Day #5 - Unforgiven

IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105695/

An Oscar doozie - 1992 Best Picture, Best Director (Clint Eastwood), Best Film Editing and Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman). Without even planning it, I started a 1992-Oscar-a-thon :) Clint Eastwood was nominated for Best Actor but lost to Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman - and now we have come full circle from my Glengarry Glen Ross post :)

AFI named Unforgiven the 4th best Western of all time - behind The Searchers, High Noon and Shane - I'm hoping to add a couple of those to my challenge list.

Wow - amazing movie. I LOVED it. I was genuinely interested in every minute of the movie, especially when Richard Harris was on screen. His part was small, but memorable. He is just so fantastic - so subtle and perfect. I'm not even gonna lie - I am SCARED of Clint Eastwood. I would not cross him for anything - he absolutely took OVER the end of this movie. What a force. Chris and I loved Morgan Freeman of course, he is always perfect. ...and for Gene Hackman, well, every time I see him I think it's Norman Dale from Hoosiers. It's like, OH look, Norman Dale is playing a Sherriff, haha. That aside though, he was really, really good.

There was some really great dialogue in this movie - one scene in particular was an exchange in which Little Bill (Gene Hackman) has arrested English Bob (Richard Harris), who is sitting in a jail cell. English Bob had come with a biographer, and Little Bill was telling the biographer the "true" stories of English Bob's exagerrations - this one in particular about a fight between English Bob and a man named Corky...

[Little Bill is telling Beauchamp the real story of English Bob's gunfight]
Little Bill Daggett: You see, the night that Corky walked into the Blue Bottle, and before he
knows what's happening, Bob here takes a shot at him! And he misses, 'cause he's so damn
drunk. Now that bullet whizzing by panicked old Corky, and he did the wrong thing. He
went for his gun in such a hurry that he shot his own damn toe off. Meantime Bob here, he's
aiming real good, and he squeezes off another, but he misses, because he's still so damn
drunk, and he hits this thousand-dollar mirror up over the bar. And now, the Duck of Death
is as good as dead. Because Corky does it right. He aims real careful, no hurry, and... BAM!
That Walker Colt blew up in his hand, which was a failing common to that model. You see,
if old Corky had had two guns instead of just a big dick, he'd would have been there right to
the end to defend himself.
W.W. Beauchamp: Wait a minute. You mean that, English Bob killed him when he didn't
even have...?
Little Bill Daggett: Well, old Bob wasn't goin' to wait for Corky to grow a new hand.

Another great moment - the end, when William Munny (Clint being BA) comes in to get his revenge...
(...am having trouble embedding this video...so for now, follow the link!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccqdEhytKOk