Arrow Video New Releases - Scorsese, Vigilantes, and Italian Westerns! 

That’s why we love and support Heath!

So it's not just me, I knew it! I was bummed out about it. Here's to a disc replacement.

I'm jealous! Hopefully my Walter Hill set will be here soon. Enjoy it!

In spite of the heatwave this has been a great month. Blood Money from Arrow, the Ranown set from Cri. This Imprint Hill set, Nevada Smith from Kino, and we still have Rio Bravo first of August. It be an early Christmas for Western fans. @@CerealAtMidnight

I think Hugo is a movie for all ages. I think it was marketed as a children's movie, but to me, it feels like Scorsese making a movie that literally anyone and everyone can watch and enjoy.

It appears the 3-D version of Hugo is polarized, so yes, you'll need 3-D TV and 3-D capable Blu-ray player. It shares a disc with the 1080p 2-D version of the movie, which plays properly without need of special equipment.

I love Italian westerns! To further explain my comments, I think by not putting pressure on them to be great, we allow them to be what they really are, which is low-budget entertainment with a lot of style and entertainment value. Most of them reveal their exploitation origins when you start to try to analyze story, which is usually pretty thin, but they're a great gateway into the western genre that demands almost nothing from the viewer. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon A Time in the West would be listed in my 5 great ones, for sure. Outside of the two Sergios, it's very hit or miss. I like Enzo Castellari a lot too. For people who are on the fence about American westerns and might find them creaky and unrelatable, I encourage them to check out The Searchers, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Two Mules for Sister Sara, Quantez, Ride the High Country, Monte Walsh, Red River, Rio Bravo, Shenandoah, The Magnificent Seven (original, ignore the remake), The Wild Bunch, and The Ranown cycle, which I just reviewed here on the channel: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-96bb0cx-YE8.html

@@CerealAtMidnight Agree. Great list of must see westerns. Rio Bravo and Outlaw Josey Wales would be my #6 and #7. I would also throw out High Plains Drifter as a very fun watch. I do not remember the Ranown films and want to pick up the Criterion set but with all the sales and Bruce Lee I have so over spent this month its crazy. November is not that far away.

I would say many American westerns are anything but sanitized, especially during the 1950’s golden age of the genre and beyond. Seek out The Searchers, The Outlaw Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter, Ride The High Country, Rio Bravo, Monte Walsh, Budd Boetticher’s Ranown cycle, Shenandoah, Quantez, and anything Peckinpah touched. They’re often brutal and heartbreaking. American westerns are synonymous with the American Myth of the west and that myth went from being an optimistic dream to a lost opportunity over the course of about 30 years worth of movies. None of my comments from this video were intended to suggest I don’t enjoy Italian and European westerns. I adore them. But they’re often style over substance and even the people who made them admit that they were exploiting trends for money.

@@CerealAtMidnight the searchers was the first american western that I'd say was a more morally complex western, perhaps the gunfighter before it, but most of the ones you named came after or were contemporaries with italian westerns (or were influenced by them like the eastwood movies). I love american westerns but for me was a culture shock to see italian westerns for the first time where instead of black and white there were mostly shades of grey that offered a more ambiguous characters and story. In the 70s or a bit before that, american westerns did change, and started making what the french called, crepuscular westerns, but still, don't you think the "good" guys in american westerns tend to be a lot more straightforward than in spaghetti westerns? in spaghetti westerns there are barely good guys, and that kind of less manichean outlook is one of the things I prefer in italian westerns, even though like I said, I love and think american westerns are superior, for the most part, but they tend to be simpler, morally speaking.

I was talking about this recently with someone who was surprised by my opinion that there are 10 or less GREAT Italian westerns (I agree there are many very good ones, but also many, many mediocre ones). Further thoughts: I've really fallen in love with the 50s American Western over the last 5-7 years and I'm sure that's informing some of my thoughts about Italian Westerns. The more American westerns I watch, the more they seem to be little repositories of all of our hopes, dreams, failures, regrets, aspirations and foibles. Westerns are one of the only art-forms that is uniquely American (jazz is another) and the ones made after World War II make me feel feel all of the feelings. They're our collective American myth, showing us as we wish we were, but they also grapple with our greed, prejudice, and nationalism. There's heroism tinged with weariness. American westerns embody so much humanity, sometimes I can hardly stand it. When I watch a Euro-western, I appreciate the style, the music, the visuals, the locations, etc, but they can't touch the heartbreak that runs through so many American films.