I watched "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" after having quit the last few movies I'd seen part way through. I hoped that "Judge" would be the movie to break me of that habit, and it was. I knew almost instantly that I was watching something different: "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" is unlike any Western I've ever really seen.
The movie has some surrealist and absurdist touches, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it an acid western. The strange bits - like a butt kicking in fast-forward delivered by Paul Newman's Bean at the beginning of the movie - or a scene where an albino outlaw (played by the great Stacy Keach) gets a hole blown clear through him - don't come across as the point of the movie, but rather as a little spice on top of the superior direction and photography.
Unfortunately, I did find my concentration wandering a fair bit. The movie starts and stops, with an unusual structure, feeling like a series of endings to short relationships with characters who are only briefly seen.
I could imagine, though, that many out there would find that this only adds to the movie's unique charm.
The movie has some surrealist and absurdist touches, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it an acid western. The strange bits - like a butt kicking in fast-forward delivered by Paul Newman's Bean at the beginning of the movie - or a scene where an albino outlaw (played by the great Stacy Keach) gets a hole blown clear through him - don't come across as the point of the movie, but rather as a little spice on top of the superior direction and photography.
Unfortunately, I did find my concentration wandering a fair bit. The movie starts and stops, with an unusual structure, feeling like a series of endings to short relationships with characters who are only briefly seen.
I could imagine, though, that many out there would find that this only adds to the movie's unique charm.