bluetoast

Just got out of a Peckinpah double feature. Convoy was one of the more random movies I've seen in a long time. Killer Elite was also quite weird, with ninjas and covert operatives.

gmanca

The Killer Elite is great, it really fits that era and Peckinpah's stamp is on it; he never really makes a straight genre film, it's always a few tied into one with abrupt shifts between them.

joliom

The Killer Elite is a complete mess. It's been pretty well documented that Peckinpah was checked-out during that production. James Caan supposedly introduced him to cocaine and he overdosed and had another heart attack during filming. He also continued to drink heavily and would spend long stretches locked in his trailer. Various assistant directors took turns directing about half the film in his absence. James Caan was also pretty deep into his addiction as well.

Mondo Kane

Killer Elite is saved by two things, Uschi Digard and Ike & Tina Turner's "Nutbush City Limits"---All in the same scene!

Ash Ketchum

Yeah, I saw them when they came out but have only seen KE once or twice since then, but not in many years. I remember thinking that Peckinpah was just coasting on these after his great films just a few years earlier. I liked KE to some extent, but not CONVOY, which was just silly. I thought the big finale of KE on those mothballed destroyers was pretty exciting but some of the actors in it really got short shrift, being virtually edited out of the action, I'm guessing because they didn't have enough coverage. One of the martial artists working with Caan, Donnie something, appears in a few fight shots and then you see him lying down, dead or unconscious for the rest of the fight with nothing indicating how he got that way. That always bothered me. Great cast, though. Mako, for once, has a good part.

dex14

Poor Ali MacGraw... so beautiful in The Getaway (one my favorite Peckinpah) to whatever that look was in Convoy.

inri222

As messy as it is I like The Killer Elite because of James Caan & Robert Duvall. I do not like Convoy. IMO those films are what I would consider bottom tier Peckinpah.
They don't come close to his masterpieces Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, The Wild Bunch & Straw Dogs.

EddieMoney

And of course, The Osterman Weekend! Oscar-worthy performance by Coach!

mrhan

The "Ghost Fleet" in Killer Elite is still out there to this very day.

http://scotthaefner.com/beyond/mothb...t-ghost-ships/

Sean O'Hara

The Film Sack podcast did an episode on Convoy. They were pretty positive about it, mainly because they treated it as a schlocky movie and not part of the oeuvre of a great auteur.

OldBoy

i love Convoy. sure it isn't a great film, but i always had a soft spot for it ever since i saw it in the theater, i believe. good schlocky fun...

bluetoast

Damn I missed out on Major Dundee, Alfredo Garcia and Straw Dogs (due to laziness). Cross of Iron is next week though.

inri222

Not too crazy about Major Dundee but Alfredo Garcia and Straw Dogs are must sees. Cross of Iron is good, WWII from the German point of view as they fight the USSR.

Mondo Kane

How you seen Ballad/Cable Hogue yet? Contains my most favorite line ever:

Mondo Kane

Alfredo comes on TCM tomorrow night (Warren Oates is the star of the day)

Hazel Motes

They don't get a lot of talk, but I think Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is a masterpiece, especially the 2005 Special Edition. (which I'm sure puts me in an even smaller category) But also Junior Bonner is a damn fine film. Probably Steve McQueen's most underrated film, it also boasts a great performance by the legendary Ida Lupino, in one of her final screen performances.

The only Peckinpah film that I really dislike is The Osterman Weekend. But I can't completly fault Peckinpah for that as he was very much a broken down man at that point in his life. I'm sure liquor was always a part of his directorial career, but I think at that point the liquor was calling the shots.

Hazel Motes

Warren Oates ranks as one of my 5 favorite actors of alltime. The man is an American Treasure as far as I'm concerned.

stingermck

6 years later and a bad haircut.

Convoy is fun, recently saw it for the first time on blu

Hokeyboy

Yes. Yes I have.

inri222

One of the greatest westerns ever made. Definitely top 5 Peckinpah.

Sean O'Hara

The version of Pat Garret in my head is a perfect movie, but it's not a version that exists in any of the existing cuts. I love Junior Bonner too, but I think Peckinpah's most underrated movie is Ride the High Country.

bluetoast

Haven't seen that yet, hopefully at some point soon.

Forgot to mention The Wild Bunch was in 70 mm (and was the theater's first 70 mm presentation ever) and looked great. Big step up from DVD. I also saw Ride the High Country, which was pretty damn good. Bought it for my Grandfather and saw it again a few days later.

Cross of Iron is up next, looking forward to it. The projectionist comes out and gives like a 5-10 min talk before each movie going over Peckinpah's life at the time, behind the scenes stuff and info sbout the film prints themselves.

bluetoast

Just got back from Cross of Iron. That was interesting. Nice job by James Coburb. Cool to see David Warner in an earlier role and James Mason in a later one, sharing screen time.

Spiderbite

That story actually makes me like Killer Elite more (which I think it just okay). Convoy, which I watched recently, is fucking horrible and the only way I see anyone liking it is only due to nostalgia. Nothing good about it.

dhmac

Something I recommend doing after seeing a Sam Peckinpah movie is seek out Pauline Kael's review of that movie.

Kael was one of the most literate film critics ever and I enjoyed reading her reviews even though I disagreed with them about 90% of the time. And one of Kael's main weak points was her complete worship of everything Peckinpah turned out, no matter how good or bad it actually was. Simply reading her rave review of Peckinpah's Convoy in the snooty magazine "The New Yorker" is truly a bizarre experience. It can simultaneously make you appreciate the movie a little more while at the same time make you scratch your head wondering why Kael was ever considered one of the top film critics at the time.