Escape to the Movies: Cowboys and Aliens
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I'm more interested to know what MovieBob thought of The Guard. I'm hoping that will be next week's episode - certainly beats one on the Smurfs.
I am still going to see this. One of the other critics I like thought this was a great summer movie.
http://www.thecinemasnob.com/
From the multiple reviews I have seen and read, Cowboys and Aliens seems to be getting a fair share of praise and criticism and I am more than willing to give it a shot.
P.S.
Their Smurfs review is worth watching too. Oh how much they hated that movie.
http://www.thecinemasnob.com/
From the multiple reviews I have seen and read, Cowboys and Aliens seems to be getting a fair share of praise and criticism and I am more than willing to give it a shot.
P.S.
Their Smurfs review is worth watching too. Oh how much they hated that movie.
Hmmm, well having spent 10 years of my life working for Native Americans (time split between two tribes) I will say that the whole "irony" thing would only work for a modern liberal who has no real idea of the dynamics.
See, a lot of the relationships between settlers and the Natives in the Americas happened right down here on The East Coast. The Indians you are generally familiar with in movies and such are those from the midwest and west, they are nothing at all like the tribes that wound up defining the relationships. For one all that silver and turquoise stuff, and the big feather headdresses, and the teepees? Nope, none of that applied. The whole "white guy screwing Indians out of land because they had no conception of land owenership" stuff? total BS.
The actual East Coast indians were not all that nomadic, they lived in long houses which were pretty much permanant structures, and they farmed. Things like the Mashentucket Pequot museum down here even have a full sized replica of a settlement you can walk around in that gives you a pretty good idea of what they lived like.
There are two things that caused the lasting bad blood and set the policies to come. One was quite simply "The French and Indian War" where the tribes that sided with The French knowingly did so, feeling that they were going to get a better deal, there was no deception involved. The problem was that when The French lost, all the natives were left here and had no real home to go back to, and were facing the wrath of the people they slotted off. The other was simply that the big tribes that allied with the victorious English settlers got greedy. The leadership wasn't quite as simple as "big chief give order, others follow" as popularized in the movies, things could get fairly political. The bottom line was that tribes like The Mohegans (well pretty much The Mohegans... who I worked for) decided they wanted a better deal than they were getting at the time. Pretty much "hey you guys just had a war, and we have more guys than you do, let's talk about how much land we're going to take... we want three times as much, and if you don't like it you can discuss it with our warriors". Needless to say that didn't exactly go over very well. Now truthfully, I feel the whole situation could have been handled better, but the bottom line was that it lead to a complete breakdown of trust especially given the other tribes that the settlers were at war with, some truely brutal surprise attacks and massacres (the settlers WERE badly outnumbered, and viewed from a certain perspective some of those actions were fairly heroic), and well you know what happened. What many people might not realize though is that certain tribes like again The Mohegans still have a decent amount of respect, guys like Chief Uncas are local legends, and sites down here like Uncas' leap where he rode his horse over the falls, or Fort Shantok (which was reclaimed by the tribe) where the Indians lifted the siege on the fort, are things kids learned about even before the casinos and the rise to power of the local tribes. Of course a lot of that has to do with the fact that Uncas himself wasn't entirely responsible for setting the policies that lead to the inevitable fighting.
At any rate, what happened was that with Native Americans viewed as being threats the general attitude to begin with was to run them off. The tribes and surviving natives were pushed west, and as a general trend they came into conflict with other tribes over hunting grounds, farmland and other things. Then of course the settlers would expand west, push those left back even further, and so on. When this was noticed the natives began to go on the offensive to try and kill the settlers, and of course this did nothing for relations and this lead to open warfare. Things like the infamous use of small pox might not have been right, but are understandable when you look at the relational numbers between the settlers at the forefront of any wave of expansion compared to the natives.
The point is that the situation is a bit more complicated than a simple "we want your stuff so we're going to kill you and take it" when you view it in the overall scheme of things. Truthfully, had tensions not been so high, and had cooler heads prevailed with Uncas and the Mohegans in paticular, I think the attitudes would have wound up being differant and the entire sequence of events would have changed. In the end while some of it might have eventually come down to resource grabs, the mentality that lead to that developing wasn't just a snap desician.
I think people living closer to the time, on both sides of the fence, wouldn't see this as the same thing as those aliens. They lack a detached, modern, liberal perspective on things, not to mention that at least nationally speaking it doesn't seem people pay much attention to the natives on the east coast or how things played out, except to maybe read "Last Of The Mohegans" in school.
