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More Powerful Early Word Rolling In On THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
I can’t wait to see this one.
Ed Havens, esteemed editor of FilmJerk, has been buzzing in various forums for the last few days about how impressed he was with a test screening of this film. Our spy was at that same screening, and it sounds like people are really flipping for what they’re seeing. I’ve been hearing fantastic buzz about Casey Affleck’s work for a while now. Could this be one of 2007’s heavy hitters?
Hey Harry and Moriarity, ACTIONMAN here with a new review. You last posted my rave for 300 and boy do I have another one for you.
Last night I caught an advanced screening of THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (from here on referred to as JESSE JAMES for the purposes of fast typing) here at the Grove in Los Angeles. I’m going to keep this as spoiler free as possible, but let's be honest here, if you know anything about history or took the time to read the title of the film you already know the ending.
Directed by Andrew Dominik, who previously made the nasty little movie CHOPPER with that incredible performance from Eric Bana, JESSE JAMES is a lyrical, brooding, atmospheric anti-Western that gave me the goose bumps numerous times throughout the 2 hour and 20 minute run time. Dominik has skyrocketed to the top of young directors with this film. I might have expected a film of such power and force from an established director but I just had no idea that this guy was capable of such a movie. He must've gotten tons and tons of big Hollywood offers after CHOPPER was unleashed but I’m glad he waited. This film is a masterwork. It's the closest thing to a Terrence Malick movie that Terrence Malick never directed. I was reminded many times of Malick's most recent masterpiece THE NEW WORLD while watching JESSE JAMES; there are stretches with no dialogue, heavy emphasis on nature, and a poetic and meditative tone. I hesitate to call JESSE JAMES a "western"....I mean, it's certainly not a "Western" like the recent OPEN RANGE, THE MISSING, or UNFORGIVEN. It’s not concerned with minutiae or artifice; it’s stark, crisp, and clean.
It's essentially a psychological study of a murder, and a murderer, and it doesn’t play to many of the more cliché Western conventions that we’ve seen over and over again. I will keep the story description brief: Casey Affleck plays Robert Ford, and is absolutely amazing in the role. I have never thought anything of him as an actor but that all changed last night. He has a very, very tough role, playing a deeply unsympathetic guy who the audience knows will end up killing Jesse James at some point in the narrative. Affleck brings a strung-out, beaten-down quality to the character of Ford, and as the movie progresses, you watch as he becomes more confident of himself, and how he starts to believe his own madness.
Brad Pitt plays Jesse James with cocky swagger and is just awesome. He owns the role, it’s like it was tailor made for him. Just watch the way the guy smokes his cigars and moves his head and eyes….methodical and unnerving. Like Ford, Jesse isn't a very likeable guy (come to think of it, nobody in the movie is particularly likeable) but you end up warming to him a little bit (I did at least) even though he's basically asking to get killed throughout the entire picture.
The supporting cast is aces across the board, with Sam Rockwell registering best as Ford's brother. This guy is so damn good it's a crime he doesn't get enough attention. Sam Shepard, Mary Louise Parker, and slew of excellent character actors round out the cast. But the movie belongs to Casey Affleck. He's just riveting all throughout.
The film is more about style and atmosphere than anything else. It's a tone poem of sorts about a gritty, dark period in American history. It feels extremely intimate yet very epic at times, due in large part to the stunning cinematography by Roger Deakins (FARGO, JARHEAD, O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU?) Using what appeared to be natural light almost exclusively, and an impressionistic shooting style composed of beautiful vistas, extreme close-ups, silhouettes, moonlight, train-light, and a gauzy effect similar to Bob Richardson’s brilliant cinematography in SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS. It's just glorious. Every shot is perfect. No joke. I am a big fan of movies that lean on the visual aspects of storytelling to present information; and this being a Ridley and Tony Scott production, no expense has been spared to make JESSE JAMES look totally authentic (without being garish or over-blown) Of late, some of my favorite films have been THE NEW WORLD, CHILDREN OF MEN, THE GOOD SHEPHERD, MUNICH, THE DEPARTED, MIAMI VICE, APOCALYPTO, CITY OF GOD, MAN ON FIRE, and many others. I am attracted to the different ways that filmmakers can present their ideas through visuals, rather than words.
And I just fell in love with this film from the start. From the god-like voiceover narration that runs over the entire movie to the attention paid to each and every shot, there are moments of sublime beauty at almost every turn in this film. It's essentially an art film set in the old west. And when the story gets violent, it gets extremely intense. In fact, one of the things that I loved about this film so much was the constant feeling of dread and uncertainty that runs through each scene. Right from the start, you get the feeling that any character could meet their maker at any point. And that's one of the things about the old West that made that time period so dangerous; people got killed in a heartbeat, over simple stuff. And when people get shot in this film, it's brutal and unflinching. Not sensationalized or over the top, but rather grim and raw. Like what you'd see on DEADWOOD.
