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aunt_zeldaAnyhoodle, 3:10 to Yuma! Charlie Princess FTW! But he is SCARY as HELL. I dunno what it is about him ... maybe because his face doesn't move much (none of the men's lower faces in this movie seem to move all that much) so when he grinned it was all the more terrifying, or because he's kinda insane in a sadistic, 'I wanna shag the boss/I am shagging the boss' way. Oh, come on, you saw it too! Charlie sounded really put-out that Ben was gonna stay in the bar and oggle the pretty-yet-aloof barmaid. And besides, the bounty-hunter-guy called him a 'whore.' For some reason, the only time a person refers to a man as a whore is when the man in question has slept with other men. I don't know why, but in this case, I'm glad of it. SQUEE!
As much as I hate Russell Crowe as an actor (Gladiator had good fight scenes but that was all, you hear me? THAT WAS ALL! That movie sucked.) I am a total Ben Wade fangirl. The chemistry between him and Dan made me melt on the inside. All the EYESEX ... (yes, I know they were making all that eye-contact with tense music because of the'is he gonna shoot me or not?' thing, but we all know what guns are a metaphor for, right?)
Awwww, Ben doesn't mind skinny girls! (Skinny was bad back in the day, people tend to forget that when making movies.) Does Christan Bale have green eyes? I'm going to pretend he does. Then again, Ben said "That's alright ... they don't have to be green." so both Charlie Princess AND Batman-in-cowboy-reincarnation are compatable!
Mmmmmm ... barmaid-girl is pretty. VERY pretty ... I need to sleep ...
The appearence of Wash with silly glasses is marred only slightly by the fact that we watch him fish a bullet out of that guy's gut. Eeeeeew. Ha ha, Wash is a veteranarian!
*sigh* Poor Dan. Railroad thugs don't want shiny pendants. Maybe he can give it to Ben instead!
For the longest time I thought that this movie was set in Australia. Now I feel stupid.
Ooooooo ... I have so much love for the scene in which Ben pays Dan for the cows he killed and the loss of a day's work. Mostly because of the single line "Anything else you wanna get paid for ... Dan?" *sporfles* Then Dan asks for five more dollars, because Ben makes him "nervous." Oh, this is like CHRISTMAS.
Oh, yay, a D&D cell! Wash the Vet, Dan, Ben, wounded bounty hunter, and a-guy-who-I've-seen-before-in-SOMETHING, are heading out together! Yay! This oughta be fun!
"Aren't we supposed to say Grace for murderers, too?" Hee hee hee ...
Then Ben starts to play mind-games with Ben, his wife, his son, and, indeed, the audience. He points out that Native Americans are humans too, and the bounty-hunter killed men women AND Indian children, he quotes scripture and half-smiles at the wife, he asks Mr. Butterfield if he eats a lot when he's nervous, and ends up getting Dan to cut up his FOOD for him! All the while William is entranced. I dunno if he's in love or what, but I'm not touching THAT ONE with a ten-foot pole. When the menfolk and the boys rush outside to investigate shots, Ben puts the moves on Dan's wifey. It's HYSTERICAL.
Oh, no. Dan asks his wife, point blank "You think he's too much for me?" Well, Danny-boy, HE was offering to pay YOU not too long ago, so in this annalogy, YOU are the rent-boy, not him!
William is pissed that his dad's gonna go galivanting off on a slashy adventure and leave him behind. Well, dear, I don't think you'd want to see the sort of things Ben and Dan plan on getting up to in the fanfiction ...
William disparages the D&D cell. *kaSNORT* William, dear, it's called 'an endearing band of misfits.' The recipe has worked so well in the past!
Hee hee. What's-his-face taunts Ben a little too gleefully for my taste. Hands off, deputy-man, Ben belongs to Charlie Princess!
"Now if we get seperated, I know where to meet up." Hee hee hee!
Later on, one of Dan's sons asks his mom what Ben Wade meant about sending their dad home, did he mean he was gonna kill him? No, dear, it means that he'll have his gang kill everyone else (well, maybe leaving Wash alive to pull bullets out of their horses) and keep Dan tied up in a cave somewhere, a la 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.'
