1995: Wild Bill (32nd)

What else happened this year? I, as a very young child, sat through Braveheart with my dad at a screening that Mel Gibson was at. Christ knows what he was thinking. As for global politics, I'm a single search away, and so are you.

What is the plot - in one sentence? It's 'Wild' Bill Hicock, famed gunman in the 'West,' we follow him to Deadwood...

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? Where he's shot dead, Calamity Jane and some of his followers mourn him.

He's a famous gunshooter, and complains of bowels problems throughout the movie, so I was a little disappointed to find that this was what they meant by 'shooting craps.'

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? Oh probably, but this will be brief, this covers a lot of the material which made it to Deadwood, the TV show, but Deadwood was MILES better. It's not aged that well in that way.

Any thoughts? Not very good, this, despite a large number of recognisable faces.

There are so many flashbacks - we're at the end of Wild Bill's life and it seems he knows it - and a few hilariously yelled-out pieces of exposition. For example, we meet a guy in a wheelchair who wants vengeance, we flashback to Wild Bill shooting a guy in the leg, the guy then shouts 'I CAN'T MOVE MY LEG!' and then the movie tells us that the guy in the present in the wheelchair is the same guy who was shot in the leg in the past. Thanks, I hadn't quite worked that out. In another scene, a guy screams 'I've been shot!' and we learn that his brother has come to avenge him, for shooting his brother, see.So far, so mediocre.

My main thought however, is about David Arquette, who is in this as a young hoodlum who is getting revenge on Wild Bill - it seems Wild Bill fucked his mum, consensually, of course. He comes along angry a few times, and each of them is among the worst acting I've ever seen. Really, I could do better now, and so could you. I looked him up, and he's from a family of actors - several generations of them, movies and then stages. Patricia, his sister is a fine actress. Jeff Bridges, who plays Wild Bill, is also the son of a famous actor, he has been in better things, and his acting isn't what's at fault in this movie. Keith Carradine is in this too (He played Buffalo Bill in this one, Wild Bill in Deadwood), all of them are legacy actors, but David Arquette wouldn't be an actor if he wasn't from an acting family.

Wild Bill also adheres to several life aphorisms which he states from time to time: One of which is 'No apologies,' and another is 'No Explaining himself.' Despite that, he does both of them in the movie.

Would you recommend this? No, I wouldn't. If you're at all interested in this, watch Deadwood. If you're interested in the mythology of the West and celebrity, then that 'Assassination of Jesse James' move was better. They maybe more recent, so these may have been influenced by this... but they're also better.

Final thoughts? Wild Bill is played by Jeff Bridges, just a couple of years before he was the Dude, who was another long-haired, drunken scalliwag.

This is also the second movie I've done on this list called 'Wild Bill,' the other one isn't much better, but it's better.

Some good ones coming up, some ok ones behind us, you can find them all at this page.