Cowboys and Aliens and Bars

Nick and I watched this movie yesterday, after it had been sitting on his desk in its Lovefilm envelope for about two weeks (Nick apparently needing that time to get over the fact that The Time Traveller's Wife wasn't the scientific drama about one scientist's quest to unlock the secrets of time travel and his devoted wife helping him that he'd thought it was).

As the film progressed we started listing all the Western (ie. cowboy) movie tropes we could see in the film. Daniel Craig was, of course, The Man With No Name, a man who wakes up with no memories and a strange device attached to his wrist. Harrison Ford was the Grizzled Veteran, the Guy You Think is Going to be the Villain But Isn't (if anyone considers that a spoiler, bear in mind the movie's title) and the Estranged Father all in one. There's also a Kid Trying to Rescue His Father, an Adopted Son Who's Better Than The Real Son, a Mysterious Woman, a Man Who's Never Shot a Gun Before and a Heroic Dog. Oh, and a medium-sized tribe of Apache warriors and about 30 bank robbers. No Invisible Swordsman though (but then again, who could tell?)

So, the plot. Well, there's a small wild west town with all the usual characters one would expect to find (and the Kurgen as town priest) and Daniel Craig wanders in not knowing a thing about himself. He gets arrested because of something he may or may not have done, but then aliens attack and carry off half the townsfolk. Turns out the device on Craig's wrist is a weapon of some sort, which is good because he ends up leading a ragtag band of the town's survivors to go fight the aliens and get their loved ones back.

It's an interesting film from the point of view of cultural tracking (a term from ufology used to describe how, quite often, the UFOs seen in the sky that resemble structured craft would seem to be only two or three steps removed from current levels of tech), although I don't think that was deliberate; more of a "grimy steampunk" sort of thing. It's also, perhaps unsurprisingly, not huge on plot revelations and shocking storytelling - you can probably guess most of what happens in the film without too much difficulty. But it's also a fun little film, the people involved seem to have had a good time making it, and we had a good time watching it (and admittedly MSTing it in parts). What more can be asked for?

We also watched a couple of episodes of a show called  Bar Rescue, that Nick discovered while watching his internet Gordon Ramsey channel a few days ago. It's like Kitchen Nightmares but with less swearing and with bars instead of restaurants, and it's not a bad show either. The only thing Nick and I think could have improved it is if they had been able to get Patrick Swayze (I know he's dead) to narrate the show as Dalton from Roadhouse. Either that or replace the "bar science" guy with Diamond Dallas Page. Then the show would have gone to a whole new level of awesome.