My IMDb Top 250 Challenge Rankings So Far

I started this project, my IMDb Top 250 Challenge, on the 1st of January 2013 having already seen 151 of the 250 movies in the Top 250 IMDb list at that time. My goal was to watch the remaining 99. I’m taking my time but, eight years later, I’ve managed to watch 65. Only 34 left to go!

I figured it was time to make more of an effort to watch the remaining 34. I’m putting a list together of those remaining, which I’ll post in a few days. Would like to hear from people on which of those 34 I should try to watch first. 🙂

I’ll also soon post about a new project, the Best Picture Project, which I know many people have done. A far easier project as that list always stays the same with just one new addition each year! There are only 31 Best Picture Oscar Winners I’ve not seen (not too bad, right?). There are also several films on both the Top 250 & Best Picture lists that I need to see so might as well kill two birds with one stone.

For now, I thought it was be fun to rank the 65 movies I’ve watched so far for the Top 250 challenge. So here are My IMDb Top 250 Project Movies Watched So Far (Ranked From Least Favorite To Very Favorite & With Links To My Reviews):

65-61:

65. Mary And Max – watched 7/6/13 – Rating: 4/10

64. Slumdog Millionaire – watched 28/4/13 – Rating: 5/10

63. Oldboy – watched 27/12/19 – Rating: 5.5/10

62. Manhattan – watched 15/10/16 – Rating: 6.5/10

61. Warrior – watched 22/8/15 – Rating: 6/10

60-51

60. Life Of Pi – watched 15/1/13 – Rating: 6.5/10

59. A Separation – watched 9/8/14 – Rating: 6.5/10

58. The Wild Bunch – watched 28/5/19 – Rating: 7/10

57. 3 Idiots – watched 9/11/19 – Rating: 7/10

56. The Night Of The Hunter – watched 15/8/17 – Rating: 6.5/10

55. Paths Of Glory – watched 22/8/15 – Rating: 6.5/10

54. On The Waterfront – watched 9/9/14 – Rating: 7/10

53. Touch Of Evil – watched 27/5/19 – Rating: 7/10

52. No Country For Old Men – watched 18/7/20 – Rating: 7/10

51. Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? – watched 24/3/13 – Rating: 7/10

Top Fifty:

50. Raging Bull – watched 29/9/13 – Rating: 7/10

49. The Killing – watched 8/6/19 – Rating: 7/10

48. Unforgiven – watched 17/8/14 – Rating: 6.5/10

47. Dog Day Afternoon – watched 18/1/13 – Rating: 7/10

46. The King’s Speech – watched 25/2/18 – Rating: 7/10

45. Bringing Up Baby – watched 31/1/21 – Rating: 7/10

44. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid – watched 26/1/13 – Rating: 7/10

43. Anatomy Of A Murder – watched 2/8/15 – Rating: 7/10

42. Witness For The Prosecution – watched 12/1/13 – Rating: 7/10

41. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance – watched 9/9/14 – Rating: 7/10

Top Forty:

40. Roman Holiday – watched 5/12/17 – Rating: 7/10

39. Sleuth – watched 5/2/13 – Rating: 7/10

38. City Of God – watched 18/1/14 – Rating: 7.5/10

37. Bicycle Thieves – watched 5/6/13 – Rating: 7.5/10

36. Notorious – watched 6/5/13 – Rating: 7.5/10

35. The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups) – watched 30/3/19 – Rating: 7.5/10

34. Sunset Boulevard – watched 7/11/15 – Rating: 7.5/10

33. Shadow Of A Doubt – watched 5/1/13 – Rating: 7.5/10

32. Citizen Kane – watched 13/1/18 – Rating: 7.5/10

31. A Fistful Of Dollars – watched 28/4/16 – Rating: 7.5/10

Top Thirty:

30. In The Heat Of The Night – watched 15/2/19 – Rating: 7.5/10

29. Rope – watched 4/1/13 – Rating: 7.5/10

28. For A Few Dollars More – watched 14/5/16 – Rating: 7.5/10

27. Nosferatu (1922) – watched 14/7/13 – Rating: 7.5/10

26. Some Like It Hot – watched 2/12/17 – Rating: 7.5/10

25. Rashômon – watched 16/8/14 – Rating: 8/10

24. It Happened One Night – watched 9/1/21 – Rating: 8/10

23. The Hustler – watched 7/1/17 – Rating: 8/10

22. Million Dollar Baby – watched 11/2/17 – Rating: 8/10

21. Howl’s Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro) – watched 14/9/14 – Rating: 7.5/10

Top Twenty:

20. The Secret In Their Eyes – watched 23/3/13 – Rating: 8/10

19. Ip Man – watched 28/3/19 – Rating: 7.5/10

18. Infernal Affairs (Mou gaan dou) – watched 4/5/19 – Rating: 7.5/10

17. Full Metal Jacket – watched 11/5/14 – Rating: 8/10

16. M – watched 26/9/15 – Rating: 8/10

15. Once Upon A Time In The West – watched 02/07/13 – Rating: 8/10

14. Grave Of The Fireflies (Hotaru no haka) – watched 1/1/15 – Rating: 8/10

13. Yojimbo – watched 30/10/19 – Rating: 8/10

12. The Untouchables – watched 16/8/17 – Rating: 8/10

11. The Kid – watched 19/2/13 – Rating: 8.5/10

*****Top Ten:*****

10. Rocky – watched 12/2/17 – Rating: 8.5/10

9. Laputa: Castle In The Sky – watched 7/3/13 – Rating: 8/10

8. Metropolis – watched 11/5/18 – Rating: 8.5/10

7. The Great Escape – watched 28/10/13 – Rating: 8.5/10

6. Modern Times – watched 1/1/13 – Rating: 9/10

5. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – watched 16/2/16 – Rating: 8/10

4. Princess Mononoke – watched 25/1/13 – Rating: 8.5/10

3. The Bridge On The River Kwai – watched 23/6/13 – Rating: 9/10

2. City Lights – watched 15/2/13 – Rating: 9/10

1. Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind (Kaze no tani no Naushika) – watched 2/11/14 – Rating: 9/10

In 2016, I did take the new IMDb Top 250 list to see if there were any new additions I’d not seen. There were lots of new ones but only 14 I’d not seen. I’m working through those too (as well as any on the current list), but the 2013 list is my first priority. Here are 5 of the 14 I’ve watched so far from the 2016 list:

***IMDb Top 250 New Additions As Of 01/01/2016 Watched:***

5. The Grand Budapest Hotel – watched 12/4/19 – Rating: 5/10

4. The Hunt (Jagten) – watched 20/4/19 – Rating: 7.5/10

3. Hachi: A Dog’s Tale – watched 20/5/20 – Rating: 7.5/10

2. Les Diaboliques – watched 20/2/21 – Rating: 7.5/10

1. Ikiru – watched 1/1/16 – Rating: 8/10

It’s annoying that I’ve not reviewed 4 or 5 of these, including the amazing Akira Kurosawa films as I wanted to do a specific Kurosawa project on this blog. Maybe someday…

My Top Ten Movies Watched At Home In 2016

Today I have my penultimate End-Of-Year List: My Top Ten Movies Watched At Home In 2016. I started by ranking My Twelve 2016 Blind Spot Movies then did a list of My Top Ten Books Read In 2016.

