Korean correspondent Divad Q. Nead forgoes Space Chimps in lieu of Leone’s Duck, You Sucker, a.k.a. Fistful of Dynamite - we like the latter. What comes is another glib gander at the film industry in crisis, albeit this time he’s riffing on the minutiae of piss and ant hills.

Thoughtlessly dropping my popcorn [no perishables allow’d!] into the bin after two bites, I head towards white font on black, a Mao quip, revolution, woulda been better with Lennon in back, ‘you say you want a’ - I’m caught between two cans of beer, Rod Steiger’s beard, [see Esquire’s grooming manual, page 10] and a tousled Coburn with choppers like a horse named Ed. My first big screen Leone jaunt, clocking in at 157, left me at odds with filth, far too many mouth close-ups, and a general state of wonder, just where the fuh did all the cowboys go, bub? Ennio Morricone, better known as ‘swoon’ in closer circles, didn’t jive me the way my Casio groans after two hours imitating ‘Take On Me’ by Ah-Ha. I was left, at times, beneath the EXIT lamp, one foot out the door, groping Saturday night by the scruff and demanding more cuts, and less lengthy plot emanations. The opening shot is all Waters, Steiger pissing on an anthill, the shadow of his spread and shake so much for a follow on good old Mao quotes. Coburn rolls in motorcycling, loses his cool, blowing holes in the script and stage- coach. Ju-Lee says ‘theyrz jast so mach’ in a terse Marlene chrip, her Korean keeping me indirectly drawn towards making this end. If you’ve not known Leone before, and only watch Fistful, Dollars with Dad, then you might be loath to go this one. It’d sure be better than without popcorn, conversation, and the compensatory coddle. An intermission woulda fit right there in between the IRA flashbacks and my six-pack (read: beer) closing in on the lav. I’da love to still smoke my way through this one, so many cigars and moping pseudo- Mexicans - trains, maybe the better part of this jaunt were the locos, taking me back to Jimmy J’s Dead Man, The Little Engine That Could, always wanted to be that blue steamer. Anyway, making it through on Ennio’s chorus lines and strings is good enough if you’re blind. I dug Ruzzolini’s almost camp hacks at the flith and fury of Mexican aristosoldiers, and even one good shot of a German sucking eggs, but it was, ugh!, just enough to survive the long close-ups and teeth, I was counting tobacco stains by minute 80. Sergio Leone holds our hearts for giving us Eastwood as rooster and Lee Van Cleef’s sneer, howev, I hung my bear’s head out into David Fincher’s 21st century Seoul, getting bumped by the old folks and nodding politely. Cohorts would later ask me in short words how to box Sergio’s forgotten piece and I said, ‘with salt, fresh lime, and a hard body to pour the cold shots’.

—DQN