for me.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Oh, sure. I suppose the point I was trying to make is that someone noted that the superhero cycle has a "match" in the proliferation of Westerns that were at the theaters at one time

I saw that and of course agree.... I just wanted to move on to the thought that comparison with the Western does the Superhero film no favors.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I saw that and of course agree.... I just wanted to move on to the thought that comparison with the Western does the Superhero film no favors.

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And I saw THAT. Hah.

Actually, I wrote more extensively on the Western in this thread and...it disappeared. "Like the bad old days." I was in a distant location, I guess it didn't connect.

I won't go over exactly what I was saying (because I cant remember), but the gist was that the Western indeed handled a greater variety of themes and "atmospheres," and indeed could mix the historical, the fanciful, and the realistic.

In fact, I'll just start writing again as if yesterday didn't happen.

I find similes between the Western and the Hitchcock thriller. Neither won many Oscars(though we have Unforgiven as a Best Picture and John Wayne and Gary Cooper as Best Actors in Westerns), and this is likely because both were considered "genre." The drama usually includes really bad bad guys and really good good guys. There are murders by the bad guys. And by the end , justice is usually done by killing the bad guys...especially the HEAD bad guy. We are entertained by the intensity and action of it all. Oscar is less interested.

Flash forward a few decades. Bruce Willis said this about "Die Hard" and his other action films(The Last Boy Scout, eh...something else.") "They are just Westerns for the modern age. Same format."

Though the greatest Westerns have more on their minds than "Die Hard"(great as it is for what it is.) The Searchers. Red River. Shane. And over on the violent side of the street, The Wild Bunch. (Its my favorite movie after Psycho and North by Northwest, and more connected to Psycho than to The Searchers, that's for sure.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

That said, my favorite Westerns are pretty much "where the entertainment is":

Men on Mission Westerns: The Magnificent Seven, The Professionals, Rio Conchos. Silverado. (These are all action adventure movies as much as Westerns.)

"Late Era John Wayne Westerns": Rio Bravo kicks them off -- a movie about a group of friends as much as a Western, with elements of screwball comedy and wisecracking romance. True Grit gets Duke an Oscar(and a heartwarming ending.) Then: Big Jake(Duke versus Richard Boone), The Cowboys(Duke versus Bruce Dern); The Shootist(Duke versus Boone again, plus two more -- the final Wayne Western.)

The Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday love stories: Doc Holliday is the most foolproof role in Westerns: he's a fast draw, a poker whiz, a drinker, oftimes a philosopher -- and dying. And Wyatt Earp is his straight arrow best friend. The Best Doc is Val Kilmer. Kirk Douglas comes next. Dennis Quaid is the most method(he starved down to 110 pounds or something). Jason Robards is the quietest. And Victor Mature well...he's the first of note.

Clint: The rest of the world loved Clint Eastwood Westerns more than I do. I found his character too humorless and his shootouts too perfunctory. But I will tip my hat to the spaghetti Westerns in general and GBU specifically. I acknowledge the dour greatness of Unforgiven(GREAT script, though one critic called it "the Ingmar Bergman Western) and I recognize Josey Wales as a classic...for other people. I like his tight little Elmore Leonard Western Joe Kidd(which came out the same summer as Frenzy as Universal's OTHER major summer release --Hitch and Clint as headliners; I saw them at the same drive-in.) Pale Rider beat Silverado at the 1985 box office, but the former is much cheaper and less interesting than the latter.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Peckinpah: The Wild Bunch uber alles -- it was as once in a lifetime unique for him as Psycho was for Hitchcock, but before it came the great Ride the Wild Country(the final scene sometimes moves me to tears) and after it came the wacko Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

QT: They have other elements, but at heart, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight are Westerns. Hateful eight is among the most visually gorgeous Westerns ever made(if also among the goriest), and Django has a Second act gunbattle that takes The Wild Bunch up to a new ultra-violent level.

