Sukiyaki Western Django serves up a spaghetti western samurai style (First Look International)

Imagine a war between the Crips and the Bloods played out as a samurai spaghetti western set in ancient Japan with all the Asian actors delivering their lines in halting English and you'll begin to have an idea of what iconoclastic director Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django (opened October 31 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas) is like.

The film opens with a prologue in which QuentinTarantino gathers us around the campfire to spin a tall tale about the Heike (whose color is red) and Genji (who wear white) clans who faced off at the Battle of Dannoura in 1185. Then the film picks up the rivalry a few hundred years later, possibly the 1880s, in the small town Yuta, Nebada. Tarantino's over-the top turn as a poncho-clad gunslinger sets the tone for the film.

OMG! Look how young Clint is in the 1964 spaghetti western, A Fistful of Dollars (United Artists)

If you missed The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at last month's United Artists Film Festival, don't despair. You will have another chance to see not only that Sergio Leone spaghetti western classic, but his entire Man with No Name Trillogy courtesy of the San Diego Italian Film Festival. The free summer mini-series kicks off on Thursday June 5 at 7:00 pm at the Museum of Photographic Arts with the 1964 film A Fistful of Dollars, featuring Clint Eastwood as the now iconic Man with No Name. For a Few Dollars More follows on July 3, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly closes the mini-series on August 7.

Here in teh U.S. we refer to these films as "Spaghetti Westerns," but in Italy they are called "Westerns all'Italiana." All three films are the collaboration of filmmaker Sergio Leone, star Clint Eastwood, and composer Ennion Morricone. According to film lore, an obscure director named Sergio Leone was given $200,000 and a load of leftover film stock in the early 1960s and told to make a western. Leone turned to Akira Kurosawa's samurai epic Yojimbo, for inspiration and to American TV actor Clint Eastwood as his star. The rest, as they say, is history. The film introduced Eastwood as the laconic, cynical, anti-heroic gunslinger known only as the Man with No Name. Leone's trilogy of films came to define a genre and Morricone's epic, playful scores are equally memorable. These are films, with their stunning visual composition, are glorious on the big screen. Put these films down on your calendar now and don't miss them.

This mini-series is a warm up for the real event in October when the San Diego Italian Film Festival once again partners MoPA to screen 20 Italian movies for free. The films are shown through a collaboration with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of Los Angeles. For more information email the festival at .

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (United Artists)

This Friday May 23, Landmark's Ken Cinema begins a week-long festival celebrating 90 years of United Artists films. New prints of films such as The Great Escape, The Apartment and Dr. No will be screened. But the film that kicks off the festival and gets my immediate attention is Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (listen to my radio feature to get your fix of the now famous music.)

No music has come to define a genre more vividly than Ennio Morricone's theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Just a few notes of this witty, epic score is all you need to conjure up images of western landscapes, weather-beaten faces and showdowns on dusty street.

Reprints of the film program will be raffled off at the screening. (20th Century Fox)

This Friday two old films will be out in theaters and both are being showcased because they will be featured in special edition DVDs next month. The films are John Ford's silent classic The Iron Horse and Ridley Scott's final cut of his seminal sci-fi film Blade Runner. Now some may complain about the way that Hollywood recycles old product but if releasing films on DVD makes studios not only willing but eager to dig through their archives to restore and preserve old films or to allow directors to go back and fine tune their earlier works then I say let's celebrate. And if that also encourages studios to play some of those older titles on the big screen in an effort to promote the DVD before it goes on sale, then again hooray! Audiences benefit on both counts and a new generation of filmgoers can be treated to classics on the big screen, something that's becoming more and more rare.

John Ford's 1924 silent The Iron Horse will have a special benefit screening at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park on Friday November 30 at 7:00 pm (there will also be a post film discussion with composer Christopher Caliendo). The film is part of Twentieth Century Fox epic box set of 24 John Ford films that includes some never before released on DVD. The set, called Ford at FoxThe Collection, also includes a new documentary about the filmmaker and will be available in stores on December 4.

Brad Pitt as Jesse James in The Assassination of... (Warner Bros.)

The full name of this film didn't fit in the headline: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Now that's not quite up to the word count of The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, but assassination does figure prominently in each. And in the case of The Assassination of Jesse James (opened Oct. 12 throughout San Diego), the lengthiness of the title foreshadows the excesses of the film.

