Silver Screen in a Red Envelope: A Diary of Time Wasted

 You must see this movie if you have not already at least ten times. It's brilliant. It's funny. It's full of classic lines. It's dubbed over Italian. Love Sergio Leone, man. I totally dig the Ennio Morricone music, too. This film also stands out as Henry Fonda's last western. He performs beautifully, and makes a respectable contrast to Terence Hill's good-natured comedy and pretty-boy blue eyes and dimpled smile. Let me tell you a story. One of my best friends is seventy-six years old. She watches Australian soap operas and unfunny Brit-coms (nothing crass, just slow), and tells me how much she enjoys them. She fell asleep less than ten minutes into the movie, woke up just as the end credits were rolling, and said, "that film did nothing for me." I cracked up just re-telling the story. Like most good things, this movie may require some effort: trying to stay awake, for instance, after a long, sleepless night. Some of the moments are a little mor...

 Terence Hill, as Nobody, needs no more than his brilliant blue eyes to capture the imagination of viewers. Although he has a model's figure and a leading-man's face, he doesn't seem at all afraid to make a fool of himself, to break the "blue steel" trap so many handsome actors step into. He makes me laugh all through this movie, not least when he tells the unforgettable story of the little birdie in the cow pie. Henry Fonda had always seemed immortal to me, but re-watching this film I seemed to see him age as I do. That moment was a tender one for me. (I'm going to go watch The Lady Eve  now just to make myself feel better.) Fonda brilliantly plays the aging gunfighter who takes on The Wild Bunch ("One hundred and fifty purebred sons of bitches on horseback") in silver-rimmed spectacles: a reluctant hero. Although some of the humor in this film may seem heavy-handed, the swearing occasional, and the drinking stereotypically abundant, this film c...