MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: THE YOUNGER BROTHERS (1949)

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It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
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Wednesday, September 28, 2016

THE YOUNGER BROTHERS (1949)

This eminently missable B-Western from the Brothers Warner somehow gained TechniColor treatment. (From one ‘Brothers’ to another?) Whatever the case, those Younger Brothers prove no match for the Jameses in the Western Outlaw Brotherhood.* There’s a decent enough idea for development with the boys trying to keep their noses clean long enough to win full pardons while ex-Pinkerton agent Fred Clark attempts to trip them up (revenge for injuries he blames on them), and Bandit Queen Janis Paige (yep, Janis Paige!) busy setting them up as patsies on a big bank robbery. But everyone’s just going thru the motions here. Well, everyone but leading man Wayne Morris who must have been going thru the lunch wagon. Was he trying to eat his way off the pic? Even the TechniColor looks out of sorts in a studio print so dark you can barely make out the nighttime action. Maybe that’s for the best.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Check out the Youngers and the Jameses (amongst other brothers) in Walter Hill’s near-classic All-Star/All-Brothers Western THE LONG RIDERS/’80.

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

THE YOUNGER BROTHERS (1949)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE