D.Moore

Holy Grail keeps up with Life of Brian with ease. It’s hard to pick the best sketch, too hard in fact, because every second of the runtime is a deadly joke. But if I still have to... Would it be a horseless carriage ride, but with coconut shells? Or the collection of the dead? The Knights who say Ni? The killer rabbit? Tim? Brave Sir Robin? Lancelot, who gets kidnapped? The defenders of the French castle? No, I can't do it. The entirety of Grail is great.___P.S. Today on the occasion of the 40th anniversary from when it was seen in the movie theater and... Well, what can I tell you? Simply an hour and a half of continuous hysterical laughter to tears.

What an amazing start! When Monco puts a plate under his poncho and learns to shoot again with his crippled hands, I get chills down my spine - and it's the fault of all three gentlemen - Eastwood, Leone and Morricone. Thanks, guys. The final duel, which at one point is amazingly filmed as a shoe fight, must have been such an "event" in its time that all directors of westerns had their eyes popping out of their sockets. Good for them. At least they had a chance to prepare for what was coming in a few years.

One of the main plots of Once Upon a Time in the West, "Someone is going after someone, but it's not until the end that we find out why," was used by Leone here. It would seem that Clint's Monco is playing second fiddle in For a Few Dollars More... But he simply isn’t able to do that and he is great and draws attention to himself as always.__P.S.: Van Cleef is traditionally good, of course, but I like him even better as a villain.__P.P.S. I recommend listening to the soundtracks from A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The way Morricone develops and refines his music over time, how he interweaves individual motifs and makes them into an unforgettable work, deserves incredible admiration.

Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach... Add Van Cleef's villain, a first-rate bastard, and you've almost got everything. Which scene from this western of all westerns to pick as the best? For me it is definitely Tuco's running between the graves accompanied by the song “The Ecstasy of Gold".... Something like this could not be made (and composed) by man, but rather by God. The best western of all time and perhaps the second best film of all time after Lawrence of Arabia.__P.S. "Comedy" is noticeably missing from the genres here.

Only a tiny bit worse than Leone's best works and an unjustly neglected (by distributors and audiences) gem. Besides dynamite, these pockets are filled with especially memorable scenes (the stagecoach opening, the bank in Mesa Verde, the bridge, the cave, the breathtaking flashbacks), suspense and typical humor, and the precise direction of one master, along with the music of another and the interplay of Steiger and Coburn, turn it into a perfect spectacle. Some of the monumental shots and crowd scenes make you wonder how great Leone's Leningrad might have looked had it been made.

It is simply impossible to pick out one particular thing from this film that deserves to be singled out, because it has to be seen in its entirety, and also several times, in order to make one believe that even a western can have the dimensions of a Shakespearean drama! (That's my review)__P.S. from May 14, 2013 - I finally saw Once Upon a Time in the West in the movie theater... And again, I have nothing to add. Perhaps only that Cheyenne is probably the biggest all-star of all the spaghetti western characters.

Lawrence blows out a burning match... and there you have it. Brilliant editing to match that of Kubrick's 2001 is followed by easily the best thing I've ever seen. In fifty years, no film has surpassed Lawrence of Arabia. And none will. The direction, the cinematography, the music, the actors, the whole atmosphere that splashes from this gem to all sides of the world, the scenes with the crossing of the An Nafud desert, the rescue of Gasim, the destruction of the train, the ship "sailing" through the desert... This is how biographies are made, this is how epics are made, and this is how gems are made.__P.S. Today, on July 4, 2012, I finally got to see Lawrence on the big screen. Thank you, Carlsbad Festival.

Of course, a fully realistic (anti-)war film can never be made, but if you're asking for one that's 90% realistic, I'd say this is the one. And that ending!