The Milwaukee Post

June 6, 2014 • Milwaukee County Post • 17 Promising first-class film 'Million Ways' finds itself lost among classless chatter By TOM JOZWIK Special to The Post MILWAUKEE – In all honesty, "A Million Ways to Die in the West" doesn't contain anywhere near a million uses of the F word. Having heard a multitude of F word variations during the movie's early going, however, I thought I'd start counting. I got to 26 in approximately 45 minutes – more than one every other minute, if you're scoring along at home. Even Abraham Lincoln (annoyingly portrayed by Gilbert Gottfried) spews the profanity, albeit in the protagonist's dream. The film provides sex talk uncomfort- able to listen to and scatology uncomfort- able to watch (an unnecessarily elongated – if not downright unnecessary– diarrhea sequence leaps to mind). Flatulence was funny in "Blazing Saddles" because it was confined to a scene that, once enacted, was over and done with. It is less funny in "A Million Ways," occurring almost often enough to be considered a motif. Child abuse isn't funny anywhere, but a couple of "A Million Ways" characters allude to it in lines meant to draw cheap laughs. I wish I hadn't felt compelled to share the foregoing, because "A Million Ways" has the makings of a really good movie, a better-than-"Blazing Saddles" flick for the 21st century. There's excellent chemistry between the male and female leads, Seth MacFarlane (also to be acknowledged as the director and held accountable as a screenwriter) and the lovely and talented Charlize Theron. There are catchy theme music and a couple of catchy songs, one of them used in a clever little dance number. There's cinematography evocative of John Ford and Monument Valley. There's the humorous employment – a la "Blazing Saddles" – of anachronism: a minister's pulpit announcement, "There is a moun- tain lion war ning in effect"; another character's admonition, in an era before cars existed, "You really shouldn't drink and horse"; an offstage assistant's prompting a comedian with thick wooden equivalents of cue cards; and Christopher Lloyd's cameo reprisal of his "Back to the Future" character. And there's the plot which, while not particularly sophisticated, is fun to fol- low. It hones in on MacFarlane's Albert, a poor man's foul-mouthed Bret Maverick. Albert is a wisecracking fish out of water who cares not a whit for the late-19th-cen- tury Arizona community where he lives with his parents and tends sheep. The hometown disdain is understand- able. As Albert suggests at the movie's outset, and as a closing credits song reit- erates, the Arizona outpost is something of a death trap. If there aren't quite a mil- lion ways to succumb in what the film's star calls the "overall repressing awful- ness of the West" of 1882, there certainly are a whole lot: bullet wounds, of course, but also knife wounds, smallpox, snake bites, hungry wolves and coyotes, ram- paging cattle, freak accidents and even such seemingly insignificant occurrences as paper cuts (should these result in infec- tion in an era of medical quackery). Albert and Anna (Theron) meet while he's still carrying the torch for Louise (Amanda Seyfried); Louise has dumped the sheep farmer in favor of priggish Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), an egotist whose primary interest in life seems to be his handlebar moustache. Literally since childhood, Anna's been married to a noto- rious gunslinger called Clinch (Liam Neeson). Clinch's tutelage, presumably, is the reason Anna handles a six-shooter as well as Annie Oakley handled a rifle. Everybody knows the evil Cliff by rep- utation, but Albert, for one, is completely ignorant of the fact that he's married to Anna. Let's just say that Albert and Anna become close – and that, made aware of their affinity, the gunslinger is less than happy. Albert, who could've easily qualified for some Victorian "Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight," ironically finds himself in gunfight after gunfight – not to men- tion on the verge of being burned at the stake by Native Americans. His gift of gab, scholar's knowledge of Indian lan- guages (Al's admittedly "kind of a loser," but definitely a very bright loser) and connection with the resourceful Anna serve him extremely well during such predicaments. The cast includes Giovanni Ribisi, quite satisfactory as Albert's naive best friend Edward, another individual ill- suited to the rough and tumble Old West. Albert could be speaking for both of them when he labels the story's locale "disgust- ing" and "dirty." If only those adjectives didn't also apply to MacFarlane's movie at times. Submitted photo From left, Jay Patterson, Seth McFarlane and Charlize Theron are shown in a scene from the movie "A Million Ways to Die in the West." "A Million Ways to Die in the West" ★ ★ Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, Giovanni Ribisi, Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Silverman Director: Seth MacFarlane Rating: R Running time: 116 minutes Showings: www.marcustheatres.com Post Staff MILWAUKEE – Two-time Grammy Award-winning New Zealand songstress Lorde will appear at the BMO Harris Pavilion on the Summerfest grounds for a 7 p.m. Sept. 26 show. Special guest Majical Cloudz will open for Lorde, whose North Amercia tour begins Aug. 1 at Chicago's Lollapalooza. Lorde's critically acclaimed debut album "Pure Heroine" continues to dom- inate U.S charts with more than 1.2 mil- lion copies sold. Her quadruple platinum single "Royals" holds the record for the longest No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 by a female artist in 2013." Another single, "Team," was her sec- ond No. 1 hit on the Adult Top 40, making her the first female artist in Billboard history to rule over the AAA Radio Airplay chart with two songs. "Team" also held the top spot for four weeks and landed at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 with over 1.7 billion in radio audience to date. In January, Lorde walked away with Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance awards at the 2014 Grammy Awards and has since been nominated with 12 Billboard Music Awards and took home awards for Best New Artist and Best Rock Song for her debut single, "Royals." Tickets to the general public go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday. Reserved tickets are $55.50, $45.50 and $35.50 and are available at tickets.lorde.co.nz. For more information, call 414-286-3663 or www.pabsttheater.org. International singer Lorde coming to Milwaukee MOVIE REVIEW

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