Remakes: In this era when Westerns are few and far between, the starry True Grit and Mag 7 remakes are my favorites for their years of release. And I love the hip 1966 Stagecoach and the hipper 1985 Stagecoach(with Cash, Nelson, Kristofferson, and Jennings -- aka The Highwaymen -- and My Man Tony Franciosa from Rio Conchos.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The John Ford collection: Most would rate him first, but I find his work pretty dour and drama-based, little of it is much fun. And too much of it is back in the 30s and 40s. Still: the cavalry pictures, Monument Valley, the first Stagecoach(the later versions are more fun) and the much worshipped Searchers. Not to mention, the ultra-symbolic great fable, "Liberty Valance." And HIS Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday picture -- with James Stewart first considered for Doc(Ford felt that Mature looked more like the real man.) Which reminds me -- Humphrey Bogart was set for Doc in "OK Corral" but died before filming -- Kirk took the role and cemented his partnership with Lancaster. Still..dammit...we lost Stewart and Bogie as Doc.

Potpourri: In this "catch all category," you find Once Upon a Time in the West(Leone without Clint), The Ox Bow Incident(a lynching allegory for modern times) and High Noon(Wayne and Hawks hated it, but a lot of people identify with Gary Cooper left high and dry to face the baddies alone.) Hell, throw Shane in here(more allegory). And Hombre (still MORE allegory.)

Funny thing: I have no use for most Westerns. Something special has to be going on; things like Fred MacMurray in "Bad Day for a Bad Man" or something like that, or most Randolph Scott pieces, don't get me going. Audie Murphy? Nope. Gene Autry? Nope. Most 30's and 40's Westerns? Nope.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And I like frivolous 60's Westerns like The Sons of Katie Elder and The War Wagon and Bandolero and Five Card Stud; and frivolous 70's Westerns like Hannie Caulder and The Wrath of God (these were drive-in staples for me.)

That's a lot of Westerns. And I probably forgot 40 more.

They DID proliferate as the superhero films of today, but alas I just don't think the superhero films have the same variety and depth.

And only one of them much plays like a Western, IMHO: Guardians of the Galaxy , with its "Mag 7" team of anti-heroes.

Whew. That was a refereshing review. I could pop any one of those Western titles in the DVD player and have a good time.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

OOPS..I just checked the thread and something that I thought disappeared...didn't.

So you get two takes on the same material.

Interesting how my mind changed in a day.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

alas I just don't think the superhero films have the same variety and depth.
And only one of them much plays like a Western, IMHO: Guardians of the Galaxy, with its "Mag 7" team of anti-heroes.

Some from outside the MCU have a bit of Western resonance and are better for it: last year's Logan is kind of a Siegel/Coens-y south-western but there's a bit of Cable Hogue and Shane in there too. It's quite good.

And ultimately Nolan's Batman films are indirect westerns, i.e., via the sorts of cop/crime films (Dirty Harry, Heat) that are at heart urban westerns. At its best, The Dark Knight is Liberty Valance put into a blender with Andy Robinson's Scorpio and Heat's visuals and sound design.

Other Good westerns: all of Anthony Mann's films with Stewart: Man from Laramie, Bend In The River, Naked Spur, Winchester '73. Gal-led westerns like The Furies, Rancho Notorious. Apocalyptic Westerns like Great Silence, High Plains Drifter. Revisionist/art Westerns from Little Big Man and McCabe and Mrs Miller and Heaven's Gate, to Dead Man and The Claim and even The Revenant more recently. I'm also a bit of a Western Imperialist in that things like Treasure of Sierra Madre and High Sierra and Yojimbo and Seven Samurai and Wages of Fear and Sorcerer all strike me as *really* Westerns no matter their official settings.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Some from outside the MCU have a bit of Western resonance and are better for it: last year's Logan is kind of a Siegel/Coens-y south-western but there's a bit of Cable Hogue and Shane in there too. It's quite good.

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I keep forgetting about Logan, which was R-rated and well-reviewed; I'll get to it!

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And ultimately Nolan's Batman films are indirect westerns, i.e., via the sorts of cop/crime films (Dirty Harry, Heat) that are at heart urban westerns. At its best, The Dark Knight is Liberty Valance put into a blender with Andy Robinson's Scorpio and Heat's visuals and sound design.

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The "Liberty Valance" call on Dark Knight is excellent, swanstep, with an added sting: not only is Bruce Wayne doing the real good ascribed to DA Harvey Dent, the film ends with the now-evil Dent(Two-Face) sainted and Batman taking the fall as the bad guy. Its as if John Wayne were to take credit for Lee Marvin's villainy in Valance. Sort of, kind of.