I’ll finish these last two days with movie lists. Tomorrow I’ll post My Top Ten Movies Of 2016 (movies I saw that were released this year in the UK). That list is always the most popular as the majority of people like reading about very current films. However, I always enjoy making this “Movies Watched At Home” list slightly more. It’s more varied and quite often contains better films overall as they’re from a variety of years plus I try to (force myself to) watch some classics each year. However, I have to say that this year has been a good year for new films & a lot of the 2016 films would make an amalgamated Top Ten List of absolutely every movie I watched this year. I love the word “amalgamated”…

But it’s easier to do two separate lists! So here are My Top Ten Movies Watched In 2016 (but not released in 2016). And, as I saw so many good ones this year, I’ll count down from 20. And, if that’s not enough for you, I’ve ranked & rated ALL 79 of them HERE. Ha! I’m sad. 😉

(Oh, I should also add that these are FIRST TIME watches only. I don’t count re-watches so things like the fantastic Freaks, which I re-watched & reviewed for the recent At The Circus Blogathon, aren’t included)

Honorable Mentions:

20. Magic
19. THX 1138
18. Turbo Kid
17. Running On Empty
16. Stories We Tell
15. Trick ‘r Treat
14. The Cat Returns
13. The Wind Rises
12. For A Few Dollars More
11. Play Misty For Me

Top Ten:

10. Wizards

9. Circle

8. Ikiru

7. Battle Royale

6. Natural Born Killers

5. Predestination

4. Space Station 76

3. Akira

2. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

1. In Your Eyes

**Yep – I have quite a few classics here but my number one is a modern romance movie written by Joss Whedon. As you can tell from the rest, I’m not exactly a “girly” girl but I did love In Your Eyes. A romantic movie that worked & didn’t make me want to puke! And I was totally in love with the guy. How adorable is he in that picture? His character was such a sweetheart.

Also, I’m glad I managed to review most of my favorites this year (links above). I’m planning to do themed weeks (or months) in 2017 with those I’ve not yet reviewed. I’ll have a Studio Ghibli Week, an Akira Kurosawa Week, and possibly a month of animated films when I’ll review things like Wizards. Am looking forward to focusing on more non-Disney, non-Pixar animations in 2017.

See you tomorrow for my final post of 2016: My Top Ten Movies Released In 2016 (That I’ve managed to see, obviously. I can’t watch everything!). 🙂

A Fistful Of Dollars (1964) & For A Few Dollars More (1965) IMDB Top 250 Reviews

Happy Birthday to Clint Eastwood, who turns 86 today! 🙂

My blog is having a Clint Eastwood Week (I reviewed Play Misty For Me yesterday). And I figured what better way to celebrate his birthday today than to review his famous Dollars Trilogy for my IMDB Top 250 Project as they’re all in the 250. Well, I already recently reviewed The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (you can see that review HERE). I didn’t realize it was the “third” in the trilogy when I watched it first but it really doesn’t matter as the stories aren’t connected (they just have the same director & composer plus the main actor playing a different character in each). It was interesting seeing their “evolution”, however, as I think each film was better than the previous one. Let’s start by talking about the first in the trilogy: A Fistful Of Dollars.

A Fistful Of Dollars (1964) (Italian: Per un pugno di dollari)

Directed by Sergio Leone

Based on Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa & Ryuzo Kikushima

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Volontè, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, Joseph Egger

Music by Ennio Morricone

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
A wandering gunfighter plays two rival families against each other in a town torn apart by greed, pride, and revenge.

My Opinion:

I had no idea that this movie is basically the Yojimbo story by Akira Kurosawa & Ryuzo Kikushima (but not credited at the time, apparently). That’s interesting – there are a lot of Kurosawa films in the Top 250 & I’m very eager to work my way through them as I love Seven Samurai. So far, I’ve watched Ikiru & Rashômon so I’ll make Yojimbo the next one (I’ll have a Kurosawa Week once I’ve watched them all). I really liked the story of a drifter playing two rival families off against each other so am looking forward to seeing the original & comparing them.

I get the impression that some people may slightly prefer these first two Dollars films to The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. As I said above, I personally think each film got better & that the final one is the best but the first two do have much better pacing, less distracting voice dubbing, and stories that are easier to follow & that actually get right into things from the start instead of meandering along for almost three hours until reaching a fantastic finale.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is the only one I’d call a “masterpiece” but these first two are also very good in a different way & are much more straightforward in telling their stories, which some people may prefer. There’s still a fair amount of time spent on characters standing around & staring at each other but it wasn’t yet to the extreme Leone went to in Once Upon A Time In The West. No, I’m not being a smart ass because I think that film is brilliant – the opening scene honestly contains the best staring ever committed to film. Here you go – the Once Upon A Time In The West staredown!

