April 2025

My grandfather Hector O. Valencia was born in April 1932 (probably) and died in April 2015. He never could go out to the movies all that much due to his PTSD, but he loved westerns. So I decided that this month, I wanted to spend it how I've spent his birthday every year for the last ten years: watching westerns, and thinking about him. This year, I saw one western a day for the entire month of April; fifteen that I have seen before and fifteen completely new to me*.

So why do I love westerns? I think they are such a fascinating intersection of so many themes: outlaws vs lawmen, the veneer of sophistication next to aboriginal tradition and values, male violence and female isolation, poor & impoverished immigrants and Civil War veterans of both sides looking for that oft promised american dream, and the simple brutality of the West—where the laws of god and man don't mean much when you're staring down the barrel of a Colt Peacemaker. Like everywhere in the world, the law ain't fair and the game is rigged against you; but at least here, if you're somebody (and really lucky), you can sometimes do something about it.

Love you Tata


*Movies I saw but are not included in this post are Maverick [1994], Clearcut [1991], & The Wild Bunch [1969].

Blazing Saddles [1974]

Unapologetically silly from it's very first scene, Blazing Saddles is the very best of the Brooks films. Our protagonist (played perfectly by Little) is the coolest black man in the west; a warlock of Bugs Bunny himself—completely unbothered by the racism and threats of death that are commonplace in the setting—put on this earth for the sole purpose of vexing white people.

Legitimately funnier than I remember, and a perfect start to the month.

    10/10

    Beaux Score: 9.5/10 "The Gene Wildest"

First Cow [2019]

One of the most gentle and beautifully shot westerns I've ever seen, only a little slow for my taste. I fucking hate capitalism dude...

    8.5/10

The Great Silence [1968]

In Snow Hill Utah, life may be cheap but the money is good. It's been a while since I've seen something so cold & bleak that I swear I could feel the snow through the screen. The main villain fit right in—a man with straight up has ice in his veins.

Second anti-capitalist western in a row somehow! I desperately want to remake this movie but with an anti-colonialist message instead. An excellent addition to the revisionist western genre, I'm still reeling.

    8/10

Legends of the Fall [1994]

"He wanted to "Lose the madness," he said..."

This film is more historical drama than western, but I believe it earns its place among the best of them. Within it's first five minutes it establishes it's heavy tone, which it manages to keep with constant gut punches despite it's stunning Oscar winning Montana backdrop and gentle lullaby-like motifs (when Horner isn't going full blast anyway). I would not classify this movie as a romance film, so much as an exploration of masculinity—the duality of love and rage.

You might say it's melodramatic with one-dimensional female characters, and I wouldn't fault you for thinking so. Regardless, I've loved this movie for years and I think it is entirely underrated. Anti-establishment as hell and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Oh also One Stab may be one of my favorite Indigenous characters in film.

    9/10

    Beaux Score: (off key) "When you try your best but you don't succeed..." 9.5/10

Young Guns [1988]

queues Warren G & Nate Dogg

In Gun Youngs, Emilio Esteves plays Billy the Kid, an outright sociopath who has little to no regard for anything but his reputation. Billy is a rattlesnake newly hatched, making threats where there need not be any looking at rats ten times his size. Yun Gongs' weird score is a perfect for its awkward pacing: the mescalito scene is still very funny, but I do feel like it was a missed opportunity for storytelling. Young'uns has so many moments that feel contrived rather than naturally arrived at. With the air on set is suffused with gunpowder from constant gunfire, Gung Guns wins the Gun Award™ for having the most guns out of any action forward western. When the final shoot started—like many of Billy's crew—I was just happy it was finally over.

It is clear to me now as an adult that Young Guns is not the best movie, but I grew up on this shit man—I can't hate it. I'm fascinated by Billy's defiance of death, I don't mind Lou Dimond Phillips' mestizo, some of the executions are truly brutal, and it manages to be actually kinda funny.

    6/10

Young Guns 2 [1990]

For the most part, my critiques and praise of the first film apply to it's sequel, however it does try to take itself more seriously and is therefore sadder. Obviously a story about Billy the Kid isn't going to be a happy one, but I think this tone shift made the movie feel like it loses the violent-adventures-of-a-bunch-of-fun-outlaws feel of the original that makes it seem almost uncommitted to it's prior style.

Phillips is still my favorite, I despised the addition of the old man narration, Bon Bon Jovi.

    6/10

True Grit [1969]

Great western, and an incredible performance from Kim Darby. I just don’t like John Wayne.
Sorry Tio Frank.

    7/10

True Grit [2010]

Bridges > Wayne

Damon ≥ Campbell

Steinfield ≤ Darby

Overall I think it is a much better telling of the story, and that's probably because it's closer to the novel with great music and cinematography to boot. Great angry eldest daughter representation.

