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Thursday, February 22, 2007

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly at NWFF

posted by on February 22 at 15:12 PM

good-bad-ugly-poster.jpg

Stranger film editor Annie Wagner suggested it yesterday, and Slog commenter Fnarf seconded her suggestion in the comments thread:

No movie ever made, not even “Lawrence of Arabia”, loses more when transferred to TV than “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly”. While I prefer the absurd minimalism of “For A Few Dollars More”, GBU is better cinematically. A stone cold masterpiece. Maybe THE stone cold masterpiece. The desert fires of hell will burn you into your seat.

I don’t always agree with Fnarf, who for some reason believes Magical Mystery Tour is the best Beatles album, but his impassioned acknolwedgment of the monumental stature of the Go-Betweens makes me trust his judgment, and so I dragged my ass out of the house last night to watch a three-hour spaghetti western I’d never seen.

It was fucking amazing. It also has the most astounding title sequence I’ve ever seen. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly screens again tonight at the Northwest Film Forum at 6:15 pm, and you should totally go.

RSS icon Comments

1

The finale is the greatest gunfight in cinematic history!

Posted by elswinger | February 22, 2007 3:52 PM
2

What's wrong with Magical Mystery Tour C'mon, "I Am The Walrus" and "Strawberry Fields Forever"? Loads better than that piece of crap Sgt. Pepper's. Don't tell me you're one of those "not a real album" people. Of COURSE it's a real album.

Posted by Fnarf | February 22, 2007 4:03 PM
3

Oh, I know it's a "real album," and "Strawberry Fields Forever" is my favorite Beatles song of all. But if I never heard half of the tracks again--"Blue Jay Way," "Baby You're a Rich Man," "Flying," "Your Mother Should Know"--I'd be okay with that.

Posted by David Schmader | February 22, 2007 4:09 PM
4

I saw this 6 years ago at the Egyptian - the entire "dollars" trilogy - and the sound was way too fucking loud. But yes, it's a visual masterpiece.

Posted by Matt from Denver | February 22, 2007 4:10 PM
5

You're crazy, Schmazy. "Baby You're a Rich Man" is brilliant. Weird trumpety proto-synth (clavoline, whatever the hell that is), wonderful bass, wonderful singing, mental lyric, the whole thing skidding around the corner like it's on ice-skates and about to crash.... "You're Mother Should Know" is a great pastiche, and one of Paul's finest wide-stepping melodies. "Flying", what a heavy, chunky, thunky weirdness that is. They played it on NPR last night during a segment about airplanes. "Blue Jay Way" -- OK, "Blue Jay Way"'s pretty shitty. but even it's got some really cool sounding string bits. Come on, "Penny Lane"?

The TV movie's a bit much, I grant you, but was an insane, inspired thing to successfully bombard the TV audience with at the height of their powers, and you have to like the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's bit, "Death Cab for Cutie", right? Maybe not. I thought you people took drugs?

Posted by Fnarf | February 22, 2007 5:21 PM
6

FNARF, my goodness, what a reaction from the chlidren re GBU. Perhaps you might want to next introduce them to
Russ Meyer's "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" It will be required viewing at
my funeral.

---Jensen

Posted by Jensen Interceptor | February 22, 2007 7:26 PM
7

I agree with Fnarf re: Magical Mystery Tour. It's way better (i.e., more psychedelic) than Sgt. Pepper's.

Also, MMT isn't a real album; it's a surreal album.

Posted by segal | February 22, 2007 9:16 PM
8

Two things:

1) MMT is WAY better than Sgt. Pepper, but that's not really saying much, is it? After all, the quickest way to tell if someone is a wannabe Beatles fan is if they say "Sgt. Pepper" when you ask them what the best Beatles album is. Yes, MMT is better. That doesn't mean it's good. (When I was in college, vicious fights would break out between the "Revolver" camp and the "Abbey Road" camp. The "White Album" was usually the compromise.)

2) At said college I took an intro to film class. On the day we talked about editing, the prof showed us a clip of "Good, Bad, Ugly." I nearly wept; it blew my fucking mind. And I wasn't even stoned at the time (a rarity that year because Intro to Film was AWESOME when I was baked.)

Posted by Visiting Prof | February 23, 2007 2:07 PM
9

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10

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