I recently watched Yojimbo. It is the movie that A Fistful of Dollars was inspired by. It is Japanese and is about a bodyguard (yojimbo in Japanese) that comes into a town and sets out to destroy the two rival gangs that are terrorizing the regular townsfolk. It is directed by Akira Kurosawa who also directed The Hidden Fortress and Seven Samurai. I would recommend all three of these movies.

I really liked this movie even though I kind of knew the plot line because I had recently watched A Fistful of Dollars. One thing that stood out to me was the music. It was well done and really helped to set the tone and mood of the story. The main character inspired confidence. I had a hard time keeping track of which villain was which sometimes but I got the main gist of it. One interesting twist was the fact that most of the fighting was done with swords. There was only one gun in the movie which gives the gun wielder quite an advantage. Bringing a knife to a gun fight indeed.

If you like the man with no name trilogy I would give this movie a try.

I have been on a movie watching binge recently thanks to the sub zero temperatures. In the past week I have viewed the following movies:

Django Unchained – I am a little late to this party but this was a great movie. I enjoyed it very much, even though it was a little gory for my tastes. (But I should have expected it with Tarantino). Although it was not 100% historically accurate it was fun to watch. My favorite character was easily Dr. Schultz. I was also intrigued by the female tracker with the scarf but the story never gave any back story about her. If you don’t mind a lot of violence I highly recommend this film.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird – is a South Korean film based on The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. It follows a similar story line but is set in Manchuria in the 1930’s. It was fun and had a good pace. The scenery was different than most westerns because it is set in Asia. This movie also has quite a bit of violence but overall it is pretty good.

A Fistful of Dollars – is the first movie in “The Man With No Name Trilogy” by Sergio Leone starring Clint Eastwood. A hired gone blows into a dusty town orchestrates the destruction of the two rival gangs. This was a fun movie, but not as good as the other two in the series in my opinion.

Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story – is a documentary about all things Monopoly and follows a few players to the National and International Monopoly Championships. It goes through the history of the game, it’s place in pop culture, and the people who play for championships. I like some of these quirky documentaries (see also Word Wars & Triviatown). A fun watch, especially if you like to play Monopoly.

Have you seen any good movies lately?

The Wolf of Wall Street
2013
Martin Scorsese

I recently went with my girlfriend to see The Wolf of Wall Street. This movie is about Jordan Belfort and his company Stratton Oakmont. Stratton Oakmont was a boiler room. The story follows Jordan from starting out as a stock broker, to his ascendency and financial success, and finally to his arrest.

I had watched the previews and read a little about the movie before I saw it but I was still surprised by many aspects of the story. First off this is rated R for a reason. There was a lot of sex and drugs. Way more than I was expecting. No matter what else you may think about the characters one thing everybody must agree on is that they lead quite an exciting life. Not a life for everyone, mind you, but an exciting one.

I had three main takeaways from this movie:
1) If something sounds to good to be true (stocks in particular) it probably is.
2) White collar crimes carry way less penalties compared to other types of crime.
3) Don’t do drugs.

The main character and his pals had a lot of money and partied a lot. But they didn’t exactly acquire all of the money legally. They never show the person on the other end of the phone. We only see the perpetrators and their lives. I wonder if this still goes on today, and if it does I also wonder how widespread it is.

After the movie my girlfriend and I tried to come up with characters that we liked. There were not a lot of candidates. I liked the FBI agent and the friend who was a drug dealer (Brad – the character with the mustache and the foreign wife). I also thought the Swiss banker was funny and Aunt Emma was a nice addition to the cast and story.

Did you see this movie? What did you think of it? What was your favorite character?