Kino resurrects an odd curio with Shoot the Sun Down, a counter-culture Western from 1978, notable for headlining Christopher Walken just prior to his Oscar win for The Deer Hunter and Margot Kidder before she was that year’s Lois Lane in Superman. Of further note, director David Leeds, who financed with his own production company, would never again lend his name to another film in any capacity. The film, which is obviously modeled after Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name series, considering it’s mysterious protagonist, has all the makings of a subversive genre entry, it’s stance on violence guided by an incredibly idiosyncratic score (that’s not Ennio Morricone) and Michael Chapman’s beautifully photographed landscapes (with plenty shots of rising/setting suns for its grand motif). However, muddled plotting and a comatosely constructed climax peg the film as rather forgettable, which is unfortunate considering its strange ambience.
- 11/5/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Nov. 19, 2013
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Kino Lorber
Christopher Walken and Margot Kidder star in Shoot the Sun Down, a 1978 counter-culture Western.
The same year that Christopher Walken (Seven Psychopaths) won an Oscar for The Deer Hunter (1978) and Margot Kidder was whisked away in Superman (1978), they starred in of David Leeds’ counter-culture Western Shoot the Sun Down.
A stylized meditation on America’s history of violence, in the tradition of Sergio Leone (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly), the movie observes the intersection of a former Confederate soldier-turned-bounty hunter (Walken), a British maidservant desperate to escape indentured servitude (Kidder), and a vicious mercenary in search of Native American scalps and Montezuma’s gold (Geoffrey Lewis, Miss Nobody).
Kino’s restored director’s cut of Shoot the Sun Down, director/co-writer Leeds’ only feature, marks the film’s first-ever release on Blu-ray or DVD.
Bonus features on...
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Kino Lorber
Christopher Walken and Margot Kidder star in Shoot the Sun Down, a 1978 counter-culture Western.
The same year that Christopher Walken (Seven Psychopaths) won an Oscar for The Deer Hunter (1978) and Margot Kidder was whisked away in Superman (1978), they starred in of David Leeds’ counter-culture Western Shoot the Sun Down.
A stylized meditation on America’s history of violence, in the tradition of Sergio Leone (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly), the movie observes the intersection of a former Confederate soldier-turned-bounty hunter (Walken), a British maidservant desperate to escape indentured servitude (Kidder), and a vicious mercenary in search of Native American scalps and Montezuma’s gold (Geoffrey Lewis, Miss Nobody).
Kino’s restored director’s cut of Shoot the Sun Down, director/co-writer Leeds’ only feature, marks the film’s first-ever release on Blu-ray or DVD.
Bonus features on...
- 10/8/2013
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
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