This movie made me feel like less of a man. I sat on the couch with the heaters pumping in the corner, eating potato chips, and drinking a lovely pinot noir, while watching settlers slowly trudge across the deserted, treacherous Oregon plains, on the verge of dying, with their entire lives wrapped up in a small wagon. I think I need to start building furniture or something...

Meek's Cutoff accomplishes a very rare feat; feeling epic, yet very intimate at the same time. A short ways into the film there is a scene where the camera follows one female settler as her scarf is blown across the expansive, dusty plain. We spend a solid thirty seconds or so just following…

March Madness 2013 – No Re-Watch Edition.

"I'm just thinking of my father's pigs back home, all safe and warm in their pens."

"Meek's Cutoff" refers to a shortcut promised by pioneer guide Stephen Meek in the early days of the Oregon Trail. Unfortunately, Meek didn't know the way as well as he claimed, and the small party of settlers found themselves wandering without water in the desert. (I did not know there were desert parts of Oregon; I should have realized, since a large portion of the state borders Nevada.) The story joins this party after they have gotten lost.

The West has never seemed so quiet and so vast. These people seem truly isolated, with no hope of…

I've always struggled to explain the appeal of Kelly Reichardt's films (Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy), they are slow bordering on boring, light on plot and often relying on broad characters. Yet, over time, the film slowly creeps up on you and especially in the case of Wendy and Lucy the end result is something far more affecting than its constituent parts would suggest. Meek's Cutoff broadens Reichardt's traditional scope but still carries all of her hallmarks. The film is deathly slow, a usual criticism but one that works here to capture the slow rolling wagons and the hopelessness the group feel when they realise they are lost amongst the vastness of the American landscape. Characters are once again…

Best of 2011 they said! A masterpiece they said! A classic in the making they said! BULLSHIT! This is the type of film that critics love to praise because of the "talent" behind it and they're afraid to say how shitty it is because they don't want to sound like assholes! Well allow me to be that asshole...

This film moves like a slow moving wagon on the Oregon Trail. Now I don't mind a slow moving film as long as there is something that can sustain my interest, like an interesting conversation or something small that brings a character's internal conflicts to light. The sad fact about this is NOTHING HAPPENS! Seriously! There are tons of overlong scenes where…

Ever play Oregon Trail and think to yourself, "This would make a great movie". Neither have I, but that is essentially what has been produced of Kelly Reichardt's MEEK'S CUTOFF. I never remember making it to the end of Oregon Trail. I always found myself getting a bit distracted and finding something more exciting than deciding whether I should cross the river or risk getting dysentery. This movie has a few moments that elevate us to that hard trek across America but others lie flat and boring leaving us hoping to find a snake in our boots.

It's main force comes from the bleakness and brutality of the trek out west. I'm not sure there is another film that depicts…