#Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter One

[thegeneralreturns]

So how was the summer movie season of 2024?

(one person's opinion based on the movies they saw between May 1 and August 31)

BEST FILM: Strange Darling Runner-up: I Saw the TV Glow

BEST DIRECTION: Jane Schoenbraun- I Saw the TV Glow Runner-up: George Miller - Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

BEST SCREENPLAY: JT Mollner - Strange Darling Runner-up: Damian McCarthy - Oddity

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE: Willa Fitzgerald - Strange Darling Runner-up: Carolyn Bracken - Oddity

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE: Channing Tatum - Blink Twice Runner-up: Richard Roundtree - Thelma

BEST STUNT COORDINATION & ENSEMBLE: Kill Runner-up: The Fall Guy

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Galo Olivares - Alien: Romulus Runner-up: Eric Yue - I Saw the TV Glow

BEST FILM EDITING: Christopher Robin Bell - Strange Darling Runner-up: Shivkumar V. Panicker - Kill

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Runner-up: Twisters

MOST UNDERRATED FILM: In a Violent Nature Runner-up: Horizon-An American Saga: Chapter One

MOST OVERRATED FILM: Longlegs Runner-up: Kinds of Kindness

WORST FILM: AfrAId Runner-up: Borderlands

[sunshinestatecineplex]

Review: HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER ONE - Costner Builds a New Western Epic

With it's release on Max, Kevin Costner's HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER ONE - hopes to find the audience for it's future releases. The three hour epic has incredible sequences, but goes very loose ties with its story.

Few directors create instant gravitas like Kevin Costner. The actor-turned-director has lifted projects from obscurity and become a laughing stock for his failures. Yet Costner has held a prominent place in Americana and pop culture since the 1980s. It’s part of what makes Horizon: An American Saga such an ambitious project. Like Clint Eastwood before him, he plays with his iconography on…

[rye-views]

Horizon: An American Saga (2024) dir. Kevin Costner. 7.5/10

I wouldn't recommend this movie to my friends. I wouldn't rewatch this movie.

These arrows are so thick and strong.

This is some Red Dead I'm watching. I just love how clear this movie is.

Poor Walter.

Mary, shut up. I don't like this mix of antagonistic people and respectful people. What's the truth? Why are we so extreme here? I feel like Juliette is washing herself very inefficiently.

[thejewofkansas]

The Weekly Gravy #197

The Aristocrats (2005) – ***½ “The joke sucks,” Pat Cooper snarls near the beginning. “You suck for having the audacity to put this in a documentary.” “Maybe it’s best if we don’t break it down,” Jon Stewart deadpans at the very end. In between, however, both of them take part in telling the joke and breaking it down, along with several dozen other comedians who collectively reveal how this joke…

[jmunneytumbler]

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 6/28/24

All’s A-fair in a Family (CREDIT: Aaron Epstein/Netflix © 2024) Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out. Movies –A Family Affair (June 28 on Netflix) – Starring Joey King (and also Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron) –Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (Theaters) – Part 2 arrives in August. –A Quiet…

[bob-the-movie-man-film-reviews]

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 (15): Sprawling Western Spectacle.

#onemannsmovies #filmreview of "Horizon: An American Saga - Part 1". #Horizonsaga. Kevin Costner's epic western is ambitious and, despite flaws, entertaining. 3.5/5.

A One Mann’s Movies review of “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1” (2024). There I was, just two weeks ago reviewing “The Dead Don’t Hurt“, and I was bemoaning that “There are too few good Westerns around these days”. Then along comes the first episode of Kevin Costner’s ambitious “Horizon” quadrilogy. It is ambitious. It is very long. But its an impressive piece of work. Bob the Movie Man…

[mylifeincinema]

My Week in Reviews: June 30, 2024

The Bikeriders (Jeff Nichols, 2024)

It's not often that we—in 2024—get films that simply let you live in its world for a while. A film that doesn't worry about where its plot is headed, but rather allows its characters to lead the way. A film that understands a lifestyle and its specific role within an often misunderstood counter-culture, and revels in the comradery and romance of said lifestyle while neither condemning nor sugar-coating the unfavorable aspects associated with it. Jeff Nichols' The Bikeriders is one of these films, and its insightful approach, phenomenal cast, and Nichols' interesting interpretation of Danny Lyons' photo-book capture a cinematic feeling we too rarely get to experience nowadays. - 9/10

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 (Kevin Costner, 2024)

Should’ve been a Limited Series. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really quite good; a very enjoyable, well-crafted, old-fashioned western with epic aspirations and a sprawling cast boasting very few weak spots. But the number of threads at play, the imminent overall length, and the storytelling mechanics and pacing would’ve all worked significantly better within the structure of a 12-Episode Limited Series. - 7/10

Enjoy!

