Dead Souls

Filipe Furtado3.0

Con man twilight western from Alex Cox. Disjointed and misses as much as it hits, but for much of its time, it's enjoyably messy with some good lethargic energy. To some extent, it is about Cox getting away with it. Partially shot in Almeria, something that is probably as meaningful for him as for many Americans shooting in Monument Valley would be. I laughed a lot whrn people stsrtes to keave when the out of nowhere musical number including singing corpses started. Co-written by Eurowestern vet Gianni Garko.

NickDedina3.0

This was a fun night out at the movies, with Alex Cox, and select cast and crew at a pre-release SF Film Festival showing of a Spaghetti Western influenced satire that has been adapted from a Gogol story.The English Cox himself is surprisingly good in the lead role, a cadaverous but bumbling American conman who enters a Western town with a slowly revealed secretive plan to collect the names of “dead Mexicans.”Ultra low budget but fun, with real laughs and creative detours to stop motion animation, a short musical number involving a corpse, and a zoom forward dream to the present day. A lot of Cox alumni here, with the best role going to Zander Schloss as the town drunk with a work ethic, and the gift of song. Also a shout out to Maria Robles, a tavern waitress who is so fetching that she avoids the expendable label attached to all of the other Latin residents of the town.In the Q&A the production designer mentioned the cast and crew choosing to work with Alex Cox at either way below market rates or for free because he is such a warm and collaborative director.Thanks to Craig for the ticket in a SRO Roxie screening.

Saffron4.0

I was worried I might not like this movie since I'm usually put off by Westerns but Alex Cox's sense of humor won me over! And it was such an honor to meet the man himself! Some notes I joted down from the Q&A:-Cox is drawn to Westerns because of the deserts -He thought it'd be easier to animate the flashback than find a young boy who looked like him. The animation took 8 months -The scenes in El Paso were filmed on the same Spanish set as A Few Dollars More, but all the solitary houses in the middle of the desert was visual effects-The moment after the poker game when the sheriff and mayor comment on how Strindler walks funny was unscripted, that came from Cox's philosophy of keeping the camera rolling after the scene ends to find unexpected moments from actors