Saturday, June 28, 2014

A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)

So silly. Seth MacFarlane sends up westerns á la Blazing Saddles with slapstick deaths, anachronistic dialogue, beautiful cinematography of buttes in Monument Valley UT, and a host of stars in cameos. MacFarlane (covered in Ted) directs, co-wrote, and stars as a cowardly sheep farmer who talks too much. Giovanni Ribisi (last in Gangster Squad) is his meek best friend, Amanda Seyfried (most recently in Chloe) his gold-digging girlfriend, Sarah Silverman (profiled in Take This Waltz) a foul-mouthed (of course) prostitute and girlfriend of Ribisi, Charlize Theron (last in Prometheus) the beautiful woman from somewhere else, Liam Neeson (most recently in Unknown) her scary outlaw husband, and Neil Patrick Harris (best known for his TV and stage roles, he has played a character named Neil Patrick Harris in all the Harold & Kumar movies as well as in The Muppets) MacFarlane's rich rival for Seyfried. The trailer includes a couple of seconds of Harris dancing, which is about all we get, sadly, in the movie.

MacFarlane's writing partners from Ted, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, do the same here and the Aaron Copeland-like score by Joel McNeely matches the sweeping cinematography by Michael Barrett.

Most people probably won't see this, with its Rotten Tomatoes averages of 33% critics and 45 audiences, but I giggled hysterically for parts of it and Jack enjoyed it too. If you do rent it or watch it on free cable, stick around for the bonus.

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