Why'd he kick those Indian kids tho?

    8/10

Quantum Cowboys [2022]

I should not have seen this movie inebriated, and full disclosure: all three of the people I started this with fell asleep.

Schrödinger Paradox put to a Western setting, creating a tangle of probability through time: it is a very intelligent and witty movie, partially live action and partially animated with one of twelve different styles. If I ever need rescuing from a time quandary, get Lily Gladstone.

It takes risks but manages to still feel like a western, it’s weird and funny, and I imagine it has multiple interpretations—so of course will need to see it again.

¡Three Amigos! [1986]

This movie is tethered to my very soul. I have memories in plethora of enjoying it with family and friends from early childhood to this very viewing—and I cherish all of them.

I feel at home those Tucson vistas, listening to its heroic score, laughing at set up’s I have memorized, and—if you catch me in a really good mood—I’ll be damned if I’m not singing the songs too!

    10/10, I will kidnap you and make you see it.

    Beaux Score: "I'm really happy that Martin Short's the short one. 10/10, beautiful movie"

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs [2018]

An anthology western exploring death and the contradictions of humanity. Feels weird to talk about this as a whole, so I'll go over it's chapters best I can:

¡Tierra de Aguafiestas!

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (~16 minutes)

Tim Blake Nelson perfectly opens the film as the man himself; absurd, musical, and charming as hell. Opening the film with the death of your titular character shows you all you need to know about what you're getting into, though the whole movie could be about the guy and I would've seen it.

10/10

Near Algodones (~12 minutes)

This one felt almost tired. We never really get to know James Franco's character, only watch as he steps into the waters and is pulled by it's current. Some absurdity remains, but it is more subtly placed in the world rather than him. Felt like it could've been longer but I'm glad it wasn't. The hanging scene where that guy takes two arrows to the neck makes me laugh every time. 

9/10

Meal Ticket (~20 minutes)

Nielson & Melling share a wordless partnership as they travel from town to town in the bleak & mountainous west. It's the most unique of the chapters, and probably the most brutal / depressing one too. I don't love it so much personally, but I think it's very well done.

8/10

All Gold Canyon (~21 minutes)

I just like seeing Tom Waits, and I think he plays an excellent prospector. I always think about how inherently disruptive man is to our environment, but at least it manages to find some manner of peace. As much as I like this one, I do get slightly annoyed that he couldn't pinpoint the pocket sooner, like with some basic geometry & measurements.

9/10

The Gal Who Got Rattled (~38 minutes)

The longest by far and my least favorite of the chapters. It's sometimes funny and not even that bad overall in quality, I just get annoyed by the tale. Mr. Longabaugh is a fucking idiot, and Miss Longabaugh's naivete is understandable but still annoying (why didn't she go through her brother's things???). The romance between Miss Longabaugh and Mr. Knapp is cute, and the only real redeemable part. I really don't believe the Indians would've run their horses into that terrain TWICE, nor do I care for the supposed hero and experienced waggoneer Mr. Arthur or his racist ramblings that result in Miss Longabaugh's suicide.

6/10

The Mortal Remains (~20 minutes)

My favorite chapter, no contest. Macabre, cryptic, and very well written—it was probably made exactly for me. I love this chapter so much I almost have it memorized. When I show this to people, I like to look into their eyes as they try to make sense of it: I do, I really do...

10/10, How do I get more of this I am not even joking

    9/10 Overall

    Beaux Score: "The memorable parts are really worth watching, you won't really remember the rest" 

Django [1966]

Dragging a coffin around all movie through a muddy ghost town is aesthetic as hell. Incredible gunfights and imagery, way ahead of its time.

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WATCH THIS IN THE ORIGINAL ITALIAN! DO NOT WATCH THE ENGLISH DUB!

    9/10

Django: Unchained [2012]

Awkward pacing & length is pretty much the only sin of this film.

Tarantino and Jaime Foxx give black americans the spaghetti western they deserve. The gun smoke, the blood of racists, the music, Waltz and DiCaprio; what's not to love?

    9.5/10

    Beaux Score: 10/10 "Good instruction on how to deal with racists"

The Magnificent Seven [1960]

YAQUI DEER DANCE SPOTTED!

I did enjoy the film, but having seen ¡Three Amigos! all my life, the over the top Bernstein music just made me giggle the entire time.

    8/10

The Magnificent Seven [2016]

The Good:

• Bernstein was not in control of the music, so I was able to take it seriously
• The gunfights are better
• Byung-hun & D'Onofrio
• The Uncle Tomahawk getting what he deserves

The Bad:

• My least favorite Denzel Washington ever.
• The first act team up is not nearly as fun or interesting as the original.
• Hearing this white as farm town complaining about some tyrant on their land when there's literally a Comanche native right there! (Why was he there risking his life defending these settlers?? Some fucking spirit quest?? We'll never know because they don't actually explore this character at all!)