But back to A Fistful Of Dollars… I did find this the weakest of the three, mainly due to the fact that I didn’t really connect with or care about any of the characters (other than one family with a small boy) whereas the next film had a better revenge theme going on that I found more interesting & also had a good partnership that this one lacked. There’s plenty here for dudes, though – lots of fighting (with & without guns) and the usual amount of Clint Eastwood just looking like a stud while smoking & wearing a poncho. Eastwood IS very cool in these spaghetti Westerns, whether they’re your sort of thing or not, and has a great presence that not all actors manage (but is matched by his co-star in the second film). I now have less experience with his Dirty Harry movies than his Westerns but I think the Westerns suit him better.

This film does of course have yet another great showdown (as to be expected at the end of every Leone film I’ve seen so far). To say it’s the weakest of the three (or four if I include West as well) isn’t really a bad thing as all the Leone films I’ve now seen are fantastic & I can understand why they’re so popular even though this isn’t my favorite genre so I’ll never love them to the same degree as fans.

My Rating: 7.5/10

For a Few Dollars More (1965) (Italian: Per qualche dollaro in più)

Directed by Sergio Leone

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volontè, Luigi Pistilli, Aldo Sambrell, Klaus Kinski, Mario Brega

Music by Ennio Morricone

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
Two bounty hunters with the same intentions team up to track down a Western outlaw.

My Opinion:

Now… For A Few Dollars More was genuinely enjoyable! Don’t get me wrong – I think these Leone films are beautiful works of art and worthy of the praise & recognition they later achieved but I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t find them all a bit of a chore to sit through. Of all four I’ve seen, I’d rank this as the third best yet I’d also say it’s the most enjoyable overall in that it’s the only one that held my interest the entire time.

It’s a simple (if rather cliché) story of revenge but, hey – that’s what I want from a Western. The one seeking revenge is Lee Van Cleef’s character. And what a great character he is! It’s the only time another character felt as important as Eastwood’s (if not more) and I cared about his story. The two of them are fantastic together & have amazing chemistry onscreen. He was also the “Bad” to Eastwood’s “Good” in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly but this was a much better role for him & I preferred their relationship in this.

Another thing that worked a bit better in this one than the previous film was the main baddie. He’s an evil bastard but also not quite right in the head & haunted by things in his past. He felt more developed than a lot of Western baddies. Actually, all the characters felt more well developed than usual (other than Eastwood’s but I think that’s always the whole point of his mysterious Man With No Name characters). That’s a big part of what made this film the most enjoyable – I can’t fully get into a film unless I buy into the characters & the story and this film did a good job with these elements.

Okay – I’ve not yet mentioned the Ennio Morricone score for either of these films. I don’t want to go on & on as I already raved about him in my review for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly but, damn, the man is a genius. There were no specific themes that stood out for me as much as in that one but the music truly helps make all these Leone spaghetti Westerns. Without the scores, I know I wouldn’t personally rate any of these movies as highly. The score is as important to these films as is Eastwood’s character & Leone’s cinematography. They all work perfectly together & make these films far greater than they’d be with one of these three elements missing.

Well, I think I’ve said enough about these movies. As I’ve said before, I’m no expert on Westerns but the four Leone films I’ve seen really are something special & definitely have my appreciation as beautiful works of art. I do think that each movie got better & better with Once Upon A Time In The West actually being the best overall. However, I’d probably stick with The Good, The Bad And The Ugly being my favorite as I think the score as well as the final 30 minutes or so of that film easily tops all others & pushes it into the “masterpiece” category that I don’t like to use as a label too often (if you’re curious, I gave those movies a score of 8/10 & 8.5/10). I highly recommend both of those films at the very least but, if you want to start a bit smaller, the first two Dollars films are more easily “digestible” & For A Few Dollars More is probably the best one for non-Western lovers as I think a lot of people love a basic story of revenge.

