Horizon: Part One

I'm waiting for Part II so I can watch them together.

Me loving this is almost as predictable as the thing flopping at the box office. Of course it goddamn flopped, being this beautifully old-fashioned (right down to the lush, never-stops-and-you-don't-want-it-to orchestral score) and even downright lyrical at times. This isn't what the modern audiences want, or are used to, and the project is all the better for it. Well, for me anyway. I couldn't get enough of luxuriating in Costner's unhurried depiction of these people's everyday lives, so much so that pretty much the only real flaw I found in the film is that it ended. Or maybe 'stopped' is the better word... But I knew what I was in for so I was prepared for that. I only wish Costner found a way to sculpt that ending a little bit better, so that it would have more of a sense of closure for this particular chapter, like the LOTR movies managed to do. But that's about the only gripe I have.

I'm also a bit surprised to see negative comments about the digital photography... I dunno guys, the movie looked quite fantastic on my TV. This ain't some grey, washed-out mush we often see these days - the vistas are spectacular, the colors pop (can't remember when I last saw yellow leaves look this yellow) and I believe the nighttime scenes give a pretty good impression of how it would actually look like being out in those open spaces after dark.

I am a huge sucker for Westerns and I was really jazzed to see this. And true to my expectations, this feels very much like Costner's ode to How the West Was Won -- if Tarantino was allowed to do 70mm for The Hateful Eight (the absolute wrong Western to break out that format), then the Cost should've been allowed to resurrect Cinerama. Because there are some truly lovely vistas that I think would've been absolutely transcendent in that style.

The problem is, I do agree that the structure of the storytelling kind of undercuts this as a complete film, much like Dune: Part One feels incomplete by design, to the point that I can't really accurately convey how I feel about this as a single outing because it is entirely about setting up dominoes to fall in future films. There's a few through-lines that I quite enjoyed for their relative completeness, primarily the story of Scott Haze's scalphunting party which really evoked the grim harshness of the era. (Obviously I will be happy to see anything that is tangentially thematically connected to Blood Meridian.) But the bulk of the film is all set-up, and while I am intrigued, I am also left unsatisfied. This is akin to making a grand five-star meal and allowing me to walk through the kitchen as it's being prepared, but not allowed to sample anything.

Lovely costumes, though, and full props for allowing Michael Rooker to do that Irish accent in the grand tradition of Kevin Conway.

I don't get the reference. I will say, Abbey Lee does have a pretty sweet dress in this that would be the envy of Joanie Stubbs.