Here's a simple rule: If the audience knows a film's final destination in this case Robert Ford shooting outlaw Jesse James the filmmaker darn well better better make the journey interesting because there are no surprises lurking ahead. The life and death of outlaw Jesse James has been told many times before, sometimes romanticizing him (as with Tyrone Power in the 1939 film) and sometimes presenting him as a dangerous psychopath (Robert Duvall in The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid). James has secured himself a place in American folklore since his death in 1882 at the hands of one of his own gang, Robert Ford. James had fought with the ruthless Confederate guerrilla fighters, Quantrill's Raiders during the Civil War and then turned to robbing banks, trains and the occasional stage coach. Some newspapers portrayed him as a kind of Robin Hood and small farmers probably derived some satisfaction from the way the James Gang stuck it to the big businesses of the time -- the banks and trains. What all this means is that James has long been a subject of fascination for a variety of media.

Christian Bale and Gretchen Mol in 3:10 to Yuma (Lionsgate)

Elmore Leonard's terse tale 3:10 to Yuma (opening September 7 throughout San Diego) receives its second screen adaptation this month. The first version came out in 1957 and starred Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. The film was directed by studio veteran Delmer Daves. This latest adaptation is directed by James Mangold (of Walk the Line) and stars Christian Bale and Russell Crowe.

Leonard's story made for a very simple and spare western in 1957. The premise involves Dan Evans, a down on his luck rancher, that signs on to escort Ben Wade, a notorious outlaw, to the nearest town with a railway station where Wade will be put on a train that will take him to court and ultimately to prison. The bulk of Daves' film took place in a hotel room where the two men sized each other up as the clock slowly ticked away the minutes. It played out like High Noon with psychological tension mounting but the gunplay being fairly minimal.

Brokeback Mountain has been generating buzz since its inception. It has been labeled the gay cowboy film, and gained attention when two hunky, hetero Hollywood starsHeath Ledger (A Knights Tale, The Brothers Grimm) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, Jarhead)were cast in the lead roles. Adding to the anticipatory feeling was the fact that the director was Ang Lee, the Taiwanese filmmaker who set box office records with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and that one of the writers was acclaimed novelist Larry McMurtry.

The film opens in Wyoming in 1963. Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are two cowboys looking for work. Theyre hired to tend sheep up in a rugged area known as Brokeback Mountain. Then, on a cold night and after some heavy drinking, the two share a tent and some rough and tumble sex. In the sober light of day they dismiss what happened. Ennis attempts to reaffirm his heterosexuality by saying You know Im not queer. To which Jack says, Me neither.

But they soon repeat their sexual encounter, only this time they show tenderness toward each other and have to admit that they do love each other. Being alone in the mountains and away from a society that would condemn what theyre doing, they begin to feel emboldened and more comfortable with each other and with their intimacy. When their job ends, however, they part ways. Ennis is about to be married and Jack figures hell do some rodeo work or head to his fathers ranch. They go their separate ways but a bond has been formed that will not easily be broken.

Years pass. Ennis gets married and has a couple of kids. Jack happens upon the daughter of a wealthy businessman, and ends up married and with a kid as well. Jack finally decides to contact Ennis and they both realize that their passion for each other is still strong. Jack seems ready to abandon everything for Ennis, but Ennis is not willing to take such a gamble. He feels pressured by society to conform to a normal, heterosexual life or at least maintain the appearance of one. So the two men end up meeting whenever they can, and telling the wives theyre going on are fishing trips. This arrangement falls short of what Jack longs for but its all that Ennis is willing to commit to. And as in all those Douglas Sirk melodramas of the 1950s, this one ends tragically.