I suppose this harkens back to Bruce Willis calling his modern-day action films "Westerns in disguise," and to Westerner Clint Eastwood reinventing the cop film as a gunslinger genre in "Dirty Harry" (though McQueen as Bullitt had laid some of the groundwork for this; somebody called Bullitt's car chase "a gunfight with cars as the guns.")

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Other Good westerns: all of Anthony Mann's films with Stewart: Man from Laramie, Bend In The River, Naked Spur, Winchester '73. Gal-led westerns like The Furies, Rancho Notorious. Apocalyptic Westerns like Great Silence, High Plains Drifter. Revisionist/art Westerns from Little Big Man and McCabe and Mrs Miller and Heaven's Gate, to Dead Man and The Claim and even The Revenant more recently. I'm also a bit of a Western Imperialist in that things like Treasure of Sierra Madre and High Sierra and Yojimbo and Seven Samurai and Wages of Fear and Sorcerer all strike me as *really* Westerns no matter their official settings.

---

Well, I said I probably forgot 40 more Westerns -- and there a lot of them all. I appreciate your appreciation for the once-reviled, now-reconsidered "Heaven's Gate," btw. A whole book was written about the financial disaster of that film's making and release; but there was a creative mind behind it(Michael Cimino).

I suppose the sheer volume of Westerns discussed here does demonstrate the extent to which comic superhero movies aren't THAT prolific.

Truth be told, for 2018, we really only have Black Panther, The Avengers Infinity War and "Ant Man and the Wasp", right? Just three movies in the whole movie year. But at least two of them are dominating the box office at Star Wars levels....

UPDATE: I forgot one. Deadpool 2. The R-rated and self-parodying one that has a DIFFERENT role for Josh Brolin than the one in Infinity Wars. The ad line on the poster is a spoiler so I guess I can quote it:

"From the studio that killed Wolverine."

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

I'm also a bit of a Western Imperialist in that things like Treasure of Sierra Madre and High Sierra and Yojimbo and Seven Samurai and Wages of Fear and Sorcerer all strike me as *really* Westerns no matter their official settings.

Star Wars (1977) lifted shots and plot-points wholesale from The Searchers (as well as from Ford's Japanese imitators), not just obvious stuff like the 'Luke returns to find his home destroyed and Aunt and Uncle killed' scene but also the look and feel of massive structures growing out of sand:
https://tinyurl.com/3r2rnr6
The first reviews of the latest Star Wars flick Solo (2018) are in, they're at least half-good, and whaddayaknow, according to the Atlantic:
"What unfolds...is essentially a heist movie, in which Han, Tobias, and Qi’ra need to steal a large quantity of unrefined and highly unstable fuel and get it back to Vos before it explodes. (Think of it as The Wages of Fear, but in space.)" (Full review here: https://tinyurl.com/y9qgkcuz)
Drawing on a crypto-Western is almost certainly a good move.

Cosmic Irony: Friedkin's very expensive - cost twice as much as Star Wars! - remake of Wages of Fear, Sorcerer (1977), came out around the same time as Star Wars, and did almost no business at least in part because Star Wars sucked up almost all cultural energy that summer. 40 years later Friedkin is doing the rounds pushing an Exorcism-at-the-Vatican documentary, meanwhile Wages of Fear has succumbed to Star Wars's tractor beam.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Well, I done gone and saw "Avengers: Infinity War."

I couldn't much help myself. I was curious.

And as I watched it, I realized that even though I originally caught each of the first films in the series -- Ironman, The Incredible Hulk(Edward Norton in for Eric Bana; now its Mark Ruffalo), Captain America(the 40's origin story was great fun; equal parts Raiders and The Dirty Dozen with a patriotic flourish of music), etc.....

....I did NOT see Dr. Strange. Nor have I seen any Thors since the first one(his universe is the one that bores me the most -- Spider-Man at least has a Batman-esque set of villains.) I didn't see Civil War. And I haven't seen Black Panther(and it STILL made a bazillion dollars...see, I don't matter at all.)