What makes JESSE JAMES better than most movies are the moral shades of gray that the characters exhibit. JESSE JAMES is basically about how one man comes to the decision to kill his idol, and in the crudest comparison, I guess maybe the movie is sort of like a stalker-thriller. Ford idolizes Jesse, wants to ride with him, wants to rob with him. But the relationship that develops between the two men is awkward and volatile, giving off an un-easy feeling all throughout the movie.
I know this review is all over the place but there are so many things I loved about this movie. The time Dominik took to tell his story, the gripping performances, the literate dialogue, the incredible scenery, and the breathtaking ending that is so perfect it's almost a joke. It's stark, visceral, beautiful, and haunting. But here's the deal---I doubt you'll all get to see this version of the movie. I got the sense (maybe from the dozen or so walk-outs, mostly female) that this movie is going to get trimmed and cut and unnecessarily messed with. After the screening, I marched right up to Ridley Scott (who produced the movie with his brother Tony) and told him in these exact words: "Don't change a single frame of this film." He smiled, we chatted briefly, I told him how amazing I thought it was but that I felt that the audience might be narrow. He seemed to agree. A cool guy, and one of my personal film heroes.
So, in a nutshell, an amazing effort from a new, dynamic voice in film--Andrew Dominik. I'd assume Warner's will release JESSE JAMES sometime in the fall, and I won't be surprised if it's a limited release at first. While it couldn't have cost a ton of money to produce, it's such a specific niche-film that I fear it will get overlooked. If that were to happen, it'd be a crime. A complete crime. There was absolutely nothing I didn't love about this movie, and I could only hope that 10 movies of this caliber would get released every year. THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES is the kind of movie that makes me happy to be a film buff, and one that I can't wait to re-watch over and over again. Please, please, please Warners---don't take anything out of this gem. You've made an art-film....treat it with the respect it deserves.
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+ Expand All
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again
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ohhhhhhh
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hell
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could it be?
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go go
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record coming
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nearly
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yessssssssssssssssssssssss
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just for the hell of it
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because i can. that is all. GOTTA EAT!!!
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Need to see this..
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I hope I'm proved wrong and am incorrect, but this review could be a plant, as the film was supposed to come out in September last year, but didn't because Warner Bros were extremely unhappy with the result, took the film off Aussie director Andrew Dominik and have recut it themselves. I've never known people to be thrilled at a studio re-edit of a film, rather than a director's own one. Then again Joe Carnahan has also praised the film on his offical website, but I think he saw a 3 hour cut, which won't be released.
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which means, according to this review, JESSE JAMES is an antiwestern of antiwesterns. So its like Rio Bravo?
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Also love the tone of Unforgiven and the Missing. Could be good.
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I was with you till you misspelled "independent"...sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine...that and the your/you're debacle...sorry bud, you're dead to me...
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A retort to a grammatical comment with glaring grammatical problems itself.
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my obstuse monkey grunts and get what I mean when say "independant" instead of "independent." I don't know, sorry pal. I guess your dead to me as well. ~ What exactly is Obstuse? That was my biggest problem with your comment, although I must admit the more I re-read it the worse it becomes. Run on sentence's and dangling participles and egregious spelling mistakes...who is really the Dipshit ???
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I agree, the movie does sound neat! Maybe even cool. Do you think it sounds cool? If you do we can be friends...forever!
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by the Trashy Tanya Harding
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Count me out. That movie was fucking terrible.
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People like BadMrWonka are so insecure about their intelligence that they feel the need to stop the flow of the talkbacks to talk shit about a person making two errors in 11 lines of text. Not to mention his extraordinary talent for throwing $4 words like debacle into a sentence, but falling short of grace because he uses such words incorrectly. I bet he’s also a habitual user of the word facetious whenever he’s asking if someone is being funny or sarcastic. That’s a popular one among his type. “Sorry bud,” but you aren’t impressing anyone.
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for HitchCock'n'Balz.
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There's no reason to argue over grammar, especially when referencing a Casey Affleck movie.
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The New World was a bore with barely developed characters, endless tree shots, and badly handled love triangle. Please anything but that terrible film.
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That was pretty badass darthhirsty, thats gotta be a record. And can only happen cos this kiss-up review was so long we all forgot to post. Nonetheless props.
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Coax is the place to be. Although there are different types there.