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

[namesisfortombstones]

Here's the new movies of 2024 I saw, ranked from best to least-best. That last one is the only one I didn't like.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 2024 A.D. Deadpool & Wolverine Knox Goes Away Godzilla and Kong: The New Empire Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire The Beekeeper Anora Late Night with the Devil The 4:30 Movie Reagan Twisters Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 Megalopolis

[winterfieldfrontiers]

Horizon : An American Saga Poster Characters

“HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA” Chapter One and Two will have a dual theatrical release, kicking off June 28—in time for Independence Day—with the second film debuting August 16

[alwayscryingoverdannyb]

bruh. I just left the movies and I thought about this post I reblogged just today.

just when I thought no movie can draw me in anymore, in swoops kevin costner and saves the day!!

I saw Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 and I admit I’m 100% core target audience for this. I love films set in that period in the wild west, long stories with suspenseful dialogue and not knowing what’s gonna happen next… it was just everything I wanted it to be. It grabbed my full attention immediately and didn’t let go for 3 hours.

I’m really glad Chapter 2 is being released just a couple months after Chapter 1. It’s long enough for you to absorb it and process your feelings but it’s not too long so that you forget what happened.

(Also, I was ready for Sam Worthington to play a bad guy but he was so adorable and I was just 🤩🤩🥰🥰🥰 he was a cherry on top of an already pretty awesome cake I’ll tell you that. I love him so much he’s one of my favorite actors.)

Today was shitty and felt so so long.. (my bff had a birthday from hell and my mom lost my job rather abruptly and unceremoniously….) I’m glad I could end it with such an uplifting experience.

[drag-on-dra-goon]

nothing but respect for Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 actor/writer/director/producer/coffee ad man kevin costner's unbridled passion for creating box office bombs. each one somehow outdoing the last in how catastrophic its failure was for the larger film industry, each somehow more career-ruining than the last, an absolute black hole of hubris made manifest as a man, his love for losing the game is truly legendary, and I would have it no other way

[meme-streets]

I SAW THE KEVIN COSTNER WESTERN. here are my thoughts on horizon: an american saga, chapter 1 with mini and massive spoilers under the cut.

four movies, by the way? kevin costner, you son of a bitch, you're doing terrible things to my wallet!

first of all: gorgeous landscape shots. what can i say? i love aspen trees, i love rock formations, i love mountains. very nice costumes too, though i can't speak to historical accuracy. costner's fit goes hard as hell. the freaky brothers' fits goes hard as hell.

i also appreciate the casting–mostly of minor characters–of some people with old school western character actors faces. you know what i mean? there's some old dude at the beginning who looks a bit like jack elam though without a lazy eye. the freaky brothers' mother. this sounds like i'm calling these people ugly but i don't mean it that way.

a potential issue with actors directing their own films is that their ego gets the best of them and they make themselves too important to the detriment of the story looking at you clint eastwood. costner does not fall into this trap; hell, he's not even there for the first...forty five minutes to an hour, i can't tell.

this is the first of a series and you can tell, because almost nothing that is set up pays off at all. it is not a standalone film by any means. i generally don't like this in a movie but i get it, costner & co have several hours of story to tell and they want it on the big screens, and it does look good in a theater. it doesn't waste any of its three hour runtime and i was never bored, so i don't think there's much to be done about it. it does do a pretty decent job tying some of the plotlines together and it sets up how more will intersect in the future. i will say it ends with an admittedly very hype montage that's just a trailer for the next film(s) and i think that's corny as fuck. i have seen people complain this is three or four movies smashed together but i was able to keep up with it pretty well so i don't think it's too much of an issue.

in the line of unforgiven and the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford, it's one of those modern westerns where killing is brutal, unglamorous, and messy. costner unloads four or five pistol shots into a guy at close range before he finally bites it.

i've heard conflicting accounts on how the film handles manifest destiny. having now seen it, it's definitely not pro-expansionist, but some of the characters do treat it as completely inevitable, and the end of the frontier seems already strangely close at hand for a film set in the 1860s. the friend i saw it with described it as having an apocalyptic feeling and he's onto something there.

re: the above, there's a scene where a higher ranking is talking to the lower ranking army guy who keeps suggesting "stop fucking settling on apache land" and they have this conversation about the last great open space and the inevitability of farmers settling no matter how bad of an idea it is. it felt too on the nose.

blood meridian subplot? there's even a kid with them. i don't think it's definitely an intentional reference but i'm leaning towards probably.

i love marigold. shoutout to female characters who make bad and selfish decisions and are still sympathetic. she's funny as hell. she's breasting boobily. she's trying SO hard to fuck that old man.

obsessed with whatever's going on with that little blond freak wearing the pelt. why is he pissing in the creek in front of everybody. why is he trying to have hate sex with kevin costner. why is he trying to goad his older brother into kicking his ass. i guess we'll never know

oh my god, those adorable little union soldiers that lizzy whatsherface gave the cloth flowers to are definitely going to fucking die!

the british couple is so. stop acting like that.

overall: i don't know how good it was but i did have a fun time watching it.

[jakexneytiri]

did u see sam worthington ‘s new movie

if you’re referring to Horizon: An American Saga Chapter One then YES, yes i did!!! 10/10. if you haven’t seen it, you really really should! sienna miller is fantastic, as is sam ✨

[leitch]

This was supposed to be a longer soccer summer than it turned out to be. Alas!

Here are this week's stories:

SUNDAY Kevin Costner Movies, Ranked (Vulture) The Month of June in Baseball, Recapped (MLB.com)

MONDAY This Week's Power Rankings (MLB.com)

WEDNESDAY Paul Skenes Should Start the All-Star Game (MLB.com)

THURSDAY This Week's Five Fascinations (MLB.com) The Best Active Players Who Haven't Made an All-Star Game Yet (MLB.com)

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch (subscribe in iTunes) Big show, discussing "A Quiet Place: Day One," "Kinds of Kindness," "Horizon: An American Saga -- Chapter One" and "Janet Planet."

Seeing Red (subscribe in iTunes) Bernie Miklasz and I were off this week because of the KFNS mess.

Morning Lineup (subscribe in iTunes) I did Friday morning this week.

Happy July 4, everybody. Have a great weekend, and remember: It's a fallacy, I think, to judge a film on the basis of how faithful it is to the book, or to the play, or to anything other than itself.

[whatyourusherthinks]

Horizon: An American Saga-Chapter One Review

Another day, another movie who's name refuses to properly stick to my memory. And hey, this one comes with a spice of looking really fucking racist from the trailers! Hooray! I mean, maybe it comes with the Western territory (lol get it because Westerns always take place in the part of the US that were territories at the time they take place, I'm goddamn hilarious I know), but the trailer made this movie look like Kevin Costner fighting off all the evil Indians and disrespectful young people to save his land that he totally stole from said evil Indians. Maybe I'm being cynical because I haven't seen a Kevin Costner movie I've liked but I dunno. I actually kinda like Westerns, they occupy a similar space in my mind as Noirs, a bit of a guilty pleasure. Intellectually I know that both kinds of movies can be really questionable about minorities and that what they provide I can get guilt free from other types of movies, but something about the atmosphere and tropes draw me in. Anyway, I've stalled enough let's get into it.

What's the Movie About?

The West, and there is people who want to move there, and some people who don't want the first people to move, and also Kevin Costner tries to help a prostitute. Also something about the Civil War.

What I Like.

First things first, I'm sorry Mr. Costner. This movie isn't racist I think. Well, at the very least the Native Americans are actually characters, and maybe I am just inclined to like them more from the outset, but I thought they were portrayed just as well if not better than the white people in the movie. And the movie isn't afraid to portray Whitey as evil, if not more so, as the Native Warriors that burned down the town in the opening scene. So congratulations! You've won the 'Not As Racist As You Could Have Been' Award Mr. Costner! I mean he did make Dances With Wolves Roan, you should of had more faith. OKAY BUGGNUTZ I SAID I WAS SORRY. The cinematography is pretty good. They certainly found some very pretty locations to film at and Costner knows how to block and frame a shot pretty damn well. I also kinda like the Mari character, even if she does make a really weird and questionable decision at the end. There was also a family that blew itself up in the beginning that made me laugh harder than every comedy I've seen so far this year. Unintentionally, sure, but I'll still give it to the movie.

What I Didn't Like.

So my summery of the movie was pretty bad, right? Well, that's because this movie is three to four plots jarringly slammed together. So I'm doing the best I can alright. This is why this movie is three hours long. Because it's four movies in a trench coat. And unlike a kid trying to sneak into a bar that way, there's nothing adorable to coo at nor any audacity to respect. Costner wanted to make this more than one movie, right? Then make every storyline it's own goddamn movie. What, you've never heard of a movie with a B-Plot? THESE AREN'T B-PLOTS. Every storyline has the same amount of weight as every other one. Just where there would be a cut to a different scene, they instead cut to the next story. And here's the best part: Only one of the plotlines is interesting! The one with Kevin Costner, shockingly enough, is about a travelling bounty hunter (I think) protecting a prostitute and a kid after the kid's mom's past catches up to her. That's the storyline with the Mari character. The other ones are about this town that got burnt down by Native Americans and some of the survivors getting revenge, which mostly just depressing in the most obvious ways. I liked the Native characters but that was it. One of survivors of the town getting burned down and her daughter join up with a Union post and fall in love with some soldiers and that's really dull. It doesn't help that I'm pretty sure I know exactly how that storyline will end. And the final one is about these annoying British settlers in a wagon train going west run by Owen Wilson's brother. With all the cuts between these stories, it's pretty damn confusing about who's who and what anything is supposed to relate to each other. I'm not even sure if the wagon train and Kevin Costner's storyline are supposed be at the same time as the destroyed town and revenge for the town stories. Being able to understand the dialogue might of been some help, half of it is mumbled and the other half sounds like Shakespeare if he was kicked in the head by a horse being ridden by John Wayne. What else, what else... Oh yeah, there is the most sexless sex scene I think I've ever seen. It was almost impressive how sexy they were trying to be and how much they weren't.

