"Animals are Beasts, But Men....are Monsters..."
For the first time in too long...I'm talking movies...

It's been a stretch but I think I've got a second to say something. I was gonna continue kevitching about the holidays, but you know what? It's pointless. If you've got your holiday cheer, great. If you see it for the careless insanity that is, great. I've just had a crappy year in some ways...and this ain't helpin'.

But, let's talk cinema shall we?

I finally saw something I really enjoyed. For those of you who've read this garbage for some time, it'll come as no surprise. For those of you just joining us...well, sink or swim...you'll pick it up as you go along.

So, I've yet to get to see Alex De La Iglesia's tribute to the spaghetti western, 800 Balas, but I have caught Jan Kounen's adaptation of Moebius's western comic, Blueberry.

Blueberry (2004, d. Jan Kounen)

Plot: Marshal Mike Blueberry's been harboring some strong inner demons since an accident in his youth, but when mystical shootist Wally Blount emerges from a cabal attempting to get gold off of Indian land, Blueberry will have to face his own demons as well as those in the next world.

Review: I'm having a tough time figuring out where to start on this one.

For one thing, this movie has casting going for it. I've got this thing agains pretty boys in action movies, and I'll tell you Vincent Cassel doesn't fall in that category by a long shot. Cassel has a distinctive look. You know him when you see him, and you're not going to mistake him for anyone else. Added bonus...the guy can act (I recommend Kassovitz's La Haine or Gans' Le Pacte Des Loups.) Second up is Blueberry's nemeis, Wally played by Michael Madsen. Madsen to me is like Lee Van Cleef: sure he's almost always typecast as a villain...but he's just so damned good at it. Juliette Lewis, whom I've never felt one way or the other towards, put in a fairly strong performance as the love interest. Round it off with quality character actors like Colm Meany, Geoffrey Lewis, and Ernest Borgnine and you're set to go. However, this film also features a very different role for Eddie Izzard who's quite enjoyable as the double-crossing gold-hungering Prussian prospector. My only disappointment was Djimon Honsou...not because he was bad, but that we lose him far too quickly. I like Djimon's screen presence a lot, so I just wanted more.

The story rolls in an out like a dream or a series of memories. Like a good spaghetti western, it's got that moment you don't get to see and that'll be strung out until the last reel. All of this leads up to our confrontation on the astral plane. The film holds a very Native American philosophy at it's heart, and a primitive ideology that what happens in this life can continue to haunt us in the next. The traditional western shootout is instead traded for a metaphorical battle. Blueberry has to defeat Wally, but just shooting him won't stop the damage he can still bring about as part of a greater spiritual evil.

Kounen does make an interesting choice in having the camera almost constantly moving. It's fluid and smooth work, not handheld make-you-puke-after-an-hour cinema verite style. In any event, I felt it worked far more than in a handful of other movies that were shot that way. Also of course, it was great way of illustrating the dream-like nature of the story. Furthermore, it fed into the alsmost seamless transition to the CGI worlds that were created for the film. This movie featured CG the way I like CG. It's part of the story. It can have the wow of a special effect, but isn't constantly screaming "LOOK! We're being COOL!" The CG world's in this film have both an incredibly organic feel as well as finding reference in Native American artwork. Though the ending did run a little long, for me at least, it didn't disappoint.

(WARNING: If you're watching this alone in the middle of the night, you do risk the chance of bringing on that way spaced out feeling that 2001: A Space Odyssey induces.)

Now if that's enough to get you to rush out and see this movie, I should warn you: Columbia Home Video in their infinite wisdom released this in the U.S. under the title Renegade. I've yet to figure out what if anything it has to do with this movie. Why not just call it Western? At least that has something to do with the movie in a way.

Alright. I've done my duty. It's been a while, but it felt good.

Depending on what's in my mailbox today...there could be some spaghetti tomorrow.

I'm out.

Cheers.