IMDB won't let you "steal" (right click & save) any of their publicity stills so I had to work around that by alt+Print Screen , pasting my screen caps into Paint, and then selecting just the desired pic, copy & paste to a new Paint doc. Now, since I had to go thru all that rigamarole, I figure I might as well get some collage action happenin'.
In the upper left hand pic we have a character called "Famous Shoes" (guess which one?) which I mention simply because that's one of the more awesome Indian names I've ever heard. If I were an Indian, I would like a name like that, although I feel sure they didn't just arbitrarily name themselves. One would have to earn a nickname. I imagine Famous Shoes got his on account o' him being a much sought-after scout.(But what do I know??) Also worth noting about Famous Shoes...he is a Kickapoo. Huh ha huh-huh..kickapoo.
In the lower picture we see the fabulous Val Kilmer who plays Inish Scull. He doesn't look like this in most of the movie (thus far anyhow....part III airs tonight) he looks like roadkill. But ol' Val Kilmer is charming enough to transcend any grody exterior. He's got a different accent but is sort of channeling his inner Doc Holiday (from Tombstone which indisputably owes 99.9% of its rad-ness to Kilmer's Doc). He gets taken prisoner and is hanging there in this primitive stick-work cage (as I recall him doing in some scene in Willow ) and he is belting out opera in German (which he did NOT do in Willow) to keep his spirits up...I SO appreciate that. I should like to learn to sing opera in some foreign language just for the remote possibility that I am taken captive and I'll have this grand and fabulous way to simultaneously keep my spirits up and annoy the piss outta my captors. That would be great, but 'tis pretty ambitious, so my back-up goal is to master the Modern Major General song (no bilingualism required...just monster lung capacity). Anyways back to the Inish Scull character...near the end of his confinement he's looking a bit like Kilmer did in The Doors but the bloated, death's-door version of Jim Morrison....plus scabs and fleas.
Karl Urban (upper right side pic) gets featured here solo because .. .siiigh....he is just FINE. In a very smoldery sorta way. Which is not to belittle the draw of Steve Zahn (upper left pic, crotch shot) . I LOVE Steve Zahn. He's not real smoldery, but he has his own appeal. I think the most applicable adjective would be "adorable". Is it insulting to call a grown man adorable? Sorry Zahn, but you are.
Judging from most of the rumblings on IMDB, the majority of viewers kinda detest this movie. Seems though, that most detractors are these diehard Western buffs/people who've read the source novel. Don't know why these people should be all crotchety...Larry McMurtry had a big hand in the screenplay...so if he doesn't take umbrage with deviations from the book then..then..just simmer the hell down. But admittedly, I am dabbler in this genre so am consequently very easy to please. I look at a Western like it's any other period drama...like to look at the men in old timey threads, and care more about the romantic denoument than I do about the horsemanship or the authenticity of the Comanche dialect or what have you. Although, the romantic denouement in this prequel is a foregone conclusion (a shitty one) as I've seen Lonesome Dove and therefore know that McCrae & Call wind up lonely old workaholic geezers. But still, I find it an enjoyable enough way to pass 2hrs...on account of Zahn's utter affability (rather, his adorable affability) Kilmer's quirk, and Urban's hot silent smolderyness (I mean, he's seriously silent... they give him an approximate 2 minutes of total dialogue per 2 hr installment).
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