Final Summation.

I'm kinda mad that I'm not more mad at this movie. Roan that's circular. SHUT UP. What I mean is that this movie is just bad. Not horrible, not horrendous. Hell, it's not even that interesting to talk about. I'm probably going to forget everything that happened by tomorrow, let alone by the time the next movie comes out. (Except for that exploding family. I'm going to treasure that scene in my heart forever.) But most forgettable movies aren't THREE FUCKING HOURS LONG! Hell, probably six hours, because I'm willing to bet that the next one will be just as boring.

[themosleyreview]

The Mosley Review: Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

Before Star Wars, before Marvel, DC or any type of superheroes, the true back bone of cinema was born in the wild west. No other genre has had the most influence and variety of stories based on fact, fiction and sometimes folktales. The majority of you would say that the Western film genre has been dead for years and you'd be right. Yeah, we occasionally get a film that's an modern day original story, a remake or biopic about the legendary gunslingers and lawmen of past, but those films are so far and between. Nowadays, they're mostly straight to on demand. Some films and shows like Deadwood, The Harder They Fall, Hell or High Water, Godless and recently the Yellowstone franchise have re-invigorated the genre. It brought a smile to my face to actually walk into a theatre and sit down knowing I'm about to see a Western on the big screen again and this film did not disappoint. What makes this film unique is that it feature at least 4 different types of classic stories that all have a similar destination. Something like this you would see in a long running TV series and to witness it in on the big screen is truly special.

This cast features just about every current and veteran actor that has ever been in or associated with a western. For that, I'll focus on the standouts from here on in. Sienna Miller was truly fantastic and strong as the widowed mother, Frances Kittredge. The emotional journey of loss and the amount strength she carries for her daughter was encouraging to witness. Sam Worthington was honorable and upright as First Lt. Trent Gephardt. He commanded his screen time with ease and I loved the chemistry that was built between him and Frances. Michael Rooker is always great and as Sgt. Major Riordan, I liked his more tender nature. His Irish accent was a bit spotty at times, but he was so great that I could understand what he was trying to convey for the most part. Luke Wilson was great as the frontier caravan leader, Matthew Van Weyden. I loved his portrayal of the guy that was thrown the position as leader and the all the weight that comes with it. He led with respect, but didn't hesitate to stand up to a challenger amongst the group. Jena Malone was a firecracker that never fizzled out as Ellen/Lucy. From the moment she was on screen, she gets your attention and her protective fury is felt. Jon Beavers was great and scary as the Junior Sykes. His determination and towering presence was intimidating and welcomed. His younger brother Caleb was wild and menacing as Jamie Campbell Bower brings the character to life. His devilish smile and petulant violent nature was fun to watch and brought great tension in one particular stand off. Kevin Costner was excellent as the quiet hero with a possible bloody past, Hayes Ellison. I always love when a hero is wanting peace and somehow gets pulled back into trouble and has to always look over his shoulder. Kevin did that expertly and his chemistry with the flirtatious and trouble seeking Marigold, played wonderfully by Abbey Lee, was cute at times. Owen Crow Shoe was great as the young and war mongering Pionsenay. He was the leader of the many indigenous raids on the American settlements and I liked his defiant nature. I sense we are about to get an interesting and sad story with him in the future.

The score by John Debney was haunting, emotional, fun and perfectly fit the era. What I loved the most is the visual representation of each territory. The Santa Fe territory was that amber and dry type of hot versus the cold, gray and cold bluish tone of the Wyoming territory. Now if you're wondering if there's action in the film, there is and it is not glorious. What was brilliant about it is that the horrific nature of the attacks on settlers was brutal, unflinching and purposefully made you uncomfortable because you're watching families die. The cycle of vengeance is explored through the eyes of the young in this film and that was a great perspective. In the end, this film was a great set up for the following second chapter and I can't wait to see how it unfolds and how each story ends up in the titular location. Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in the comments below. Thanks for reading!