All the Real Girls
I think that a lot of you out there would really enjoy All the Real Girls. I re-watched it tonight for the first time in nearly a year; I've got loads of thoughts that I need to figure out a way to express. Coming soon, hopefully.
I think that a lot of you out there would really enjoy All the Real Girls. I re-watched it tonight for the first time in nearly a year; I've got loads of thoughts that I need to figure out a way to express. Coming soon, hopefully.
Now, I like Westerns. I'm down with guns and dust and drama and stirring music and the whole aesthetic of it. I'm even ok with the stereotypes inherent in Westerns; it kinda comes with the genre. But you can take it too far. Way, way too far.
Take The Searchers. Missing girl, lost soul kinda trying to find redemption and find the girl. Twist it around a bit. Make it longer. Remove all pretense of subtlety, beat the audience over the head repeatedly shouting, THIS IS THE EMOTIONAL SUBPLOT! LOOK AT HOW IT IS PROGRESSING! Add in some graphic, gratuitous, wrenching brutality, characters who seem connected to neither reality nor any recognizable archetypes, fail to engage the audience beyond a superficial level, and set things within some gorgeous-as-all-hell scenery.
You know, I might even be somewhat ok with the movie at this point. But then, then, to make things completely intolerable, the evildoer happens to be an Apache / ex-Army officer / brujo witch with a penchant for extreme cruelty, snakes, and photography. He is, of course, terribly disfigured too. Where does this come from? Whose harebrained idea was THAT? What role does sadism and what seems to be some kind of snake-based witchcraft play in this film other than as a misbegotten attempt to make old material seem new without having to actually inject meaning into the film? There's not even a minimal attempt at anything beyond pushing the audience's fear and disgust buttons.
W. T. F.
W. T. F.
I don't really have the vocabulary and language with which to critique movies, but I can say that I have a feeling most of y'all would not like this movie much. See something else on a Saturday night, k?