To date I have not seen Kevin Costner’s HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA – CHAPTER 1/?. I want to see it, I’ve heard good things, and I’m sure it will happen eventually, but there’s another independent western passion project by an actor/director that’s more important for me to catch up on: Viggo Mortensen’s THE DEAD DON’T HURT. Which I also haven’t seen, because there’s another one that’s even more important than that, and it’s Michael Jai White’s OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK. Of the three he’s the actor I follow the closest, and I even have a t-shirt for this movie because I donated to its IndieGoGo a million years ago. But then it didn’t play theaters in Seattle and when it came to DVD I kept putting it off because it was 135 minutes.
Yeah, I don’t usually complain about length, but this is a comedy western that’s as long as THE WILD BUNCH, and longer than UNFORGIVEN. It sounded like a mistake, and I think it was. But I’m glad I finally saw it. Maybe it’s indulgent, but it has heart. (read the rest of this shit…)
TAKE BACK (2021) is a halfway decent DTV action movie, not a great one. The main thing holding it back, I’d say, is an approach to action similar to a Liam Neeson movie; Gillian White (whose name is listed last on the cover, but she’s the actual star) seems like a badass and has a couple good head kicks and stuff, but they move the camera around like they got something to hide. In one scene she actually turns off the lights and then kills a bunch of guys in the dark, which would be a good gag if there were more parts where we actually did get to see her.
ROAD TO PALOMA is the directational debut of actor/barbarian Jason Momoa, who also co-wrote and stars as Robert Wolf, a rugged but charming motorcycle ridin fugitive. Six months ago he put on face paint and killed the man who raped and killed his mother. Since then he’s been laying low, “up in the Sierras mostly,” doing Jason Momoa things like building a fence, repairing cars and motorcycles, pushing wheelbarrows, drinking out of a tin cup next to a campfire, smoking loosely rolled cigarettes, and riding around desert highways, sometimes with a mask, but never with a helmet.
