TheGoodTheBadTheWeird Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Summertime seems to be movie list-making time in just about every publication. I imagine it's because once you slap Chris Pine or Christian Bale onto a summer magazine cover, you're stuck waiting for the fall buzz to kick up ... or anxious film writers out there are hoping to remind audiences that they can ease the pain of mindless blockbusters with meat-and-potato classics. Either way, we get a lot of lists.

Esquire has a particularly interesting one up, though. They've compiled a collection of 75 movies they feel every man should see in his lifetime, and go so far as to suggest they've all shaped American manhood in some fashion. Some of the choices are obvious classics: In the Heat of the Night, 12 Angry Men, Chinatown, The Godfather, North by Northwest, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The French Connection. Some are a little more on the forgotten side, like Fitzcarraldo and Run Silent, Run Deep.

But some of the choices are a little questionable. Iron Man? Three Kings? Runaway Train? Lone Star? Enjoyable sure, but are they must watch classics? Did Lone Star really shape modern manhood? I'm pretty sure Iron Man didn't considering it came out oh, exactly one year ago. Surely Easy Rider or Death Wish should have two of those spots. Doesn't John McClane deserve a rank above Johnny Dangerously? No Goodfellas? Why only one John Wayne (The Searchers) and no Jimmy Stewart or Gregory Peck?

Check out the list and ponder whether you think watching all 75 of these makes (or has made) a true man, as Esquire's version has me a little worried. Then come back and tell us what films you think are more essential than these.

*And no, clearly no one thinks there's an essential list for women. We may have to put that one together here on Cinematical.

Under no circumstances is Ji-woon Kim's The Good, the Bad, the Weird a great movie, but I found myself genuinely impressed with it. The pitch – "Korean comic spaghetti western" – sounded like the sort of ultra-hip, insubstantial, self-consciously campy Asian actioner I've grown tired of; I kept flashing back to Riyuhei Kitamura's much-hyped but totally useless Versus, an acquired taste I haven't acquired. I needn't have worried. Though Kim's western pastiche may be insubstantial, it's anything but a drag. It's masterfully directed, legitimately funny, and legitimately fun, thoroughly enjoyable even at an excessive 129 minutes.

Though you may think you're here to see how Kim (whom you may remember from his terrific horror entry A Tale of Two Sisters) plays with the western genre, you're really here for the action sequences. There are two spectacular ones: the rollicking train robbery that opens the film, and a later all-stops-out chase scene involving several gangs of bandits and the Japanese army. These aren't the sort of scenes that bring you to the edge of your seat, but rather the sort that put a steady, delighted grin on your face. Unapologetically goofy, absurdly attenuated, brilliantly paced, and backed by a rousing musical score, they alone make the film worth sitting through.

1. People are willing to get out of bed at seven in the morning to watch a movie about people starving themselves to death. I don't care how much people paid to be here: it is simply amazing that the 8:30 am showing of Hunger (which Kim reviewed at Cannes) -- one of the most intensely unpleasant films I've ever seen, with a program description that did that aspect of it justice -- was a near-sellout at Telluride's largest venue. By the time I got to the theater at 8 am on a rainy Sunday morning, I was 259th in line. Everyone keeps saying that what "makes Telluride special" is the enthusiasm and undying cinephilia of the audience (most of whom come back year after year), and nothing epitomizes that attitude better than this morning's Hunger queue.

2. Anyone who fights to save the whales is automatically a hero, no matter his means. Just as it was remarkable to see people line up at the crack of dawn to watch an indescribably painful art film, it was disappointing to see a Telluride audience give an uncritical standing ovation to "eco-pirate" Paul Watson following a screening of Pirate of the Sea, the mediocre, one-sided documentary profiling him. Watson, a Greenpeace dissident who goes out on a boat and tries to sink or sabotage whaling or seal-hunting operations, may well be a hero, but there's no way you could fairly come to that conclusion after watching the hagiographic documentary, which takes Watson's word as gospel, and refuses to explore the troubling implications of his often violent efforts. Another documentary about Watson, called At the Edge of the World, will play Toronto; here's to hoping it's a bit more considered and thoughtful.

While The Dark Knight dominated the weekend box office here in the US -- with a little love spared for Mamma Mia! and Transsiberian -- in Asia things looked a little different. The Good, the Bad, the Weird , which was just picked up by IFC for the US, opened in its native South Korea to outstanding returns, according to Variety.

The film, a salute to Spaghetti Westerns with a modern twist, is expected to surpass 2.2 million admissions over the weekend, which would make it the fastest to hit that mark this year, beating out police comedy Public Enemy Returns. Its opening day returns put it in the company of previous monster smashes D-War and The Host. We should hear more about The Good, the Bad, the Weird when it plays at Toronto in September.

The news is not as good in Japan, where master filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki's latest animated achievement, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, was expected to dominate. Opening on a record number of screens for a local picture (481), Ponyo is said by its distributor to have earned 83% of the total made by Miyazaki's blockbuster Spirited Away, which sounds good. But as reported by Mark Schilling in Variety, those numbers may be misleading.

Poised to debut in its native land today, a Korean Western is also making plans to conquer the United States. The Good, the Bad, the Weird has been acquired by IFC Films for US distribution, according to CJ Entertainment, the film's Korean distributor.

As noted by the Korean Film Council, advance ticket reservations are unprecedented for what's been described as South Korea's most expensive production (US$17 million) to date. Directed by Kim Jee-woon, The Good, the Bad, the Weird debuted at Cannes in May. Kim Voynar said it is " a crazy, busy Western that centers around a map to a treasure happened upon by a (seemingly) bumbling fool, who ends up being pursued by a good-guy law-enforcement type, a wicked bad guy dressed in black, and, at one point, an entire army. It runs a little long, but it's funny and sharp, with a spectacular chase sequence near the end and a nice final payoff."

The film will have its North American Premiere at Toronto and then open in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and three other major cities in the first half of 2009. The director most recently made the terrific horror flick A Tale of Two Sisters and crime drama A Bittersweet Life. but he also made the wrestling-themed comedy The Foul King and the very darkly humorous The Quiet Family. You can watch the trailer, check out the posters, stills, and more at the Korean-language official site.

[ via Twitch ]