Vasectomy Movies, Part I

Today, after the snip and while the kids were at school and Jen was working, I took advantage of my time to watch a couple movies I haven't seen before. Here are my thoughts on each.


I like older movies and Shane was one I hadn't seen before and was on the AFI's Top 100 list. Alan Ladd stars as the title character, the quintessential mysterious stranger who appears out of nowhere to fight for the underdog in trouble.

In this case, the underdog is Joe Start who, along with his wife and son, have settled as "homesteaders" on a beautiful stretch of land in Wyoming. The "villain" in this film are the Riker brothers, especially Ruff Riker who lays claim to the whole valley and takes it personally that Joe and others like him are squatting on "his land."

Riker and his cronies use various methods of intimidation and harassment to persuade the homesteaders to move on. Shane wanders into the thick of this and for reasons unknown to the viewer decides to settle in with Joe and his family and help them with the work of getting their ranch up and operational.

Shane is quickly swept up into the action and proves to be equal to the task, standing up to the bullies, impressing Joe (and especially his young son, Joey), while still remaining somewhat aloof and enigmatic.

Thoughts:
The cinematography is beautiful--the wide vistas of Wyoming meadows, mountains and skies are almost another "character" in the film.

The pace is slower but in a welcome way; it never feels like it drags.

Shane's gunslinger outfit--which he rides into town wearing and doesn't put on again until the final, climactic gun fight--is a disappointment. He looks a bit like an employee working the canoes at Disneyland.

The viewer has lots of questions about Shane: Why did he come to the ranch? Why does he decide to stay? What's in his past that causes him to flinch at sudden movement? Where did he learn to shoot so well, and why? These are questions that don't get answered; Shane is a mythological figure.

There appears to be a bit of "tension" between Shane and Joe's wife, Marian. I think if Shane had stayed longer he and Joe might have had to have a conversation.

There are a couple of places where it seems Shane influenced one of my favorite movies Tombstone. The way one of the Riker brothers wears his hat, and even his facial hair, is almost a duplicate of one of the villains in Tombstone. And, after one of the homesteaders is killed, the Riker gang sits on the saloon steps and arrogantly watches the funeral go by, a scene that is replicated in Tombstone.

Jack Palance enters about halfway through the movie as a hired gun out of Cheyenne. He wears black, high cheekbones, and an appropriate sneer. He did not do any one-armed push-ups but you can tell he's capable.

There is evidence of an outdated system of machismo. At the end of the film Joe is determined to go and face the Riker brothers, even though he knows it is a trap and he is riding to certain death. In the face of his wife's pleas that he stay home he asks her, "How could you live with me is I showed yellow? How could Joey?"

In the end, as you can imagine, Shane saves the day with some nifty guns skills. He then rides off into the distance, headed who know where with even more questions attached to him.

Enjoyed this one a lot.


And then I watched Fargo. I've always been a Coen brothers fan but for some reason never got around to sitting down and watching this. I'm glad I did. It's a very different movie, obviously. One leaves the relative innocence of 1950's film-making and is confronted with the violence and language of an R-rated 1990's production.

But Fargo is a wonderful slice of Americana, specifically Minnesota and North Dakota. The Coen brothers have always tried to immerse themselves in a locale and genre, whether it be the trailer trash West of Raising Arizona, the hillbilly gospel of O Brother, Where Art Thou, or the bleak moral and physical wasteland of Texas in the recent No County for Old Men. But I don't know if they've ever done it better than in Fargo. Maybe it's because this is their native state and they know it so well, or maybe it's because Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, and Steve Buscemi inhabit the north-midwesterness of their characters so well, but I agree with the reviewer who described Fargo as "the dark side of A Prairie Home Companion." You half expect Garrison Keillor to pop into the story.

McDormand especially shines as a 7-months pregnant police chief of a tiny Minnesota town that is shaken out of its ice fishing winter by homicides that get her wrapped up in a much larger story. She is completely believable as a cheerful, dogged, smarter-than-she-looks cop. Justice never looked so wholesome.

Macy plays Jerry Lundegard, a car sales executive whose ill-contrived scheme to have his wife kidnapped and then returned, unharmed, so he can pocket some of the ransom his Father-in-law is certain to pay is doomed from the start. His character arc is like watching a car speed unknowingly along a road that ends with a fallen bridge. You just know he is going to fall hard and it isn't going to be pretty.

Buscemi is the furtive, somewhat slimy, amoral thug hired to pull off the kidnapping. As usual, his bug eyes, perpetually harried expression, and mouth full of mismatched teeth give him a unique look all his own. In fact, the script has a little sport with him, having witnesses describe him as "funny looking."

Be advised that there is a fair amount of graphic violence and strong language. Do your own research and decide if this movie is for you. I enjoyed it for the characters, the story, and especially for the immersion in the life and culture of the area.