The Wild Bunch

Not really a full review, but I wanted to mention a few things about this classic 1969 Peckinpah western. First, William Holden and Ernest Borgnine were never better than in this movie. Holden, especially. (I've never been much of a Borgnine fan. Not sure why . . . .)

Second, the opening scenes with the children watching the fire ants killing the scorpions in the pens in the railyard. Oh, man. The ants stinging the scorpions, the scorpions fighting back but unable to fight off the ants with their stingers . . . has there ever been a better opening image in a movie? The Wild Bunchers, of course, are the scorpions; but they are getting killed off by "ants"--bounty hunters, soldiers, etc., by 1913.

Of course, in the end, all the scorpions die. But one. One scorpion survives, to ride on the frog's back, halfway across the river--but that's a different story.

Here's to the last of the scorpions . . .