Brokeback Mountain is very much like Sirks old Technicolor melodramas of the fifties. These filmssuch as All That Heaven Allows and Magnificent Obsessionwere often dismissed as womens pictures because the stories revolved around tragic love. Brokeback Mountain recalls Sirks films in the way it deals with forbidden, secret love and the way the lovers feel unable to succumb fully to their desires because of social pressure. Yet director Ang Lee is working in a completely different physical environment that Sirk. Lee doesnt emphasize such visual elements as stair railings and room dividers that turned the suburban homes of Sirks films into prisons for his characters. Lee and director of photography Gustavo Santaolalla are working outdoors amidst a stunning western landscape, the openness of which contrasts with the constraints of society. Lees film provides the same gloss as Sirks films but Sirk provided attractive surfaces to appease Hollywood and fool audiences into thinking he was just making standard melodramas. But if you looked more closely, you could find a scathing social commentary on petty, small-minded people and societys demand for conformity. Lee, however, doesnt seem to be making a scathing commentary. He acknowledges that society that has little tolerance for gays and will go to violent extremes to show its disapproval. Yet criticism of this is not embedded in his film and because of the film lacks that bite, it tends to wallow in its romantic melodrama. The film focuses on Ennis inability to commit fully to anything. Even if Ennis did not fear social repercussions, Im not sure he would have committed to Jack. Ennis seems unable to commit to Jack or his wife or his kids, and that leads to tragedy. Only at the end of the film, does Ennis show signs of changing and of emotionally opening up.

Brokeback Mountain is based on a short story by Annie Proulx. The film adaptation by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana works best in the opening and closing sections. The middle, however, feels like it has stretched the source material thin without fleshing out the details. The ending is definitely the films strongest point. Whereas most films dont know how to end, Brokeback Mountain knows precisely and elegantly how to wrap things up. Since I dont want to give away too much, let me just say that the ending draws on the short storys neat ending and employs a poetic visual image to sum up the emotions of the story. The problem with the middle of the film, though, is that it doesnt feel wholly lived in. The sets are well dressed, the campsite looks nicely lain out, but neither looks like the characters fully inhabit the space. When Jack goes south of the border to look for young boys, the Mexican town looks tidy and the male prostitute looks almost freshly scrubbed. Theres needs to be a little more grit to this scene because it is supposed to represent the depth to which Jack has sunk.

Then theres the issue of sex. Lee cant seem to decide if the relationship is driven primarily by sex or by love, or if theres a point at which the driving force changes. After Jack and Enniss first sexual encounter, the sex diminishes onscreen and were not sure if it also diminishes in their relationship. We feel as though their relationship has developed into one fueled more by emotional rather than sexual intimacy. Then Jack has an outburst explaining, You dont know how bad it gets and about having to go to Mexico to satisfy his sexual desires. Were as shocked by his outburst as Ennis because filmmaker Ang Lee seems unwilling to deal with those sexual passions as they change over the years. Its as if hes too timid to show real sexual intimacy. But in a brief flashbackwhen Jack seems to have fallen asleep on his feet and Ennis gently embraces himand in the final scenes, Lee does finally convey both the passion and the tenderness that sustained their relationship for decades.

In terms of acting, Ledger and Gyllenhaal are both good, highly appealing and sympathetic actors, but they also seem somewhat removed from their characters. Maybe thats because they are trying to play men who are putting up a faade through most of the film and are only briefly allowed to be themselves. But too often, Lee just poses them like models in a Marlboro cigarette ad (in fact, sometimes the film looks distractingly beautiful and vibrantly hued). In the film industry, there also seems to be a trend for straight actors to take on gay roles (Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, Felicity Huffman in TransAmerica, Cillian Murphy in Breakfast on Pluto). In the case of Brokeback Mountain, everyone seems eager to pat the filmmakers and especially the actors on the back for their daring and bravery. But Brokeback Mountain, while bringing gay characters more into the mainstream, feels rather tame and conventionalmaybe too much like a standard 50s melodramas. Plus both Ledger and Gyllenhaal seem to have carefully plotted their other film roles so that they can both be simultaneously seen in films that reassert their heterosexuality for mainstream audiencesGyllenhaal with his soldiers role in Jarhead and Ledger playing the womanizing title character in Casanova. Brokeback Mountain has that politically correct sensibility which is likely to date it in the years to come. But for the moment its the kind of film that makes Hollywood feel good about itself and its willing to take on issues in what is proving to be a society thats still conservative in its views of sexual behavior.

Brokeback Mountain (rated R for language, sexual content and brief violence) has considerable craftsmanship on display but self-indulgent melodrama that drives the middle of the film may prevent some from becoming fully involved in its story.