Mark Knopfler & Band yesterday in Prague. Absolutely fantastic. They got a standing ovation.

My top 3 for film/tv music is Ennio, Nino Rota and Murray Gold.

Um. It was actually some Murray Gold I was listening to. Apparently, not the same class for my father... (and not quite for me, either, although I enjoy it.)

Great job, CJ - I feel terribly undereducated, but in a good way: there's room for more.

what you mean to say is y'all are anti-America however possible 

No, what I mean to say is that European works, as far as I know, usually chose the "Noble Savage" stream of non-authentic portrayal. Unless they were colonial works with an interest.

Well, as I said, I'm no expert. Thanks for clarifying that.
And I'm European on top of that. We've long had a soft spot for the Indian side of things over here. And European portrayals of them are usually also very wrong, as we tend to project our own troubles into them. So, whatever.

What I didn't like is how the movie clearly shows how a treaty is broken with the Indians, and how part of the "winning" of the west was a very brutal business. Yet ultimately it celebrates it. Like, let's show how this and that and the other was done unethically and murderously, but hey, wtf, we won the west! You can't try to be honest and show the brutality toward Indians that was part of winning the West, and then say, hey, let's celebrate it all.

That's pretty much what I meant. Ironic. I think (though I'm no expert) this must have been one of the first American Westerns to acknowledge that historical fact; it undermines its own message.

OK, another very old thread to revive: it actually begins with sort of a prologue that takes place at Machu Picchu.
In the book, the character that's pretty much the hero in the film (but not so much so in the book) has been to the US West, but it does not take place there either. I cannot remember whether the character mentions that in the film.


Then there are the two films with Lex Barker that take place in Mexico. (Hey, look, shooting one story in two films is an old practice!)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059682/combined
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059621/combined
These are not exactly westerns, either; more of an adventure epic, except it's less epic than you'd expect from that word...

I have the special edition DVD - got it years ago for my birthday or for Christmas from my sister, because it has Eli Wallach.

I pretty much agree with what has been said here. The ending with all the modern sights is quite ridiculous... and rather ironic nowadays. But other than that, I quite enjoyed it. I liked that it has the Western "larger-than-life" qualities, and reads like a romance, yet does not slip into too formulaic storylines; there were surprises along the way.

In the bonus on Cinerama, Eli Wallach explains how difficult it was to act in front of the Cinerama cameras... you were supposed to be looking at an actor, but because of the distortion of the image, you actually could not look at them in real life. Considering that, I think the actors did a marvelous job.

A Czech cover of Telegraph Road:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sey2rntAiKM
I was pleasantly surprised by this. While the original is still excellent, this is very good. And the Czech lyrics are quite good, surprisingly close to the original in most places.

Thinking back, this has a lot of common with the later films by the makers of Lemonade Joe, Adéla ještě nevečeřela and Tajemný hrad v Karpatech, although it has less of the... steampunk?, and obviously still works within the confines of a SW (just like Adéla is a whodunnit), though it stretches them a lot.

I see that a lot of images that I posted when this was a new topic are history.

Unfortunately, so are apparently A1's posts...
If you've lost those pictures, I think I still have them all saved from when I was writing that paper. I'm a hoarder of pictures.

But who believes in invisible cats? Find me even one person. Sometimes Mr. Lewis's Platonism leads him astray.

We will have to agree to disagree. I do not think people believe in invisible cats, but I think the simile is strong enough to show the point.
(I hope you know where that comes from; I hate to take people's words out of context, though it can't be helped.)

I was actually thinking of watching too much X-Men Evolution... and watching too much animated TV series on YouTube really is too much.
Anyway, somehow I don't think there are gay metaphors in that. Although if someone believes firmly in them, they'll find them anywhere, like invisible cats. Thank you for the simile, Mr C.S. Lewis.

Enough of that!

Haven't noticed any change. He's still the same cranky guy he's always been.

Who says the evolution is something that comes across via the internet?
Maybe he's a blue furred mutant.
I watch too much X-Men.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2280378/combined
Thomas Jane proving to fellow Punisher fans that he can do better than the 2004 film... A short film directed by Phil Joanou, can be found on YouTube (or could be, some time ago).
It's gory and definitely not children-friendly. Or marmot-friendly, for that matter. And very well done. I skip the goriest parts and enjoy the rest...
That discussion going on about possible modern SWs? This comes very close.