I did see Spider-Man last year -- for RDJ, Michael Keaton(Batman as a villain!) and Marisa Tomei. I did see Captain America Winter Soldier(for Robert Redford, I was fascinated he was in it, astounded he played a villain.) I did see both Guardians of the Galaxy - that's probably my favorite franchise, Bradley Cooper voicing Rocket Raccoon is a kick, Dave Bautista is a force of nature and Chris Pratt is the coolest of the Chrises.

But not the most muscled. "Infinity Wars" puts Chris Pratt next to Chris Hemsorth next to Chris Evens(Cap) and...makes fun of the fact that the once-plump Pratt is starting to lose his muscle tone, and revert to form. Maybe that's what makes him endearing -- he's got a vulnerable Everyman quality that makes him more accessible. When Bautisa says to him : "You are a dude...Thor is a MAN," we ALL feel the pain.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

What can I say about this thing? I can say I feel about it roughly as I do about Bates Motel. I know that Bates Motel has a lot of fans, most who are much younger than me, and I wish them well and Bates Motel well without relating to it at all. Seeing a bunch of loving fans love "Infinity War" -- I wish THEM well, and I can't relate to it at all. Damn. I got old. (But not out.)

My Infinity Wars crowd was about 1/3 house, mainly young -- and loving it. Laughter, applause, and I think -- some upset when some heroes didn't make it(as most reviews note, there are some deaths in this film of heroes - - but we don't believe them because everybody tends to get to come back to life in these things one way or another.)

I watched it on a track of fighting boredom and fighting ANGER -- I kept saying to myself -- "whatever this thing is, it is not a MOVIE...it is not really a story...these are not really characters of meaning." It felt like an old Bob Hope special where "special guest star" movie stars would drop by, say a few lines and leave -- and we didn't feel they were REALLY being movie stars(acting, committing to character), just "guests."

And when it reached a CGI saturation climax(in Black Panther's kingdom) of 1,000,000 CGI killer dogs vs 100 Marvel superheroes well -- the only time I liked this CGI overkill was with "World War Z" when thousands of zombies overran and devoured cities like ants. Here it was just...boring.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

One "hook" I can apply to this film came from my reaction to a review that said Infinity War is like "How the West Was Won" or "The Longest Day," where 30 or so major movie stars all join together or do a series of interlocking cameos.

The problem with that analysis is this: when James Stewart, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum et all showed up in those 60s epics they were stars from OTHER MOVIES. They had made stand alone careers.

But "the Marvel gang" aren't really stand alone stars. Guys like Hemsworth and Evans and Ruffalo aren't carrying movies on their own. Chris Pratt has the weird claim to fame of being a superstar via TWO franchises(Guardians and Jurassic World) and maybe "Passengers" and "The Mag 7" have carved him out a star career apart from the commix, but...maybe not.

RDJ had a drug-troubled young career, but was catching on as a fine actor(Zodiac) when he took Ironman. Now, that's about all he does. (Oh there was Sherlock Holmes and The Judge, but....80% of his work has been Ironman.) So, he's not much of a star ,either.

I found Benedict Cumberbatch's Dr. Strange a man of real charisma -- poor RDJ looks wan and aging next to him -- but -- is he a star? (Isn't he Sherlock Holmes, too?)

Scarlett Johnnassen turns up as Black Widow. She has managed to cadge a few starring roles, and perhaps that's why here, she's barely there. "Just dropping by for a spearfight."

And so forth and so on. I did feel the weirdness of the "Black Panther" group seeming (now) like they were slumming to even deign to be in this. Right now, "Black Panther" rules the world; its cast are just drop-ins here.

And how about Gwyneth Paltrow? She's an actress who actually seems to have fan ENEMIES, so she's in this as RDJ's now-wife for about three minutes and...gone. Gone with her Oscar heat. Gone.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

OK, this and then I'm done(for now) with Infinity Wars.

The villain is a CGI giant called Thanos, voiced well by Josh Brolin(I kept hearing his "molto pancakko!" from Inherent Vice and his dim-witted True Grit villain in that voice) and looking facially like somebody else...Brad Pitt, maybe?