Incidently I learned a lot of this from people in the tribes when I worked there, visited their museums, and other things. I won't claim to be an expert exactly, but I like to think I know a bit more about the subject than most people having you know... worked for them and having been taught to answer questions for tourists and stuff (being security, you know customer relations. Someone asks what that faux-woodcut is of, and it's nice if the guy patrolling actually knows the story, event, or historical figure it's supposed to illustrate and stuff like that).
When it comes to frontier towns, they are by the nature of being "on the frontier" not representitive of civlization as a whole. Guys operating out of mauve vulture gulch might pan for gold and stuff, but they are hardly in a position to be depopulating indians or trying to lay claim to major amounts of resources. That kind of thing tends to happen when the encroachment of civilization catches up. Some later-period westerns (and games like Red Dead Redemption) even deal with the whole issue of society having caught up and there not being a real "frontier" anymore since there is noplace on the edge any longer... civilization has reached the ocean, moving through everything in between.
Just some thoughts on that one point.
That said, we'll see what I think when I see the movie Sunday.
See, a lot of the relationships between settlers and the Natives in the Americas happened right down here on The East Coast. The Indians you are generally familiar with in movies and such are those from the midwest and west, they are nothing at all like the tribes that wound up defining the relationships. For one all that silver and turquoise stuff, and the big feather headdresses, and the teepees? Nope, none of that applied. The whole "white guy screwing Indians out of land because they had no conception of land owenership" stuff? total BS.
The actual East Coast indians were not all that nomadic, they lived in long houses which were pretty much permanant structures, and they farmed. Things like the Mashentucket Pequot museum down here even have a full sized replica of a settlement you can walk around in that gives you a pretty good idea of what they lived like.
There are two things that caused the lasting bad blood and set the policies to come. One was quite simply "The French and Indian War" where the tribes that sided with The French knowingly did so, feeling that they were going to get a better deal, there was no deception involved. The problem was that when The French lost, all the natives were left here and had no real home to go back to, and were facing the wrath of the people they slotted off. The other was simply that the big tribes that allied with the victorious English settlers got greedy. The leadership wasn't quite as simple as "big chief give order, others follow" as popularized in the movies, things could get fairly political. The bottom line was that tribes like The Mohegans (well pretty much The Mohegans... who I worked for) decided they wanted a better deal than they were getting at the time. Pretty much "hey you guys just had a war, and we have more guys than you do, let's talk about how much land we're going to take... we want three times as much, and if you don't like it you can discuss it with our warriors". Needless to say that didn't exactly go over very well. Now truthfully, I feel the whole situation could have been handled better, but the bottom line was that it lead to a complete breakdown of trust especially given the other tribes that the settlers were at war with, some truely brutal surprise attacks and massacres (the settlers WERE badly outnumbered, and viewed from a certain perspective some of those actions were fairly heroic), and well you know what happened. What many people might not realize though is that certain tribes like again The Mohegans still have a decent amount of respect, guys like Chief Uncas are local legends, and sites down here like Uncas' leap where he rode his horse over the falls, or Fort Shantok (which was reclaimed by the tribe) where the Indians lifted the siege on the fort, are things kids learned about even before the casinos and the rise to power of the local tribes. Of course a lot of that has to do with the fact that Uncas himself wasn't entirely responsible for setting the policies that lead to the inevitable fighting.
At any rate, what happened was that with Native Americans viewed as being threats the general attitude to begin with was to run them off. The tribes and surviving natives were pushed west, and as a general trend they came into conflict with other tribes over hunting grounds, farmland and other things. Then of course the settlers would expand west, push those left back even further, and so on. When this was noticed the natives began to go on the offensive to try and kill the settlers, and of course this did nothing for relations and this lead to open warfare. Things like the infamous use of small pox might not have been right, but are understandable when you look at the relational numbers between the settlers at the forefront of any wave of expansion compared to the natives.
The point is that the situation is a bit more complicated than a simple "we want your stuff so we're going to kill you and take it" when you view it in the overall scheme of things. Truthfully, had tensions not been so high, and had cooler heads prevailed with Uncas and the Mohegans in paticular, I think the attitudes would have wound up being differant and the entire sequence of events would have changed. In the end while some of it might have eventually come down to resource grabs, the mentality that lead to that developing wasn't just a snap desician.
I think people living closer to the time, on both sides of the fence, wouldn't see this as the same thing as those aliens. They lack a detached, modern, liberal perspective on things, not to mention that at least nationally speaking it doesn't seem people pay much attention to the natives on the east coast or how things played out, except to maybe read "Last Of The Mohegans" in school.
Incidently I learned a lot of this from people in the tribes when I worked there, visited their museums, and other things. I won't claim to be an expert exactly, but I like to think I know a bit more about the subject than most people having you know... worked for them and having been taught to answer questions for tourists and stuff (being security, you know customer relations. Someone asks what that faux-woodcut is of, and it's nice if the guy patrolling actually knows the story, event, or historical figure it's supposed to illustrate and stuff like that).
When it comes to frontier towns, they are by the nature of being "on the frontier" not representitive of civlization as a whole. Guys operating out of mauve vulture gulch might pan for gold and stuff, but they are hardly in a position to be depopulating indians or trying to lay claim to major amounts of resources. That kind of thing tends to happen when the encroachment of civilization catches up. Some later-period westerns (and games like Red Dead Redemption) even deal with the whole issue of society having caught up and there not being a real "frontier" anymore since there is noplace on the edge any longer... civilization has reached the ocean, moving through everything in between.
Just some thoughts on that one point.
That said, we'll see what I think when I see the movie Sunday.
No one's gonna say it? Okay then I will. Laserblast.
To pad this comment, oh God what the hell are they doing to the Smurfs and why won't they stop?!?
To pad this comment, oh God what the hell are they doing to the Smurfs and why won't they stop?!?
This looked like a skippable film a mile away. My one friend was really geeking out about seeing it. Sounds like she will be highly disapointed when I hear when response. I'll try not to be too much of a jerk about rubbing it that I was right heh.
If you've seen Eclipse, I believe you'd think differently. Gone are the overly serious angsty romance, in it's place comes tongue-in-cheek humor, and decent action scenes. Anyone who bashes Twilight: Eclipse clearly either hasn't seen it, or is so biased against Twilight that they are already ready to hate it. (Please note that I hated the first two Twilight movies).Cain_Zeros said:
Well, I'd imagine Bob would have to fall into the latter category if those are really the only two options possible for not enjoying it for six billion people, because it's been a while since I've seen his review, but I'm pretty sure he didn't find anything to praise at all.moviedork said:
I've seen both reviews, and my taste in movies is close to that of brad's rather than moviebob's. I just think moviebob is so jaded by all the movies he has to sit through. What moviebob considers dull the average moviegoer might have a great time with.pandasaw said:
I don't know, this just makes it clear that I won't consider bob's opinion when I choose to go see a movie. Case in point moviebob said to avoid the movie Devil like the plague, brad recommended the movie because it was so unintentionally hilarious like The Happening was, I went with brad's advice and was not disappointed, not only with the humor but it also genuinely had some creepy moments and it does work as a whodunit.
EDIT: and yes their smurfs review was great, I knew I was in for a treat when I saw the run time for the smurfs review was almost 40 minutes long whereas the other 2 reviews were around 15 minutes.
I knew this wasn't going to be good. It smacked of Snakes on A Plane- a supposedly "clever" idea that someone developed into a movie based solely on the title.
As an aside- and I realise this is going to sound whiny- I am very rapidly getting sick of hearing about what a big deal The Avengers is.
As an aside- and I realise this is going to sound whiny- I am very rapidly getting sick of hearing about what a big deal The Avengers is.
I wouldn't do that. One piece of advice (and this has nothing to do with price) but ones satisfaction with something can almost always correlate with how much something cost. So if you go to a matinee with a buddy or something, I think you'll like this movie alot more than you think.therockdemon said:
I don't normally watch reviews BEFORE I see a movie, and I went into Cowboys & Aliens sorta knowing nothing more than what I might have gleaned from the trailer.
I give it one and a half thumbs up, if you can allow yourself to just enjoy a story.
Oh and Movie Bob, Bob, or whatever you prefer to be called, I just have to say that "Sloppy Nonsense Monsters" is certainly NOT what I took away from Cloverfield. I'll have to look and see if you did (you probably did) a review on it, so I can get a little context, but I thought that movie flippin rocked. Seriously, I would like to see you in that dark subway, and call those ugly bastards "Sloppy Nonsense Monsters" to their face.
Yeah, you'd piss yourself or run, just like the rest of us.
the trailer dint really grab me. just really looked silly. sure it has good actors in it and miss hotty wilde but if a trailer cant really get my attention then i highly doubt the movie can be any good. not surprised to hear that the movie is not worth watching.
Was it just me or did everybody who died die too easily and too poetically?
There were a lot of last words.
I was hoping somebody would puke or pass out or jabber incoherently while the other character has to listen because its the last moments of somebody's life.
At least nobody had a flashback while they were kicking the bucket.
There were a lot of last words.
I was hoping somebody would puke or pass out or jabber incoherently while the other character has to listen because its the last moments of somebody's life.
At least nobody had a flashback while they were kicking the bucket.