Trawling Through The Thrift Stores with Joseph Finn

 Happy Thursday, everyone!  It's a fun mix of high art and westerns and religious drama this week, so buckle in.   

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Margaret has a very odd, troubled production history. In between Kenneth Lonergan's directing work on the excellent You Can Count On Me and the less interesting but somehow winning an Oscar for Casey Affleck Manchester By The Sea, Lonergan was making this odd, touching work about a bunch of New Yorkers all affected by a tragic bus accident.  Filmed in 2005 and released in  various truncated versions for almost a decade, Lonergan finally got to release his version in 2012.  (There's also a whole bunch of lawsuits involved between Lonergan and the production company.)

One of the reasons I grabbed this is that I do want to compare the theatrical and directors versions.  This is starring Anna Paquin, who I firmly believe will have an adult Oscar at some point but just hasn't made that leap yet.

Margaret is available for rent and purchase at the usual places, but I can't tell you about version availability.  The theatrical version is 150 minutes according to this set and the extended version is 186.

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Hey, a JohnWayne I know nothing about!  The Big Trail is apparently his big break back in 1930, directed by Raoul Walsh.  He was a darn good director better known for directing Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra and James Cagney in White Heat.  So I'm curious to check this out for Baby Wayne.

The Big Trail is available for rent and purchase at the usual places, 

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Speaking of Westerns, did you know there are cheapo mid-Sixties westerns directed by Monte Hellamn and starring Jack Nicholson?  Both The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind are sun-blasted westerns with overlapping casts and stories that in many ways pointed the way to the deconstructionist westerns of the next few decades like Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia, Pale Rider and Unforgiven.  They might seem a little outdated now that we're decades into examining Westerns but they're both very much worth seeing for early Jack Nicholson

The Shooting is available on Prime, HBO Max and Tubi,

Ride In The Whirlwind is available on Criterion Channel, Hoopla and Tubi.

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The Ten Commandments (and here we're talking about the 1956 version) is a staple of my childhood.  For whatever reason, ABC would run it on Easter weekend no matter if it was close to Passover (and this is indeed a Passover movie).  For instance, this year it airs on Easter, April 17th, which is actually within Passover this year ).  It's a damn decent biblical epic, not quite the very excellent Ben-Hur but quite damn good in it's own right.

Now what I find really interesting about this set is that it also includes the 1923 version of The Ten Commandments, also directed Cecil B. Demille.  I'm looking forward to watching that and playing compare and contrast with the differences in acting styles and effects and cinematography.  Also, that only the first part of the movie is about the Bible.  Apparently, the second half is a modern-day melodrama about a couple of brothers and their views on the Commandments.

The Ten Commandments (1956) is available for rent and purchase everywhere. The 1923 is up in various forms on YouTube as it's in the public domain now.