Anyway, this Thanos guy is one of those irritating superstrong bad guys who NOBODY can defeat. Thor can't beat him. The Hulk can't beat him.(BTW, the Hulk appears only once in this movie, and for the entire rest of it, Ruffalo can't get him to show up. A joke?) Thanos grabs little guys like RDJ by the neck and tosses them away like rag dolls. Infinity Wars becomes a rather boring sequence of the Same Thing: "Marvel Superhero X tries to beat up Thanos, fails, gets beat up and thrown away." Over and over and over again.

And in a scene of near-comic frustration, all the superheroes gang up on Thanos, hold him tight, set him up for killing and then -- ONE of the superheroes gets mad at Thanos and ruins everything with his personal actions, and Thanos escapes.

I waited for a scene of the other superheroes killing the superhero who screwed everything up and let Thanos escape.

Oh, I guess that's it. I sat and I saw. RDJ is still pretty cool, I like the entire Guardians gang, Cumberbatch is interesting enough that I'll maybe rent Dr. Strange, and the Black Panther guys rule.

But its not a movie. Its a ....commercial? For the next one.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Star Wars (1977) lifted shots and plot-points wholesale from The Searchers (as well as from Ford's Japanese imitators), not just obvious stuff like the 'Luke returns to find his home destroyed and Aunt and Uncle killed' scene but also the look and feel of massive structures growing out of sand:
https://tinyurl.com/3r2rnr6

---

Yes...I think that this demonstrates that Hitchcock wasn't the ONLY influential director on movies of the seventies...though the final three notes of Psycho turn up in Star Wars...

---
The first reviews of the latest Star Wars flick Solo (2018) are in, they're at least half-good, and whaddayaknow, according to the Atlantic:
"What unfolds...is essentially a heist movie, in which Han, Tobias, and Qi’ra need to steal a large quantity of unrefined and highly unstable fuel and get it back to Vos before it explodes. (Think of it as The Wages of Fear, but in space.)" (Full review here: https://tinyurl.com/y9qgkcuz)
Drawing on a crypto-Western is almost certainly a good move.

---

If you can't do a real Western...do a space Western. I will note that many reviews of the original Star Wars singled out both Solo AND Harrison Ford as "John Wayne in outer space" and Ford reads one line in Raiders(early on, on the rooftop in Cairo) just like John Wayne. Something like "Well...they're not going to find it!")

I saw a Solo trailer as one of the 24 trailers before Infinity Wars and...there was much to like, but this guy playing Solo(who was great in "Hail Caesar") is hard to accept. Anybody here remember when Tom Berenger and William Katt did "Butch and Sundance: The Early Years"? I didn't think so.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Cosmic Irony: Friedkin's very expensive - cost twice as much as Star Wars! - remake of Wages of Fear, Sorcerer (1977), came out around the same time as Star Wars, and did almost no business at least in part because Star Wars sucked up almost all cultural energy that summer.

---

Even back when he WAS a big deal, I found William Friedkin to be "the director I loved to hate." He was the "anti-Hitchcock" to me, arrogant and mean to people(he insulted Hitchcock to the man's face; he gave direction to have Ellen Burstyn yanked on a rope that broke her back) and not really delivering classics to make up for it -- The French Connection was so-so; The Exorcist I've struggled with for decades(I now think it IS a classic, but I still don't like what was done to the girl to make it.) Well, let's say not ENOUGH classics. Few directors even get two, but to have ONLY "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist" as your legacy puts you down a few levels from Hitch.

Anyway, The Wages of Fear (Sorcerer) was a double-comeuppance for Freidkin. It failed -- AND it got kicked out of the Chinese theater in Hollywood to make room for Star Wars!

Sorcerer is one of about 20 offered movies that Steve McQueen turned down during his self-exile in the 70's; I've often felt this was the one he should have done. But he died at 50 in 1980 of cancer, maybe he wouldn't have been able to handle the rough work of Sorcerer.

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40 years later Friedkin is doing the rounds pushing an Exorcism-at-the-Vatican documentary, meanwhile Wages of Fear has succumbed to Star Wars's tractor beam.

---

Ha. Friedkin famously saved himself by marrying studio chief Sherry Lansing, but now they are both out, and Friedkin's gotta do what he's gotta do.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Here's another thought about the Marvel Universe Movies.

The creator OF the Marvel universe -- Stan Lee -- always makes a cameo appearance in a Marvel film. He's in Infinity Wars.

Hmmm...who does THAT remind us of?