Our second foray into my new world of Wine, Westerns and Wotsits was a chance to iron out some of the cracks that had afflicted the Bone Tomahawk debut the previous Sunday.
Perfect Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance
A buffet was laid on with the aim of soaking up more of that evil red wine.......
Though in truth, more bread was probably required and the small sliver of Gouda that had been in the fridge for far too long was never going to be acceptable levels of cheese, even with three bags of Wotsits and a decent dollop of cottage cheese in evidence.
Today's wine was from Spain, a 2017 rioja weighing in at 13.5% from Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range, so probably the winey equivalent of a Shepherd Neame? I really must learn the differences between rioja, malbec, shiraz, and any other lurkers. Comment below if you have the knowledge.
I managed to get the start time down to 6:55pm but ideally, it should've been 5:30-6 if I wanted to avoid another dreadful hangover, and even had a pint of icy water on standby though I still felt rough 7:30am and could only think how bad I'd felt if I'd had to commute to L**ds. Thank goodness for the current WFH situation!
The DVD hadn't arrived on time, so I had to join Amazon video and download it there, on a free one month trial I fully intend to cancel before 7th July. Remind me. Anyway, ridiculous hat was on, I was psyched and raring to go .....
Note to self - don't wear white shorts whilst drinking red wine!
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Ranked 25th with an approval rating of 88%, I expected to enjoy The Magnificent Seven just a smidgen less than Bone Tomahawk, and I think that is probably correct, though it really was by the smallest fraction.
It took a little bit longer for me to 'get into it', and though the food was going great guns, I wasn't as on form with the wine so was glad it was a lengthy film at well over 2 hrs.
Whilst the general story was 'decent', it was some quality performances by legendary (now dead) actors that really captured the attention. Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen were the main two, and funny to hear stories they tried to put each other off during filming by upstaging each other!
They recruited five other blokes - the knife man played by James Coburn was my favourite cos he didn't try too hard, and they went off to this village which had an air of Ramsey in Cambridgeshire, to save the villagers from this Mexican dude who kept coming along to steal stuff and be downright rotten every month or two.
The bar, always the bit I look out for most keenly, had an airy Platform 3 Claygate feel, perhaps a bit Cleethorpes Signal Box too with a dab of Donny Tut 'n Shive, just didn't feel enclosed enough, and in one scene where they were celebrating getting rid of the baddies with a few pints of Flowers, a bullet came flying in, smashing a jug, which just wouldn't have happened if they'd been in say, the Angel in Manchester.
I liked how they trained up the villagers to gain the confidence to fight their own battles (apparently more was made of this in the Japanese Samurai film that this was based on), I detested the tagged on pointless love story, and was glad a few of the less Magnificent Seven like the one who was only there for the gold (Charles Bronson) ended up getting killed even if he was a hit with the local kids. No tears shed in York.
Main sticking point, the hero, Yul Brynner's character, was called Chris. No offence to the many lovely Chris's I know (Baldwin, Britain, Marsh, Dyson, Irvin, Spinks and Mansfield to name a Magnificent Seven) but it doesn't feel like a hero name, especially when he's making no attempt to disguise his Vladivostockian accent. Whenever a character shouted his name, you half expected him to just be off to the bar for a pack of scratchings, not leading a bunch of gun toting rebel mercenaries.
All in all, a solid film, definitely worth a watch. Soundtrack amazing.
Next Week
I staggered into the kitchen deep in the throes of wine paralysis close to 10pm to roll the dice for next week.
I rolled a 4 for the bags of Wotists.
I then rolled a 1 meaning we'd go 'lower' i.e. a film ranked further down than 25 and on the 30 sider, I then rolled a 2 meaning I'll be watching a film called 'Near Dark' (1987/88). Amazon's sub contractor WeBuyBooks seem to have their act together on this one, and I expect to receive it tomorrow.
Until next Sunday, vamoose ya varmints! Si