The Ugly:

• Sure, it's the Most Diverse™ Seven ever—and to it's credit eliminates the white savior-ness of the first film—but in doing so it basically erases Latinos from the movie completely. I mean Garcia-Ruflo is there, but nothing has actually made me care about these people.
• The indian that laid dead in the street for hours and the town that wouldn't burry him in their graveyard, the dying west that forces men such as these to risk their lives on a job across the border for almost nothing, any nuance for the main villain, hiding the women because they feared their "saviors" might rape them, the fact that an honest day's labor of the townsfolk is more difficult and meaningful than the violence that is necessary to procure it; all of this is removed. What makes westerns so compelling for me is that it is the intersection of so many themes, but this film flattens that experience to almost nothing meaningful at all—and in doing so, loses its soul. 

We aren't hating on this movie enough.

    3/10

Unforgiven [1992]

My favorite Eastwood, and the perfect revisionist western. God forgive us for all we’ve done, and all we will do—but more realistically, I’ll see you in hell.

    10/10

    Beaux Score: "Clint Eastwood of all people critiquing how male profit is prioritized over female safety. Hope you like your own reflection" 9.5/10

The Outlaw Josey Wales [1976]

Chief Dan George is fucking hilarious! Always a pleasure to see Geraldine Keams' rambling in Diné & the great Will Sampson on horseback.

A man leaves home seeking revenge, and builds a community along the way. The gun battles are quite good, but I was very impressed with all the horse stunts! I said yesterday that Unforgiven was my favorite Eastwood, but this is probably him at his most peak—a cowboy, a gun, his word, and the horse that will carry him through hell.

    9/10

3:10 to Yuma [1957]

The remake was better.

Great cinematography, Crow’s Ben Wade couldn’t exist without Ford to pave the way, and I still really enjoyed the premise.

    7/10

Hostiles [2017]

I saw this first in theaters on a whim to cheer me up when I was having a bad day, and unfortunately it is not as good as I remember.

Captain Blocker is an annoying & racist asshole, and I don't believe that he only needed to sit in the same space as an peaceful injun family to find the error of his ways after spending decades indiscriminately killing them. Other more racist whites are put in to contrast him with the "true racists", but it's painfully obvious how problematic he is if you at all strip that away.

Hostiles feels so tired it's almost nihilistic; tired of those Indians who won’t stop fighting off invaders, tired losing everything all the time, tired the waiting, tired of the West itself. Master Sergeant Metz is tired of his work as a soldier. Chief Yellow Hawk's body is tired. All of our characters exist in a place of either moral greyness or get caught in the crossfire. Rosamund Pike is bad in this? Her character is completely unnecessary at least.

All in all, this film feels like a it was made by a white man who cannot rationalize his own guilt. The indigenous are portrayed & acted well, but any Land Back message that is here is undercut by it's dogshit climax & ending. It's beautiful, I love the music, Wes Studi is great—otherwise it is slow, predictable, and disappointing.

    4/10

A Man Called Horse [1970]

Extremely exploitive and misrepresenting of the Ogala Sioux, and goes out of it's way to create a white savior story where there really shouldn't have been one. I respect the attempt to try an almost spiritual western that portrayed the Indigenous as the protagonists, but then they just went and sorta did their own thing huh? So many non-Native actors for it's lead roles (Iron Eyes Cody spotted), I read that there were AIM (American Indian Movement) protests outside of screenings at the time.

It's a shame, because it's a pretty decently made film aside from all that. I do get why you liked it Tata, but it's not nearly enough for us these days.

    3/10

Little Big Man [1970]

 

"Come out and fight! It is a good day to die! Thank You for making me a Human Being! Thank You for helpin' me to become a warrior! Thank You for my victories, and for my defeats! Thank You for my vision, and the blindness in which I saw further! You make all things and direct them in their ways, O Grandfather. And now You have decided the Human Beings will soon walk a road that leads nowhere. I am gonna die now, unless death wants to fight. And I ask You for the last time to grant me my old power to make things happen!

Take care of my son here. See that he doesn't go crazy."

Every year on April 24th for a decade now, I have sat down and watched Little Big Man with a cocktail and some wafer cookies. It's was my Tata's favorite. It is so funny at times, but then suddenly it is a horror scene. The complex spectrum of humanity is put on screen to laugh at, empathize with, hate, love, & mourn. 
Happy birthday Tata, I'm missing you a lot this year.

    9/10, My heart soars like a hawk

    Beaux Score: "I cry ery tim"

The Quick and the Dead [1995]

Predictable nonsense that is heavily reliant on tropes, featuring: dutch angles, back to back zooming in on the eyes, vertigo effect, more dutch angles!

