I've watched one and a half movies this semester.

On top of that, I just went to turn on my television, but realized it has been unplugged now for weeks. I've been ridiculously busy. I've managed however to watch one and a half movies over the span of the semester, due to the power of my Amazon Kindle Fire. Both films had been on my must-see list for quite some time now, so once I found some free time, I decided to give them a go, them being Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" and Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche New York." The latter film has yet to be completed, as I so far only managed to watch half of it roughly, in 15-minute increments. I'll hold off discussing that for a later blog. I will talk about The Wild Bunch. Peckinpah's western has become easily one of my top ten favorite films, my top 3 favorite films of the western genre, and probably the definitive film that accurately sums up the human condition in all its confusing, bloody, and meaningless existence. Peckinpah'sThe Wild Bunch is one of those movies that make you wonder how such a violent piece of cinema could possibly be made by the Hollywood system of the 60's, and it also inspires nostalgia because for all that it is, contemporary Hollywood cannot not produce such a film without altering it into a standard death.

The Wild Bunch is a western, filled with western motifs, but it is set just prior to the first World War. These motifs no longer have any place or fit in the modern world, therefore, in the form of outlaws, bank robbers, and mercenary lawmen, they are being pushed farther and farther south, into Latin America, where they continue after that cliche reward, one last robbery, the big one, that they succeed in gaining, yet they do not stop being what they are because they cannot live any other way. The western genre is just the surface of what this film actually is. The Wild Bunch is psychologically keen in its examination of humanity, how people can change from one minute to the next, how women are tempted into tempting men, and how desire urges us towards extinction.