Unforgiven: 1992

So here I go again with writing another blog post while the movie is finishing up. Unforgiven is a western, which is definitely not my type of movie. That's one been side effect of this blog: I watch a lot of movies I wouldn't normally pick up. Sometimes it works out, and I really enjoy the movie. Other times, not so much. On one hand, this movie is the latter. Unforgiven is a dark film; the premise is about a prostitute who is cut up by a man and her friends pool their money together to put out a bounty on the man's life. Add in a character who realizes he spent many years as a young man sinning (killing) and has never fully paid for those sins. It seems only reasonable that things won't turn out for any of the characters, especially since there's a cold-blooded sheriff who takes pleasure out of physically hurting others.

As much as I'm not enjoying this film, I can appreciate the acting done by Gene Hackman who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this role. Performing Little Bill is difficult enough considering the evil nature of the character, but Hackman moves from being diabolical to happy-go-lucky in a heartbeat. It's disturbing to see the switch and impressive acting.

The other surprising part of this film...no one can shoot except Clint Eastwood. Maybe when you're the director you get to have things our way like that.

Silence of the Lambs: 1991

There's no way I'm watching this movie again. One was enough.

If you've seen the film, you'll understand. The final scene with the night vision goggles? Eeeekkkkk!

Just watch the trailer and tell me if you're not already a bit disturbed:

What scared me about Silence of the Lambs is what you don't see. Your imagination fills in the gaps in horrifying ways that are personalized just for you. I'm not a fan of scary movies. Some of them are just too gory, which isn't so much scary as just plain gross. But others don't show you what happened. Those are the ones that give me nightmares. I'm feeling grateful right now for the rule I set at the beginning that I don't have to watch anything I've already seen.

1992, here I come. It's Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven. I have no idea what's about, but it's shorter than some of the films I watched recently so it's already looking good.

Dances With Wolves: 1990

Caution: Spoilers Ahead

Dances With Wolves is a long movie. Seriously, nearly 4 hours long. And while the first two hours held my attention, I'm at a point where I'm really getting bored, which is unfortunate because there's finally some action at the fort where John Dunbar (played by Kevin Costner who also directed and produced the film) was stationed. Of course, it's really Dunbar's fault that he's in the situation he's in because he insisted going back for his journal. He clearly thought the fort was still abandoned because he had been gone for so long, but of course, it wasn't. And now he's putting his friends in danger. Arrogant man.

I've been enjoying his interaction with the wolf, but I haven't seen much of that lately. The first couple hours were good because of this interaction and the overall scenery. But now I'm ready just to find out how everything turns out (but I have to admit that I'm not sure I'm even that interested in knowing). Part of me is disgusted with how the soldiers are treating Dunbar or Dances With Wolves (as he is later named), but another part of me is still wondering how historically accurate the film is with portraying the Sioux. Earlier scenes show both a loving community while other scenes show such brutally as scalping white people that they killed. I'm not sure what to make of all of it. Clearly, the West was a brutal place.

Really, my main question is "how much longer?"