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DVD Junior Bonner
Junior Bonner is director Sam Peckinpah's lovely, elegiac look at the world of the rodeo--and his only film with nary a bullet wound. Steve McQueen, engagingly easygoing but determined, is the title character, a rodeo rider out to win a big bull-riding contest in his hometown. Even as he confronts his dwindling days on the circuit, he also must deal with his feuding parents, marvelously played by Robert Preston and Ida Lupino. Preston is particularly good as the randy old con artist; he and Lupino strike real sparks. Peckinpah's slow-motion camera is put to particularly good use filming the balletic violence of the rodeo, at once more terrifying and awe-inspiring than any gun battle. A lovely country-western valentine to a dying breed. --Marshall Fine
For anyone interested, Sam felt that was his best work and his personal favorite.
A Pleasure from Peckinpah
If you know Sam Peckinpah from only his "Bloody Sam" ouvre (that is, pretty much all his films, The Wild Bunch most infamously), then you may be surprised by this gentle, low-key contemporary rodeo tale. Which isn't to say that Peckinpah is not excising his usual demons--the indvidual at odds with his society, the conflict of the man who is out of sync with his times. But this time he does it with not a geyser of blood nor dead body (nor dead bodies) in sight. Instead, he gives us a couple days in the life of an on-the-verge-of-being-a-has-been rodeo rider returning to his hometown rodeo. The truth is, not much happens in this film. Junior Bonner, in the old western tradition of a "man's gotta do what a man's gotta do", gets another shot at the bull that threw him just days before. We meet his older brother who has thrown in his lot with developers that are inevitably destroying the very West they exploit. We meet his na'er-do-well Dad and his daffy dreams of striking it rich in Australia. And we meet his Mother, dependent on her successful son, bitter over the dissolution of the man she married as well as her marriage, but still onery. Like Peckinpah's best films, this is really a character study of people at odds with their world, each other, and themselves, but who yet find dignity and grace in the worst of situations. The performances are first-rate all around: Steve McQueen not afraid to make a little fun of his famous macho persona; the same for Robert Preston and usually tough guy Joe Don Baker; and best of all, Ida Lupino, playing a role that doesn't exist in contenmporary American movies, a fully realized middle-aged woman. Again, not much happens, but by the time you get to the end of this tiny gem, you realize everything has happened, for we get a real sense of life and the complicated choices it tosses at us. This is a side of Peckinpah that he never again showed, which is a shame for anyone who loves the man's work and loves American movies.
Blows away stereotypes of both McQueen and Peckinpah
I was looking forward to seeing this film because of Steve , having just seen him in 'The Getaway' , also directed by Sam Peckinpah . The two films could not be more different .
In Junior Bonner the actors , atmosphere , characters , cinematography and script are all top notch . For those who think of Bullitt when they think of Steve and the Wild Bunch when they think of Sam Peckinpah , this film is something very special and a wonderful surprise - like discovering buried treasure . It's that good .
A bargain price DVD , in no way reflecting the film's high quality .
The Max Sand backstory in Harold Robbins's trashy The Carpetbaggers (an enjoyable wallow onscreen in 1964) made for a solid Western vehicle for Steve McQueen at his peak. Nevada Smith is a revenge movie, but closer in spirit to The Bravados than a Death Wish-style exercise in nihilism. Young Max, offspring of a white father and Indian mother, sets out to avenge their slaughter by three villains. His odyssey includes spiritual re-parenting at several stages, most notably by canny gun dealer Jonas Cord (a swell character part for Brian Keith). The supporting cast will have you saying, "He's in it, too!" at regular intervals (from costars Karl Malden and Arthur Kennedy down to such incidental interlopers as L.Q. Jones and Strother Martin).... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Steve McQueen - Karl Malden Director(s): Henry Hathaway DVD Release Date: Released the 22 April 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Sam Peckinpah knew he couldn't call a movie Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and get away with it. That's why he did it. When he undertook this nakedly personal project, in self-exile in Mexico, the director was a deeply bitter man out of favor with critics, the media, and the Hollywood establishment, which had just released his Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid in a mutilated version. "Bring Me the Head..." sounded like the parody title of an ultraviolent Sam Peckinpah movie, and he flung it in our faces just as his onscreen surrogate tosses the titular object at the camera.
Thing is, the movie is a masterpiece--raw, shocking, beautiful, and brave--in which Peckinpah confronts his enemies and his own demons. Warren Oates plays a gringo piano-player stuck in Mexico who... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Warren Oates - Isela Vega Director(s): Sam Peckinpah DVD Release Date: Released the 22 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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It's better than the 1994 remake starring Kim Basinger and husband Alec Baldwin, but this 1972 thriller relies too heavily on the low-key star power of Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, and the stylish violence of director Sam Peckinpah, reduced here to a mechanical echo of his former glory. McQueen plays a bank robber whose wife (MacGraw) makes a deal with a Texas politician to have her husband released from prison in return for a percentage from their next big heist. But when the plan goes sour, the couple must flee to Mexico as fast as they can, with a variety of gun-wielding thugs on their trail. MacGraw was duly skewered at the time for her dubious acting ability, but the film still has a raw, unglamorous quality that lends a timeless spin to the familiar crooks-on-the-lam scenario. As... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Steve McQueen - Ali MacGraw Director(s): Sam Peckinpah DVD Release Date: Released the 18 November 1997 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Steve McQueen is his pentultimate role before succumbing to cancer stars in the somber biographical film "Tom Horn". Horn, a legendary cowboy, Indian scout and wizard with a rifle rides his way into Wyoming territory near the turn of the 20th century.
Cattle rancher John Coble played in an effective measured fashion by western veteran Richard Farnsworth recognizes his talent and hires Horn to work on his ranch. He introduces him to the local cattleman's association which was been plagued by rustling. They give him free reign and backing by the local marshall Joe Belle to rid the territory of the cattle thieves by whatever means deemed appropriate including death.
The association soon tire of Horn's violent techniques and plan to get rid of him. They railroad... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Steve McQueen - Linda Evans Director(s): William Wiard DVD Release Date: Released the 31 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Here's how director Sam Peckinpah described his motivation behind The Wild Bunch at the time of the film's 1969 release: "I was trying to tell a simple story about bad men in changing times. The Wild Bunch is simply what happens when killers go to Mexico. The strange thing is you feel a great sense of loss when these killers reach the end of the line." All of these statements are true, but they don't begin to cover the impact that Peckinpah's film had on the evolution of American movies. Now the film is most widely recognized as a milestone event in the escalation of screen violence, but that's a label of limited perspective. Of course, Peckinpah's bloody climactic gunfight became a masterfully directed, photographed, and edited ballet of graphic violence that transcended... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): William Holden - Ernest Borgnine - Robert Ryan Director(s): Sam Peckinpah DVD Release Date: Released the 27 August 1997 Usually ships in 6 to 8 days
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