My Rating: 8/10

My Blog’s March 2016 Recap

I sometimes do a monthly blog recap, which I’ve been calling “My Blog’s (Month & Year) Stats“. That’s not fully accurate as I don’t post any viewing numbers or anything like that – I just talk about my posts through the month & some search terms. Also, I don’t like how I was only focusing on what movies I’d reviewed & not mentioning the ones I’d actually watched each month. I’m pretty quick on reviewing anything I go to in the cinema but can sometimes take several months to get around to reviewing some of the great movies that I watch at home.

So, I’m changing the title of my monthly recap to the truly creative “My Blog’s (Month & Year) Recap” as that’s more accurate. I love reading other monthly blog recaps as I have weeks where I don’t have time to read blogs & I end up missing stuff. I was inspired by monthly round-ups such as Ruth’s at Flixchatter and Badblokebob’s at 100 Films In A Year so I’ve created categories I’ll use every month and I’ll also talk about any plans I may have for my blog in the coming month.

So here’s My Blog’s March 2016 Recap:

POSTS

My Most Popular Post: My Top Ten Wooden Movie Actors/Characters – For some reason, I didn’t expect this to be my top-viewed post but people seemed to like my list of movie actors & characters who have the word “wood” somewhere in their names. You KNOW Mr Edward Woodward from the very top photo had to be my number one…

My Favorite Post: My Top Ten Period Dramas & My Top Ten Color Songs – My own personal favorite post, and second-most-viewed, was my top ten list of period (as in menstruation) scenes in movies. I’d like to thank the very few, brave male bloggers who actually commented on that one. 😉 I also had a lot of fun compiling a top ten list of my favorite songs with colors in their titles (which was my third most popular post – maybe I should give up on reviewing movies & only make Top Ten Lists?!). But I love doing movie reviews and my favorite review in March was for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, which I’ll discuss next…

MOVIES REVIEWED

My Most Popular Movie Review: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – I finally reviewed my own IMDB Top 250 film instead of posting a guest review (they’ve dried up) and I’m very glad that I did. I had the most comments I’ve had on a movie review in ages, with a lot of discussion on this one. I love when that happens. It’s the whole reason I started a movie blog! I’m no “writer” and I’m well aware of this. I just like to chat about movies, especially when I see one that I truly appreciate. So thank you so much to everyone who stops by & leaves comments. 🙂

All Movies Reviewed (ranked best to worst):
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
Natural Born Killers
Stories We Tell
The Kings Of Summer
10 Cloverfield Lane
The Boy
X+Y
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
Zootropolis
Class Of 1999
Tank Girl
Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans Of My Little Pony

MOVIES WATCHED

In Cinema (ranked best to worst):
10 Cloverfield Lane
The Boy
Zootropolis

At Home (ranked best to worst):
The Cat Returns
THX 1138
Phenomena
Audrey Rose
Love (my most-hated movie since starting this blog)

TOP TEN LISTS

– Top Ten Hats In Movies
– Top Ten Color Songs (as in, they have colors in their titles)
– Top Ten Wooden Movie Actors/Characters (as in, they have “wood” in their names)
– Top Ten Period Dramas (as in, menstruation scenes in movies)
– Top Ten Movies With Different Titles Outside The U.S.

SEARCH TERMS

My Top Search Term: “Minions names” – This comes up a lot and I have no idea why my blog would keep getting hits because of it as I don’t remember naming the minions (other than adorable Bob), but I did review the Minions movie HERE. 

My Favorite Search Term: “Barry Newman with naked girl” – As always, there were loads of pervy search terms and this one wasn’t even the perviest but I like when even I have to Google something to see why a search term brought someone to my blog. I was like “Who’s Barry Newman??”. Ah! He was the star of Vanishing Point, which I reviewed HERE. Which means someone was looking for the naked girl on the motorcycle in that film.

