Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: Damn Your Eyes
DAMN YOUR EYES is another short film that’s making the festival and contest circuit, and it’s a very good one. Some of the reviews have called it a parody of a Spaghetti Western, but I’m not sure that’s completely true. Except for a moment or two, it plays more like an affectionate homage to the Spaghetti Westerns. You’ve got your mysterious stranger in town who’s a deadly gunfighter with a secret, you’ve got your whore with a heart of gold, you’ve got your stalwart sheriff who wants to prevent trouble in his town, and you’ve got your despicable villains, some of whom meet appropriate ends in bloody shootouts. For fans of the genre, this is good stuff. The acting ranges from good to excellent, and the movie looks great, with very good photography.
Here are a few comments from the writer and director of DAMN YOUR EYES, David Guglielmo:
DAMN YOUR EYES has had an interesting progression because I first conceived the idea in 2005, and I wrote a few scenes but ended up putting them aside because the story was getting too big, and too complicated for a freshman at film school. I decided to go back to that idea in my senior year and make it my thesis project. It was still too big. So I serialized it and decided to do "Part I" first. Now, I've decided I'm going to make it a feature. It's a long time to work on a project, but it keeps evolving and turning into something else, so it always feels fresh. The short you see now is a lot different than the 2005 story. And the feature is a lot different than this short. I think I keep growing as a storyteller, and the story grows with me.
You can watch this film here, and if you enjoy gritty, noirish Westerns, I highly recommend you do so.
6 comments:
The same sort of line-straddling as THE QUICK AND THE DEAD featured, only with no cartoon holes in people, I gather. I will check this out, at least the soundtrack, tomorrow, while working, or take in the whole experience afterward.
Did you ever see that short film based on the (iirc) Elmore Leonard story about the Caucasian woman kidnapped and tattooed by a native band, and then "rescued" back into a sort of home imprisonment by her husband?
That sounds like the Elmore Leonard story "The Tonto Woman". I didn't know there was a film based on it. I'll check it out.
"The Tonto Woman" it is. (My memory sieve is not aided by sleepiness.) It's pretty solid work as a film, too. As the link suggests, Sundance Channel was running it...possibly IFC, too.
Thanks for the link, Todd. I'll take a look at it tomorrow.
I enjoyed DAMN YOUR EYES. I'd be interested in knowing what tunes were used in the soundtrack. Sounded like a pan flute.
George: The song in question (during the Louisa scenes) is called "All’ombra di una colt (Finchè il mondo sara)" by Nico Fidenco
Thanks for watching guys!
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