Will sneaks out. Blah blah blah.
Aournd a slashy campfire in the wilds, Ben grills Dan about the reason he's out in the wilds. Dan says "Maybe I don't like the idea of men like you on the loose." Meaning ... you want to make him a kept-man? *sniggers* Ben smirks and says "It's man's nature to take what he wants, Dan, it's how we're born." Ok, that's practically a proposition whilst simultaniously assuring Dan that people are just born gay and there's nothing wrong with that! Eventually Dan tells Ben "Go to sleep
Ben starts needling Dan about his wife and how Dan doesn't treat her right. He says he bets she was real pretty before she married Dan ... and Dan leaps over and gets all in Ben's face, gritting that if he says another word he'll kill him. Ben's face DOES NOT CHANGE IN EXPRESSION AT ALL, but he says "I like this side of you, Dan."
Ok, I am oficially dead. That bit right there killed me.
*insert sleep break*
*sporfles* Good GOD. What's-his-face (WHERE HAVE I SEEN THIS DAMN ACTOR BEFORE?!) is arguing that if he's gotta awake "you're damn well gonna be up with me too, Ben ... Wade." Bahaahhaahha ... ew. The fact that WHF smirks creepily before continuing his attempts to sing and Ben rolls his eyes later makes it even funnier.
Annnnnnnnd ... Ben stabs What's-His-Face in the neck with a fork he stole from Dan's house. And laughs. A lot. After killing WHF, when the bounty hunter is punching him in a very unnessesary manner, and when Dan pulls the bounty hunter off of him. Then Ben sings the song that WHF was singing, but much, much better than WHF was. The fact that he's laughing AND spitting blood just makes the Joker/Batman parallels better for me.
Charlie finds the hoax, and burns the double alive in the stagecoach. My exterior says "ew" but my inner slasher says "aw." Charlie Princess also says they'll buy new horses to ride EIGHTY DAMN MILES to save his boyfriend, and knocks a guy down and pulls a gun on him for suguesting he (the other guy) might to a better job of leading the gang. All through this scene, Charlie Princess's face does not change. But he DOES save his boyfriend's hat. Awwww.
*insert another sleep break*
Later on, Dan asks Ben why he killed 'Tucker' and not himself, or Butterfield. Ben says it's becuase Tucker took his horse. When he asks if Dan "liked" Tucker (hee!) and Dan denies it, Ben reminds him that Tucker burnt down his barn. Dan admits that Tucker "was an asshole" but says "wishing him dead and killing him are two different things." "Your consience is sensitive, Dan ... I don't think it's my favorite part of you."
I'm not gonna speculate as to what part of Dan is Ben's favorite ... I'll leave that for guilty-pleasure fanfic-writing, thank you very much.
Bounty Hunter sidles up and more of Ben reminding us that BH killed Apache women and children (some younger than three.)
Bounty Hunter insults Dan's parents, calling his dad a "drunk grave digger" and his mother a whore. Dan pauses, then tackles Bounty Hunter off his saddle and into the dirt. He whacks BH on the head with a rock and grabs his rifle, pointing it at Dan, the Doctor, and Butterfield. He gets them all to drop their guns, remembering that Dan's got a pistol as well as a rifle and getting him to drop that one too. Hee.
Oh, hey, I just looked up 'Tucker' on IMDb, and guess what? IT'S KEAMY! OMG! *flees* I knew I'd seen him in something in which he also played an asshole, just couldn't remember what. What is it with that actor and playing assholes who antagonize men called 'Ben' and end up being killed by them while Ben's boyfriend looks on?
Anyhoodle, Ben tosses Bounty Hunter over a cliff because he insulted his mommy, and then gets covered by William, who tries to be badass. Ben could clearly have taken him, but didn't, so Ben/Dan is getting more canon by the second. Ben is back in custody, and they have a new member of the D&D cell.
That night, Ben tricks William into getting him started on a conversation about
Oooo! Physical contact again! Ben yoinks Dan down into the grass, but sadly it's because Native Americans are attacking. Dan gets shot in the arm, and Ben saves their sorry hides STILL IN HANDCUFFS. Badass. He returns to the fireside and asks Dan for the keys, but Dan tosses them into the bushes or the fire, I can't tell which. Ben sighs, and kicks Dan in the head. Awwwww. I say 'awwww' because he could have killed him for that ... and didn't. Hence the 'awww.'
Ben took their horses, and Dan (the new leader of the D&D cell) says that they'll get him back.
Ben rides into a railroad camp, full of abused Chinese. He tries to get someone to help get his handcuffs off, but sadly the ?manager? of the camp recognized him and an innocent woman dies.
When Dan and Co arrive, Ben has been hoised up by his wrists and being electrified. It's worth noting that his shirt is kinda open. Yay! After some arguing, blah blah, Ben killed the manager's brother a few years ago, blah blah, Dan needs the money but not enough to die, blah blah Ben says goodbye to his almost-boyfriend ... and then
*wibbles*
We're now in a town, where an extra is earning his meager pay by coughing up a storm in the foreground. Good work, man! *hacks herself* Damnit, not over this cold yet!
Oh, my sweet, sweet stars. They're waiting in a hotel for the train to come. They're waiting in the bridal suite. Then Mr. Butterfield leaves them alone. Ben (still in handcuffs) and Dan (who just told him to "shut up") are alone in the bridal suite with Ben probably considering the possibility that he's gonna die soon and this is his last chance for sex. There's a stopwatch in the room. Let your imaginations soar.
Charlie Princess, still hot on the trail of his boyfriend, sees Ben's gun in the holster of some guy at the railroad camp, and promptly shoots all three guys, saying "I hate possees." Shout it out, Charlie Princess!
In the BRIDAL SUITE (no, I will not let that go) Ben is lying on the bed contemplating how many brides have taken in the view of the ceiling. He offers Dan one thousand dollars (that's like, a million back then) to put down his gun and let Ben walk away. That's one helluva a pricey rent-boy, considering there was a hooker preening out back a few scenes ago. Dan says that's risky for Ben, seeing as he's so sure his crew's coming to save him. Ben doesn't doubt that they're coming, but says he likes to do things the easy way. Ben speculates what Dan could do with all that money, and says, when Dan says people will be suspicious of all that cash, "Nobody needs to know." (SQUEE.) Dan tells Ben to not talk to him for a while. "You mean we're still not friends?" Ben pouts. Ok, he doesn't really pout, because Russell Crowe's face isn't that expressive, but you get the picture. Dan says no, they're not. Ben chuckles "Come five minutes to three we're gonna be a helluva a lot closer than you'd think!" Oh, he did not just say that ... excuse me ... *passes out*
The person who tells me how much time they had alone in that room earns a fic staring the pairing of their choice. I am deadly serious. This is my new OTP.
Some marshals have been enlisted to help escort Ben to the train. The gang rides into town. The bartender nods to Charlie Princess so that Charlie knows where Ben is, and Ben perches on the window, saying "I'm just up here with my four new friends ..." and Dan cuts him off. Hee hee hee! Oh, Dan, if you'd let him go on, Ben might have said 'Princess, I love you so much, but there's this guy up here who I really dig and can easily blackmail, could you leave him alive? I promise OT3 action!' Still, he gets his hat back.
Charlie Princess rouses the town by offering $200 to any extra who shoots one of Ben Wade's captors. This freaks the marshals, who split and surrender, but the gang shoots them anyway. William tries to appeal to Ben's good-side to get him to call off his gang, but Ben insists he doesn't have a good-side and he's all rotten. No, dude, if you were all rotten, you'd propose some OT3 action with Dan AND William, not keep telling Dan to work a deal that'd get him and William out of this alive.
Woooooo. Dan makes a better deal with Butterfield: the bad-good-guys will never set foot on his land again, his water will run, his wife gets $1,000 in cash, and that Butterfield will get William home safe. Awwww. Then Dan makes his goodbye with William that is quite nice and hands over the pendant-thing. All the while Ben has been looking through the Bible, possibly crossing out Leviticus 18:22.
Later on Dan is getting antsy, and Ben now has a pencil and is scribbling in the Bible. (Hee hee hee.) He tells Dan how, when he was 8, his dad got killed over a shot of whiskey and his mom told him they were going back east to start over. She gave him a Bible and told him to wait because she was gonna get their tickets. It took Ben three days to read the Bible, and she never came back. *wibbles*
There's a huge shootout scene in which Dan and Ben run through the lovely sets and people shoot at each other pell-mell. Eventually Dan and Ben get inside a general store and Ben tells Dan his son isn't watching anymore, he can walk away. Dan tackles him, they struggle, Ben ends up on top and starts to strangle him. Dan gasps that the only battle he saw was a retreat and one of his own men shot off his foot. He tells Ben to try telling that story to his son and see how his son looks at him then. There's a long, perfect moment, and Ben lets go of Dan and says "Ok, Dan." It's a fantastic scene.
In the bridal suite (now that Ben and Dan are gone, it's not in capslock) William discovers that Ben drew a picture of Dan in one of the Bible's blank pages. Awwww. William shoves Butterfield and races out. Charlie yells at Ben to drop down, but he won't. Ben and Dan execute some bad parkour. They end up holed up in the train station, which is slightly larger than a walk-in closet. Dan exposiates that his youngest son got tuberculosis when he was 2 and the doctors said he'd die if he didn't come to a dryer climate. Ben says as long as they're making confessions, he's been to
Aw, hell. The train is coming.
Mr. Butterfield steps out onto the porch, looking anxious, but in a different way than he used to.
William sets some cattle running across the path between the outlaws and Dan n' Ben. Ben makes it onto the train, but Dan gets shot, a lot, by Charlie Prince. Ben did, however, yell "NO!" seconds too late, which I think is worth mentioning. Ben gets off the train (having suspiciously lost his jacket.) Charlie glances at Dan and says "for a rancher, he's one tough son of a bitch" and tosses Ben his Hand of God gun. Ben pauses, Charlie seems to know what's gonna happen (canon, I tell you, CANON SLASH) and then ... wow. That was a surprise ending. ben shoots Charlie, then his crew, then grabs Charlie and shoots him up-close-and-personal. William runs up and almost shoots Ben but thinks better of it and turns to his father, saying that he did it. *sigh* Poor Dan. You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villian. Ben clambers onto the train and hands his gun over. Two bearded convicts edge away from him. Music reminiscent of Kill Bill plays as the train pulls off and William crouches over his dad's body. Ben whistles, and his horse rides off after the train (hee hee), past the beautiful greenscreen.
And ... credits.
Wow. That was definetly not what I expected. Well, I dunno what I expected ... but that was fantastic. Going on my list of all-time favorite movies. Great music, too.
Mayhaps I should watch and read more Westerns: long coats, lots of guns, few women, loads of sexual tension ...
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Date: 2008-09-14 09:55 pm (UTC)Then I realized you were reviewing the re-make. In the original version, which is still quite good, dan gets Ben onto the train and they ride off into the usnset. Except it's pouring, and the movie is in black and white, so not really. The last line is Ben saying "I've gotten out of Yuma before." I don't know if I like the new ending better. It definetly has more shcok value.
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Date: 2008-09-15 01:46 pm (UTC)In the original version, which is still quite good, dan gets Ben onto the train and they ride off into the usnset. Except it's pouring, and the movie is in black and white, so not really. The last line is Ben saying "I've gotten out of Yuma before."
So, it's more of a slashy happy ending instead of a slashy sad ending?
I don't know if I like the new ending better. It definitely has more shcok value.
Oh, hell yeah ... made me squeak and everything. I kinda wish Ben and Dan had ridden off into the happily-ever-after sunset ... but that wouldn't have made as much sense.
*sigh* Guess I'll have to write some guilty-pleasure fanfic ...
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Date: 2008-09-14 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-15 01:52 pm (UTC)