p e n g u i n d e v i l

Tonight we were suprised to recieve The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. I had long wanted to see this, being a fan of Tommy Lee Jones (though not always of his role selection), but I had forgot that I had queued it. Strangely enough, we just sat right down and watched it! I really liked it alot. Tommy is Pete, a cowboy about a Texas border town who befriends a Mexican cowboy looking for work. Of course, this fellow, Melquiades Estrada, meets with a sad fate and it is up to old Pete to try and make things right by giving him the burial that he would have wanted.

Of course, Pete’s way ends up getting him pursued by the sheriff and the border patrol. And there is all sorts of gun fire and bad tempers. It’s is a good film, a quiet film, so the pursuit isn’t one of those dumb Hollywood things with cars racing around and sirens blaring, instead it’s mainly horses riding through big scenery in Texas and Mexico. There is lots of scenery (Mexico, by the way, looks much nicer than Texas, and seems to be just a better place), though the dead still need tending to wherever they are.

There is some good casting: everyone does good here. Tommy has a great character, played in a very subtle, yet powerful fashion, and Dwight Yoakam as the local Sheriff is a scene stealer, and, of course, Barry Pepper is unpleasantly great as the Border Patrolman who gets dragged out on the journey that is bound to change his life..

I also started watching Heaven’s Gate. For years I have only known it as being one of the biggest flops ofall-time, but I hadn’t known anything else about. So naturally I thought I should give it a shot. My impressions from a partial viewing? Well, though they made a mis-step with the beginning (spending the first twenty minutes covering two speeches and a dance from a nineteenth century Harvard graduation celebration is not a way to get folks involved with what is going on), but I still don’t think it is all that bad a movie. It sure gets off to a slow start, but then Kris Kristofferson ends up out west, as a good guy in a county where the businessmen (led by Sam Waterson) have decided to put death warrants out on the local European immigrants who are farming the area. The hire a gang to carry out these warrants (lead by Christopher Walken) and bad things are in the air and Kris is there to try and stave it off. Sadly, I was to about the halfway mark here (about 2 hours in) and I’ve been waffling on finishing it. And I don’t think I will. But, if you are up for a slow, four hour movie serious “western”, give it a shot.