I had fun anyway lol

    5/10

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [1969]

Made me think of the quote (from Red Dead Redemption):

"We can't always fight nature, John. We can't fight change. We can't fight gravity. We can't fight nothing. My whole life, all I ever did was fight—but I can't give up, neither. I can't fight my own nature. That's the paradox, John. You see?"

    9/10

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [2007]

Saw this first around its release and I knew there was something good there, I was just 11 at the time and didn’t have the patience.

More period piece than western, dual protagonists, and 160 minutes of Roger Deakins’ incredible imagery. The only film I’ve seen that made me feel like I was reading a novel. Honestly, my only critique of the movie is that it should’ve committed to a full 3 hour run time because the coda feels rushed and it undercuts it's message a bit.

It’s well done, but I’ll definitely need to be in a mood before I see it again. I wanted to rewatch this for a long while now and I’m glad I finally did.

    8/10

Pat Garret & Billy the Kid [1973]

My only cinematic comparison for the relationship between Pat and Billy is the Young Guns series, and their relationship here is leagues better than that (as in actually believable). I felt like it needed something more. 

Was the orgy necessary?

    7/10

Black God, White Devil [1964]

"Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol" is the native title of the film—God & the Devil in the Land of the Sun—and it's probably one of the most pessimistic films I've seen in a long time.

God just isn't here: he doesn't watch over you, he does not speak through the prophets, he isn't in your "cause", and he certainly isn't in the man you married. Clearly a low budget production from the 60's, but they still manage to say so much.

I was in way too good a mood seeing this and it was not my vibe, so I gotta see it again before I rate it, but wow...

Now back to our regularly unscheduled programing:

Cinema Paradiso [1988]

A cute goodbye to old Hollywood. Really wish there was more of the young Toto, the movie kinda changes gears after the first act and loses some of it's magic, but I guess we all gotta grow up sometime.

¡Tierra de Aguafiestas!

Straight up almost cried when Spaccafico teared up watching the Cinema destroyed; he smiled, like it was giving them one last good show.

    8/10

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale [2007]

This is NOT Lord of the Rings, okay!?

Those are not orc they're KRUG

Not wood elves, HOT FOREST BABES

Also NINJAS!

The music department was asleep at the wheel, & lighting department that hated everyone in the third act battle at Helm's De— I mean Dark Forest. You know it aint gonna be good, so I recommend the 155 minute Extended Edit— I mean Director's Cut. Oh and bad movies are always better with friends ❤️

    3/10

Crank: High Voltage [2009]

Better in quality overall, and somehow still a worse film than the first one.

Some movies are not better even with friends. I hope this series is dead forever.

    1/10

Raising Arizona [1987]

Such an energetic and funny movie, but I was not prepared to watch perhaps the silliest Coen film ever made. Nick Cage is locked in a struggle between the anarchy in his heart and the the peace he wants to forge. John Goodman screams a lot (this is a good thing).

    8.5/10

Wendy and Lucy [2008]

On edge the entire time.

They should invent a world that doesn’t demand everything from you.

    10/10, it may have broke me

Ready or Not [2019]

A boring "comedic horror" that failed to do either. I'm all for hating on the rich, but the sentiment is about as meaningless here as it was in Glass Onion.

    4/10

Beautiful Boy [2018]

Every generation needs their afterschool special, and Gen Z’s has Timothée Chalamet! Why is Mr. Atreides always tweaking on something?

Steve Carell was the real stand out of this very sad movie; the camera doing an excellent job conveying his limited & fixed point of view.

Overall, the cycle of addiction is repetitive and exhausting and so to is this movie (and I mean that as both a compliment and a critique).

    6.5/10

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim [2024]

Putting the “Mid” in Middle Earth!

Helm was cool tho

    3/10

Vice [2018]

This movie gets more depressing by the year, but Bale and Adams are still incredible.

    7.5/10

    Beaux Score: "Thank god this movie was a complete work of fantasy 🤡"

Sinners [2025]

See this movie, and see it in IMAX if you can!

A séance on screen! 

Still thinking about it and grinning like an idiot even the next day—inject Southern Gothic Horror directly into my veins please! I know we’re only just getting done with April, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t the best thing to come out all year. The music, the cinematography, the pacing—absolutely perfect 

Sure it’s a little messy thematically, but any good feast should be, and brother you are gonna eat! I will be back to review this movie more in depth one day.

    10/10, MOVIE OF THE YEAR?

    Beaux Score: "AHHHHHHHHHHH! Go watch it go watch it go watch that movie!" 10/10

"But wait, Valentino! You said you'd watch thirty westerns this month and out of the 43 that I counted, only twenty-nine were westerns! What are you, some kind of liar?"

First of all, weird that you counted, but also...

Tombstone [1993]

Full review tomorrow