Spaghetti Westerns - Again I will go into detail more than you will want to know...but it relates to my opinion so sorry Steve if this isn't your answer of either "yes" or "no, they are janky".

Spaghetti Westerns were called this because by 1960 the Western was slowly going downhill in the States. If you have ever seen one of these early Westerns like Ford's My Darling Clementine...I think you will agree with me that they suck shit. (Although I do like High Noon) I mean after Val Kilmer is THE DOC of any Western...how can you enjoy these old ass fucking films with a shittier Doc? So enter Spaghetti Westerns. The Italians loved the Westerns, but since they were going downhill it was hard to get in Italy. So the Italians said, "Fuck it...we play soccer...I bet we can make a Western film too!" Well it turns out...they could. If you don't already know...A Fistfull of Dollars is actually part of a trilogy...the second being For a Few Dollars More and finally the most popular spaghetti of all...The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. These are actually quite entertaining (well I don't remember every single of these in great detail...) but I do remember tight editing and awesome camera angles.

Of course when these came out critics hated them. These were nothing like the "hero" of the typical American Western where the "hero" (pardon my theory here...please God forbid me for bringing this BS up) is essentially all the good in society trying to bring an "Eastern" (more civilized than the west was) type feel to the dirty "Western" frontier. Well the Italians said, "Fuck-a-you...it's a meeh western". So they made their own with more violence and with better villians. Better meaning more violent. All the stereotypes you think of a Western came from these Spaghetti Westerns. Before these the WEstern was slow and methodical without a lot of violence...hard to believe but trust me...I sat through them and wanted to rip out my eyes...

So in my opinion Steve...the Italians turned that Western into what we see today (except Open Range or whatever the fuck Costner is doing with Annette Benning) and propelled Eastwood into the image he has today. (Minus the image of being a golf whore in Carmel) Also most of these are based on Kurosawa films and how can you go wrong with that? Instead of swords they have pistols. And they speak english.

The best thing about these is that they don't try to be something they are not. They are simple action films on the Western tip. Without these there wouldn't be Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid poster on my mom's old room. These Westerns made the States think that they can do better, more epic films. This of course would take us to today. So Steve I think you should check these out...if you don't like them, than at least you can say that you have seen these films that you hear about all the time.

I wish I can like Bay films for all the action too...this film major just fucked up films for me for the rest of my chowdernutty life...sorry if I went in depth too much, but hopefully this will help you appreciate them...aka...like them.

Fade out...with Morricone's score...(yes you know what I'm talking about..the cliche tune that you hear when there is about to be a gunfight at noon...if you can hear it you would know what I'm talking about...)