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...you mentioned Terrence Malick. I've never been terribly keen on any of his movies, but The New World was crap. The shorten the running time he would clip chunks right out of the middle of a shot (a single continuous SHOT, not a SCENE), causing this "jerk forward in time" effect that pulled me right out of the movie every time it happened. He should have just left it alone, 3.5 hour run time and all - the movie would have been better off for it.
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I hate when I personally misspell something, but anyone with enough free time to be "Grammar Cop" on a feckin' AICN talkback should just get back to work or get a job in the first place. Seriously, nitpicking grammar on a message board is like the Seventh Sign of Bitchdom.
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ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
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Damn straight.
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Don't anyone go stealing my catchphrase... I spent seconds if not minutes thinking that up...
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I though a grammer debate would be much more "cool" than a Casey Affleck pic.....my apologies.
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Because if there arent alot of shoot outs Im not interested in seeing it. It sort of sounds like how that guy had an obsession with John Lennon, and then turned on him when he decided he was a phony.
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The title's too long and too stupid.
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I remember seeing the teaser for this film a few months ago, and it looked good. Not sure if it will be good, though, with comparisons to Terrence Malick, the most boring, plodding, and overhyped director ever. In fact, after reading the Malick comparisons in ActionMan's review, I'm not sure I want to touch "Jesse James" with a ten-foot pole.
That said, I dug "Chopper" and the insane performance put on by Eric Bana. Maybe if no one else compares "Jesse James" to Terrence Malick's work, I might actually see it. -
Oh, and Van Buren, give it a rest. You're not impressing anybody.
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I am sorry, I typically will just read the reviews and let them be, but this one has got it ALL WRONG. I saw this movie a couple months ago, and have to say JUST BECAUSE THERE IS A LONG SHOT OF GRASS BLOWING AND NOTHING HAPPENING... IT IS NOT AN ART MOVIE!!! It takes more than brooding gazes across fields to make an art film. This movie has not learned that yet...
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if they worked a tumbleweed blowing across a town too...really capture that desolate feeling.
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I think this one will win a bunch of awards. Really looking forward to it.
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until Greg7007 said the studio had taken it off director Andrew Dominik as I love Chopper. Really is one of my all time favourite films. Now the studio have taken this off him then I still want to see it as he did shoot it but I expect it to be a somewhat watered down version. Shame, but if it gets a decent following then we may get the directors cut 10 years down the line, especially if he starts making big money making films
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It was called I Shot Jesse James and was very Ford-centric. (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0041497/)
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"And I feel like a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford. I know where the paid assassin is, you know I'm cold as a hired sword." Or was that the Wu-Tang Clan?
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whereas my original post was dripping with sarcasm, and (I would have though) obviously just made in jest, yours was so serious and self-important, it made me laugh. ironic, huh?the reason I wrote that in the first place was because VAN BUREN had jumped into the TB with an unrelated rant about, well...I'm not sure, you'll have to scroll up and read it for yourself. so lighten up. p.s. the your/you're debacle refers to the inability of most people to distinguish between the two words. 80% of casual writers now just use 'your'. and teenagers? forget about it. and that, my friend is a complete breakdown of a grammatical principle. hence, a debacle. but really, either you gotta lighten up, or go to the Lost TB.
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And she was gooooooooooooooooood
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And she was gooooooooooooooooood
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Could they give a little more away with that title "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"???? Why would you title a movie by it's plot???? That's the dumbest thing ever!!! aside from that, Harry's review is a little too good to be true, if you ask me. I mean Casey Afleck is an okay actor but he's kind of annoying, he voice is so monotone and boring and really he's kind of a bitch actor, a whiney little bitch, and for him to kill Jesse James (being played by Brad Pitt)? First of all Brad Pitt is a horrible actor, he's easy on the eyes and he's kind of entertaining to watch but his acting skills are minimal at best, he relies more on his looks than anything else to get him through a role, that being said, Brad Pitt gets killed by Casey Afleck!?!?!? I think I'm kind of going to enjoy seeing Pitt bite a bullet, but Casey Afleck!!!! killing Pitt is not that entertaining!!! This flick sounds like a downer to me, and boring to boot. And there's no way I would go see this thing for the acting, anyone who says that the acting is good is an idiot, or has no idea what real acting is, Casey Afleck is not an actor!!! He's Millhouse on the Simpsons, an annoying little bitch...MovieGeek out...peace.
