Archive for October 21st, 2018

Movie Mayhem – The Sisters Brothers & The Old Man and the Gun

Posted by Bryan Caron in Entertainment, Film, Movies, Reviews on October 21, 2018

Sisters Brothers Old Man

The Sisters Brothers — 2018; Directed by Jacques Audiard; Starring Joaquin Phoenix, John C. Reilly, Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed; The Old Man and the Gun — 2018; Directed by David Lowery; Starring Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek, Casey Affleck, Danny Glover and Tom Waits

For a long time, especially throughout the sixties and seventies, westerns ruled the roost in the cineplexes. But as the blockbuster slowly took over and science fiction finally found a strong footing in people’s wallets, the western eroded into a forgotten medium that occasionally rears its head to peek in on what’s happening around them, sometimes to great critical acclaim (Tombstone, Unforgiven, Open Range), other times in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fashion (The Quick and the Dead, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Cowboys and Aliens) and tepid remakes (3:10 To Yuma, True Grit, The Magnificent Seven).

In that time, the western also evolved; it was no longer just your typical men on horseback in the dusty old west anymore. We now had what’s known as the modern western, which took the style and themes of the old and paired them in an era full of cars and modern technology (Hell or High Water). Two films went wide this week that convey both sides of the western coin: The Sisters Brothers, reveling in the harsh realities of a time when uncivilized gunslingers are starting to fade into the civility of the modern world; and The Old Man and the Gun, meditating on a modern bank robber who reminisces of days gone by, but is just as happy with the respect he provides his victims. Read Full Review

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