Steve McQueen Blog-a-thon: Junior Bonner

The Steve McQueen blog-a-thon begins today over at Jason Bellamy's place, The Cooler.  Make sure to keep checking in as it runs through Friday, and there are sure to be a lot of great entries submitted throughout the blog-a-thon's run.  The full review of the 1972 western Junior Bonner can be found at the western blog I contribute to, Decisions at Sundown.

"I'm workin on my first million. You're still workin on 8 seconds."

This line spoken by Curly (Joe Don Baker) Bonner to his brother Junior (Steve McQueen) gets to the heart of Sam Peckinpah's elegiac western.  This bit of harsh insight comes after Junior, an aging rodeo star, says he can't accept Curly's, an opportunistic entrepreneur looking to exploit the nostalgic charms of the Old west in an emerging culture, job offer because he has to walk down his own road. But what does that road look like for an aging rodeo star in a world that is clearly passing him by?  That is the central question surrounding Junior Bonner, Peckinpah's misunderstood western.

Click here to read the rest of the review with comments

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Question of the Day: Do your initial reactions towards a film change over time?

Our question today comes courtesy of Jason Bellamy from The Cooler fame. I don't really need to pimp the blog much because I am sure that all of you already visit Jason's superb site. Here's what Jason was curious about (it's a great question, too):

Generally speaking, are your first reactions to movies overly forgiving (too positive in retrospect) or overly critical (too negative in retrospect)?

My assumption is that the average (few times a year) moviegoer tends to like most things he/she goes to, in part because they only go to things they think they will like and want to like. But what about die-hard moviegoers, bloggers, critics? We see more movies, so that suggests we're harder to please. Then again, we love movies in general more than the person who only sees a few a year, right? So maybe we work harder to like things that, at first glance, don't seem like much. But the spirit of the question isn't 'Do you tend to like or dislike the majority of the films you see?' It's about that initial reaction. Over time, looking back at reviews or what you thought coming out of the theater, are you generally more forgiving of the film in question or do you find that you have a habit of overpraising films that two weeks later you don't even remember seeing? That's the question I'd be curious to hear some bloggers debate.

Great question, Jason. So...what do you all think? I'll save my thoughts for the comments.

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