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not Harry
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Previous AICN reviews listed the running time as three hours or thereabouts... do those morons at Warner Bros. not realize that anyone who WANTS to see this movie will want to see the longer version? All of those simple-minded fucks, ignorant enough to be so turned off by a long movie so as not to see it theatrically, will probably end up waiting to see it on DVD three months after the release ANYWAY. Same thing happened to New World... think cutting THAT ONE by 40 minutes made a difference? And now ZODIAC got fucked too. It's really simple... if your marketing angle is that the movie is actually good, as opposed to being your garden-variety Hollywood ape festival, you might as well put out the best version of the movie possible.
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Jesse James and I are from the same home town.
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I agree, the longer the better in my opinion. dropping 9 bucks, I want as much movie as possible. but jsut a note, it's not jsut the studio's thinking shorter is better, it also involves how the running time affects theaters, and movie times. a 3 hour movie can only reasonably get in 3 showings, a 2 hour 20 min movie can get in 4. that's a big deal when you got brad pitt in your movie. that's all I'm saying. doesn't justify it, but there is a lot under the surface of things.
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(yeah, i did. suck it.) and he was jazzed as hell. i told him about the true story and he was pretty interested. shame it seems like the film takes the side of James. he was a right cunt that got what he deserved.
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Had absolutely nothing to do with the talkback as if he had that little paragraph saved in his "talkback" folder waiting when to use it....the whole "holier than thou" approach didn't fly, and just has you're trying to point out the little stereotypes of AICN talkbacks, you yourself just became the "condescending guy that points out the cliches" cliche.....I'm sorry I guess I was just bugged, just lighten up man. We're all trying to have a good time here......F the grammar police as well( no beef though)
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But I'm still going to see it. He certainly makes it sound revisionist. We'll see. That's what they said about Unforgiven. That was more deconstructive than revisionist, but then became a regular Clint Eastwood western when he kills everybody in the bar. That's OK though, because Eastwood owns the genre. His Josie Wales could kick the ass of Brad Pitt's Jesse James.
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That title IS ridiculous, and gives away EVERYTHING that happens in the movie. Just thank the Lord we didn't all have to sit through "The Destruction Of The Empire's Death Star By That Young Do-Gooder Luke Skywalker" back in the day.
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Chopper rocks.
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Yeah, I'm glad they went with United 93. Doesn't give too much away.
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Seriously, what the fuck spidey?
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When there is a gunfight do you just run out and cry foul getting shot in the process.....? Im curious, what is it like to be 'told' 8 different ways. I hope you live somewhere safe because with the way you act, you must get in bar fights that aren't yours all the time!
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is, if not considered common knowledge, at least readily available and accessible, so the title of this movie isn't really giving away anything. If you go into this movie NOT thinking that Ford is going to kill Jesse James, then maybe you're still holding onto a glimmer of hope that the Titanic didn't really sink and Cameron's going to make "Titanic 2: Electric Boogaloo!".
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...is still making The Sparrow? One of my favorite books, but could be difficult to translate into a movie.
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I've been waiting years and years now. Please release this mother fucker now! I wanted to see it like a year ago!
Chopper was so good. Anyone know why it has taken Andrew Dominik so long to make a 2nd movie? I really don't buy this warner brothers crap about recutting it. -
...means that I DIDN'T hear about it first at AICN. Now, that's not ALWAYS the case. And I don't mean it to be an insult. But there are so many direct connections from this site to the entertainment world these days that sometimes I feel it's necessary to take what is read here with a grain of salt. Again, please don't get me wrong, I love this site. I visit it everyday. But when I hear great things about a film that is still months from release, and I didn't hear about it first at AICN, THAT really gets my attention. I've been hearing GREAT things about this film since it was just a script. I'm excited to see this one for sure. And it sounds like we'll get to see a different version on DVD, too. Cool.
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...of this talkback and I just want to add one thing. Sometimes studios take a film from a director and do different cuts with it because they know it's great, and they want to be sure the get the best possible cut into the theater. All these 3 hour plus films, while great for home viewing, are not always as well served in the theater. Personally, I've always felt that was part of the problem with PJ's King Kong. People knew how long it was (hell, it was one of the most talked about aspects of the film) months before it was released. Believe it or not, some people would rather not spend 4 plus hours going to a movie (when you take into acount driving there, parking, getting snacks, getting seats, watching trailers, getting out of the parking garage and driving home, that is - and possibly even longer). Some people would much rather just wait for the DVD. This is a SERIOUS dilema for studios now. They know they can make money on DVDs - they're doing it hand over fist. The goal now is to get peoples asses back in the seats. So, personally, I think it's fine that WB would want to work out a solid, 2 to 2 1/2 hour theater edit. So long as they don't drastically alter the movie (and you'd think that Ridley would have had just about enough of that shit by now) and release a "director's cut" to DVD, all is good!
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