Silverado written by Lawrence and Mark Kasdan, directed by the former, who has also given audiences classics like The Big Chill http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-big-chill-written-by-lawrence.html - 9 out of 10

 

Silverado written by Lawrence and Mark Kasdan, directed by the former, who has also given audiences classics like The Big Chill http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-big-chill-written-by-lawrence.html

9 out of 10

 

 

Lawrence Kasdan is one of the greatest filmmakers; The Big Chill is one of the best motion pictures you could see, just as Body Heat is another http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/11/93-out-of-100-for-body-heat.html - a thriller in which Kathleen Turner, William Hurt and the cast give some of the best performances one could enjoy

 

Silverado is another genre, a western that is just about as good, watching some of the best thespians, Kevin Kline as Paden, Kevin Costner as Jake, Danny Glover is Mal, Rosanna Arquette is Hannah, Scott Glenn is Emmett, John Cleese has a smaller role as a villainous sheriff that drives Mal out of town

In the beginning, Mal tries to have a drink in a saloon, where the racist owner would not serve black people, and furthermore, two other pithecanthropus try to assault Mel and beat him up, before the man shows that he can handle more than two idiots, saved by the bell, sheriff John Cleese coming in to show off

 

The sheriff asks what happened, and the first version he hears is aired by the ruffians, corrected by Paden and Emmett, who were witnesses, sitting at a table in the saloon…the sheriff knows the owner, and thus the fact that he is a liar, but still, he wants Mal out of town, right away, because he is the law…

There is humor, sprinkled on what is the conflict we know, the Wild West, where the honest folk tried to travel to new, unchartered territories to settle, build farms and new cities, only to be attacked by what today would be Trump voters – this is just an adage that I allow myself, because nobody cancels this, there is no need to stop somebody who has no real audience in the first place, like kicking a dead horse

 

When we first meet Paden, he is in his underwear, which was quite complicated at that time, nearly two hundred years ago, and left for dead in the middle of nowhere, but he gets to the next town, helped, indeed, saved by Emmett, and then he gets a cheap gun, for he has nothing left, maybe it was just thrown at him

With it, he shoots and kills the one who had taken his horse, hat and everything else, malfaiteur he will see again later, he is asked to help Jake escape from jail, the latter is in jail because he had shot one man, then another, who was going to use his pistols to have the young man down, it was the law of the jungle

 

Some honest folks are traveling to California – if this is not just the cliché I am thinking of, by the way, Harvard Professor Daniel Gilbert http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/06/stumbling-on-happiness-by-david-gilbert.html has demonstrated in his classic of psychology Stumbling on Happiness that moving to California does not bring mirth

There are some myths that we share, we would be happy if we were to move to a Caribbean, Pacific island, but then Hedonic Adaptation moves in, this is why buying new things (or old for that matter) boosts wellbeing levels only for short periods, until we get used with them, which happens quite soon, so change strategy!

 

The men and women in the convoy are robbed, and Emmett, Paden, Jake and Mal help them get their money back, with the loss of a life, one fellow who was anyway way too suspicious, and his wife, a widow now, portrayed by Patricia Arquette, would be free to partner with Emmett, or one of the other good guys

In the meantime, Cobb aka Brian Dennehy, becomes a sheriff, but he is not there to protect and serve, but to get rich, cheat, control the gambling and help the early gangsters, he had been friends with Paden and the latter becomes, though briefly, the man who keeps order in the saloon, a sort of head security guard today

 

When Mal arrives in the land bought by his father, he finds that the old man is chased out his property, where his house had been burned down, and after they repel the first few trespassers, those bring others, and then the old man is murdered, pushing Mal to take the shotgun and look for the killers

He is jailed quickly though, by repugnant Cobb and his accomplices, tortured to tell them where Emmett is, the latter is cornered and trapped, they use a horse to kick and when they are about to shoot him dead, he is saved, but the ordeal is not finished, Mal’s sister tries to help him jump out of jail, where she is knifed

 

A spoiler alert was needed a while back, but I got carried away, so let us move to the next step in this crescendo, and say that the bandits take away a boy, who has seen them attack and burn a house down, Jake manages to escape their clutches and now we have a more balanced battle, even if the villains outnumber the good folks

Guess who wins the battle, we could ask, but then you know that the good people must be victorious, however many casualties we could get along the way – Paden has risked his life for a stray dog, hurt, and then he was abandoned by the companions, in the days of the Cobb team, and when he is in prison, the dog just leaves – otherwise, this is very entertaining, captivating, excellent motion picture…

 

 

Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html  

Some favorite quotes from To The Heritage and other works

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

‚parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”