“When I started using dynamite, I used to believe in a lot of things. All of it! Now I believe only in dynamite”
Yep, that was the title Sergio Leone originally gave to what we all know as A Fistful of Dynamite. I remember my initial disappointment as a kid when I discovered that it wasn’t another Clint spag western, a disappointment soon relieved when I saw it had James Coburn, Our Man Flint, in it. Coburn was The Man, and the obvious inspiration for Major Eazy, my favourite character from Battle comic. In this one he rocks the tash to devastating effect, not looking the least bit homosexual as he plays an IRA terrorist on the run who teams up with Rod Steiger, fake-tanned to the hilt as a Mexican Bandit, to wreak havoc across a Mexico in the throes of revolution.

The comic elements in the film, more exagerrated than those last seen in The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, are tempered by Leone’s earnest attempts to address Hollywood’s bullshit depictions of the Mexican Revolution. It’s the comic elements that made the film a lot more accesible to me as a kid than would have otherwise been the case, not to mention all the massive explosions going off every 5 minutes. Key to the success of the film’s schizoid tone is Ennio Morricone’s score, which taken out of context would be a masterpiece of avant garde weirdness, as it’s markedly different to the famous themes he created for the Clint films.

I wonder what it was that prevented James Coburn from being a bigger star than he was? Certainly his brand of laid-back self-assured masculinity is sorely lacking from today’s cinema, as proven by the endless parade of toothpaste ladyboys foisted upon us now. As an antidote to the insults offered down at the multiplex, do yourself a favour and rent this classic.
July 4, 2008
Categories: Screen Test . . Author: rikrawling . Comments: No Comments

Yeah, this graphic design lark is a piece of piss. Stick it in the computer, press a few buttons, bish bosh. Any Muppet could do it, and judging by what I’ve seen out there, a lot of them make a fairly lucrative living out of it. I wonder how many of them could actually draw a horse that didn’t look like a dog though…
July 4, 2008
Categories: Artwork . . Author: rikrawling . Comments: No Comments