"Wild Horses" sucks, Craig.
Continuing my exploration of Robert Duvall movies and I cannot be definitive here - I haven't watched them all, nor will I - but I may have hit upon the worst movie Robert Duvall ever made.
With such a legendary actor in such a lousy movie, what scapegoat can I blame for this outrage?
Written By: Robert Duvall
Directed By: Robert Duvall
Starring: Robert Duvall.
DANG IT.
"Wild Horses" stars Robert Duvall, James Franco and Josh Hartnett (remember Josh Hartnett?). Three fine actors, and yet none of these people plays the protagonist of the movie. The protagonist of this movie is, apparently, played by one of the worst actors in the history of film. I say "one of the worst" but cannot say that she is "the worst" for I have seen Rod in "Birdemic" ....but she's clearly one of the worst. The main plot is a crime investigation of sorts - Luciana Pedraza is an Argentinian playing a Native American cop with no emotion and a Texan accent; she is paired with a cop partner (not worth looking up) who is coincidentally played by another insanely awful actor. Whenever there are scenes of these two people interacting, it's incredible, it's like staring into infinity mirror of emotionlessness.
How did this happen? How does the best American actor of his generation not weed out terrible actors when casting his own movie? Well, I can only explain the terrible lead - the terrible lead is played by his real-life wife, a woman 41 years younger than himself.
Bad acting from main characters is huge in this movie but isn't the entire problem. There's also bad acting from the minor characters - and in pivotal scenes. Very pivotal and very emotional and very terrible scenes. But also, the cinematography of this movie varies between on-par-with-Walker-Texas-Ranger and dreadful. There are moments with bad sound. These moments could have easily been fixed in ADR but weren't, somehow, for some reason. The editing is weird and awkward. The pacing is weird. The movie is lifeless and not believable - it's simply boring. At many points, this movie doesn't even feel like a movie.
If you've ever wondered what would happen if you dropped a great actor into a terrible movie, here's your experiment. I would like to say that Robert Duvall transcends his surroundings but I can't say that. This movie is so empty and unconvincing it even makes Robert Duvall's acting seem questionable.
I looked on youtube for a scene or compilation of the bad acting in "Wild Horses" to share for demonstration, but I see nothing. That seems strange. Maybe, as bad movies go, this flew below the popular radar.
Cigarettes & Coffee - 1993
Look at the entire aesthetic of "Cigarettes & Coffee" and compare to...
That's extremely close.
Of course "Cigarettes & Coffee" is Paul Thomas Anderson's short film that was later made into...
Hard Eight - 1996
Pulp Fiction - 1994
and
The Big Lebowski - 1998
The corollary of finding his mother was black is that he has black kin who he's never met, including a black brother (James Earl Jones). Duvall sets out to meet his brother and events evolve from there.
This movie is very much a product of the 90s (both good and bad but mostly good) and it's just a very nice, fairly mundane character-study-slash-buddy-movie. It has the feel of a play. The premise (or the casting, really) is ridiculous Robert Duvall doesn't look mixed race in any respect, but if you get past that hurdle, it's excellent. I considered it like "Back to the Future" - you just have to accept that a DeLorean was made into a time machine and then you move on. The true highlight of the movie is simply seeing two great actors - Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones - acting together.
A few more notes: the script was written by Billy Bob Thornton - this is after he'd made the "Sling Blade" short but before "Sling Blade." Secondly, James Earle Jones was a lifelong stutterer though I never saw it in any form and I doubt you did either, but in this movie he uses it as part of his character. Finally, I just to have to get out that the title is terrible. It's so uninteresting and unmemorable - it may be the sole reason this movie is so obscure.
So there you go, I'm not saying this is a classic, it is not perfect, but it's a solid, charming movie from another era with two legendary leads and I really enjoyed it.
Robert Duvall has passed away at age 95.
What a legendary actor. Time for the rundown. "The Godfather", "Apocalypse Now," "M*A*S*H", "The Conversation", "Network", "Tender Mercies", "The Natural", "Lonesome Dove", "Falling Down", "Sling Blade", "The Apostle", "Crazy Heart".
A few performance people not be aware of or may have forgotten: he was in an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Twilight Zone". He was also in Lucas' "THX 1138." He did a movie co-starring Bill Murray called "Get Low" - it's fine, it flew under the radar, but the movie doesn't live up to the cast.
And that's the thing, even in bad movies, Duvall was always good. I believe it was Roger Ebert who said that you could never catch Duvall "acting" - he always fully inhabited the character.
I would like to state my favorite performance of his but I would need to re-visit "Lonesome Dove" and "Tender Mercies" to really decide. It's been a long while. "Lonesome Dove" is Duvall's own favorite, by the way. For me, let's say, for any movie buffs reading this, my favorite performance of his is officially "The Apostle" but if we're all friends here and are able to open up without fear of mockery, my favorite may be "Days of Thunder." Sorry, he's just so good in it. A performance of his that astonishes me is "Sling Blade" - but I'm loathe to pick a "crazy" role as my favorite, it's also pretty brief.
Duvall on Westerns: "The Western is our genre in the United States of America. The English have Shakespeare, the French have Molière, the Russians have Chekhov, but we have the Western."
Norm Macdonald considered Duvall to be the greatest actor of all-time and got to interview him once. Here's that interview.
I mentioned earlier that I was interested in seeing "Downey Wrote That" and now I have.
"Downey Wrote That" is a documentary about the comedy writer Jim Downey, who is most famous for being a long-time writer for SNL - including specifically writing for Norm Macdonald's Weekend Update - but was also head writer for Late Night with David Letterman in the early 80's. He's also particularly responsible for the most famous political sketches - the 2000 Presidential Debate is probably most noteworthy.
In short, you don't need my review. If you're interested in comedy writing and/or SNL, you'll enjoy this documentary. If not, you probably still will enjoy it but you probably have better things to do.
There is some of the regular "writing for SNL, is so stressful" blah blah blah, we get it. Fortunately, that's kept to a minimum. The movie impressively includes interviews with David Letterman, Lorne Michaels, Conan O'Brien, Adam Sandler, John Mulaney, Bob Odenkirk, Robert Smigel and the list goes on... it's crazy.
A small complaint is that in the "he played small parts in movies" section, they don't show his part in "Dirty Work" - a masterful performance. His part in "Billy Madison" is more iconic, of course, but show both.
My main complaint is that there are a number of montages where we see quick clips or shots of SNL sketches and I think the implication is that Downey wrote all of them but I can't be sure if it's that or they're just giving a flavor of the era. I would have loved to have a more comprehensive understanding of all the skits he wrote. Would I have been happy if this documentary was replaced by an Excel Spreadsheet? Yes, basically, but that's probably just me.
Girls watching "Duel"? Sign me up.
Duel seems to be one of those rare movies where it's both a classic and underrated.
The movie will reportedly be shown for 3 nights (August 24-26), with a different ending each night. Though when I search my area for show times it has more than 3 dates, so... repeats, I guess.