Here are my top search terms for March:

BOOKS

Books Reviewed:

Tank Girl by Jamie Hewlett & Alan Martin

Book I’m Currently Reading: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, which won a poll where I asked which book I should read next (you can still vote for the next one I should read HERE).

BLOG PLANS FOR APRIL

The only specific blog plan I have for April is Coppola Week, starting tomorrow. It’s Francis Ford Coppola’s birthday on Thursday & I happened to watch two of his & two of his daughter Sofia’s movies in the past several months, so I’ll review them all this week.

Other than that, I’ll try to focus on catching up on reviewing my own IMDB Top 250 films since I only have one guest review to post (reviewing The Good, The Bad And The Ugly was a good experience so it’s made me more determined to stop being so lazy with that project). I went all out on my Top Tens in March so April will be a little more lazy with some actor Top Tens for upcoming celebrity birthdays. 

As for upcoming movies, I don’t pay too much attention to release dates but I can’t WAIT to see Midnight Special this month. I’m also extremely desperate to see Everybody Wants Some!! but the UK doesn’t get it until the middle of MAY (don’t talk to me about that – I’m pretty pissed off!!). 😦 Finally, I’ve been surprisingly good about reviewing one movie each month for my 2016 Blind Spot Series so I plan to watch & review True Romance for April.

Phew. That’s it! Happy April, everyone. 🙂

Here’s my number one “Color Song” – Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath:

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966) IMDB Top 250 Review

Hi everyone! I’m finally doing my own IMDB Top 250 review again! I’ve been too lazy about doing these myself instead of just posting guest reviews… Let’s get started!

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)
Italian title: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo

Directed by Sergio Leone

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffrè, Mario Brega, Eli Wallach

Music by Ennio Morricone

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote cemetery.

My Opinion:

First of all, I better point out that I shouldn’t be allowed to review a Western as I “clearly know nothing about them” and should just “delete” my blog (as an extremely angry, Western-loving troll told me in the comments of my review for The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance). Man I love trolls! And I always reply to them like a damn idiot.

Well, here’s a further reply to the issue my troll addressed: We all have a “first time” experience of EVERYTHING in life – why should we not be allowed to discuss something just because we don’t have a thoroughly extensive knowledge of it? I’m working my way through the IMDB Top 250, partly, to gain more knowledge of films that are seen as classics and to have a better understanding of those that are within the genres that I’ve not really explored before (mainly war movies & especially Westerns). So I apologize if I offend anyone by discussing yet another Western even though I haven’t managed to first watch “every Western known” like that troll has. Good for him! I’d rather watch a wide range of films from all kinds of different genres. (For the record, I gave The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance quite a positive review). Now onto my uneducated review of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly…

This is Western #5 for me out of the Top 250 and I’m afraid to say that I found it slightly disappointing after starting with Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West (although I did like it more than The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid & Unforgiven). Personally, I thought West was a better film overall and enjoyed it more than this one. However, I believe West had a much larger budget so it’s not totally fair to compare the two. Also, I’ll say that this one has a brilliant ending and I absolutely loved the final half hour or so plus I of course couldn’t get enough of the amazing Morricone score.

How the hell had Ennio Morricone not won an Oscar before this year?  He’s a true genius so, until this year’s Oscars, I’d always just assumed he’d won one before now. I didn’t further look into it until after seeing The Good, The Bad And The Ugly as I wanted to see who the hell managed to beat Morricone that year but the film wasn’t even nominated for any Oscars at all, let alone the score. This score wasn’t even nominated?!?! It’s a masterpiece! Stupid Academy… (Even IMDB users have more sense – this film is currently very high at number 9 out of 250)

This film is the third in what later became known as Leone’s “Dollars Trilogy“, which I did know but didn’t actually think to look at the order in which they came out & for some reason thought this was the first of three instead of the last. The other two are in the Top 250 as well so maybe I should’ve watched them in order? I suppose it doesn’t matter too much as the stories are unrelated & Eastwood has a different name in each but it would’ve been interesting to see how Leone’s movies developed over time.

For its time & budget, I realize that The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is a damn masterpiece. I have to admit, though, that the dubbed dialogue is very distracting in this one. It’s not something I noticed as much in West but I suppose there were a lot more English-speaking actors in that one. Apparently Leone cared much more about the look of the film than the dialogue so all the dialogue was recorded in post-production.

However, I personally appreciate a “sweeping epic” such as The Good, The Bad And The Ugly with a beautiful score & visuals much more than, say, a modern-day, straightforward, documentary-style Oscar winner such as Spotlight. The two Leone films I’ve seen just say “now THIS is proper filmmaking!” to me. I guess it depends on what kind of movies you prefer but someone with zero experience of Spaghetti Westerns may struggle with the length, slow pace & bad dubbing of this film (I’m experienced – I have two Spaghetti Westerns under my belt now). 😉

As for Clint Eastwood, I do quite like him as an actor but never fully understood the appeal before (although I’m liking him even more recently after watching two great 70’s classics of his – Escape From Alcatraz & Play Misty For Me). I kind of understand the appeal now after finally seeing one of his classic Spaghetti Westerns. The dude is f*%#ing cool, okay? Look at him in that poncho! Look at the cool way that cigarette hangs out of his mouth!

After this movie, I thought “Damn – I wish Eastwood had played Harmonica in West instead of Charles Bronson”. Bronson is okay but Eastwood had that extra special something in the same way Harrison Ford had something special as Indiana Jones. I just read that Eastwood was offered the role of Harmonica but turned it down due to falling out with Leone. What a shame! I really liked Eastwood in this and he helps make this a classic along with “The Bad” and “The Ugly” – Lee Van Cleef & Eli Wallach, who are both also great in the film. I especially liked the relationship between Eastwood’s & Wallach’s “Good” & “Ugly” and the fact that you apparently couldn’t trust anyone in the Wild West.

Summary:

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is a fantastic film and I can see why Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns are so highly regarded to this day. However, I’m not going to pretend that it’s now going to be an all-time favorite of mine. Yes, I found it overlong and too slow at times (I watched it off & on over two days while doing chores) plus it was very hard to not be distracted by that bad dubbing. But there are a lot of films like this that I almost like the thought of more than the actual film itself…

For example: I couldn’t stop thinking about The Man Who Fell To Earth after watching it – it looked cool as hell and David Bowie was this amazing otherworldly presence but it’s so flawed that to call it a good film would be a lie even though I loved it. I feel kind of the same way about The Good, The Bad And The Ugly and also Once Upon A Time In The West (although both indeed ARE very good films). What I’m doing a horrible job of trying to explain is this: I’d find it very hard to sit down and watch any of these three films from start to finish again but I think the overall look, feel, and score (the latter in the case of the Leone films) make these the exact sort of movies I wish were still being made. Well, okay – some are as The Revenant is this same sort of thing (and I think it would’ve made a more worthy Best Picture Winner than Spotlight as it’s the one that’ll be more appreciated and seen as a masterpiece in 20 years in the same way Leone’s movies are seen now). The artistic beauty of Leone’s films makes me happy and I find that very moving in a way that I rarely get with films nowadays. Sorry… that sounds cheesy as hell! Hey – look at Clint Eastwood’s smokin’ hot son Scott:

Where was I? This review is almost as long as the movie itself! (2 hours 41 minutes, FYI). Basically, I’m a sucker for a film with awesome visuals & a beautiful score and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is one of the all-time greatest when it comes to these two things. I may never sit through it for its entirety again but I’ve re-watched the ending, starting with the scene involving Morricone’s gorgeous The Ecstasy Of Gold, several times in the past month. It’s not very often that I have the desire to keep re-playing a part of a movie like that so I consider that to be some damn fine filmmaking.

My Rating: 8.5/10

Awesome theme. So damn awesome. But this one actually gives me chills: