Spaghetti westerns are like porn: I can't define it but I know it when I see it.

So more of the gritty antihero who's only looking out for himself as opposed to the wonderful awesome cowboy who saves everyone? But both in the frontier setting?

Right, exactly. Also, if not a lot more violent, then a lot more brutality in the violence (as opposed to "bang, you're dead" moments), even if it wasn't necessarily explicitly gory, and a lot more callous about human life in general.

Of course, Leone's first movie A Fistful of Dollars was basically a straight-up (if not official) remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which, while a samurai movie, was Kurosawa's tribute to westerns. It had a lot of the same attitudes of the spaghetti westerns already in place.

And, of course, Yojimbo was basically a samurai version of Dashiel Hammett's Red Harvest. And so on, and so forth.

Inglourious Basterds was not made in Italy. To my knowledge. Therefore, its commonality with spaghetti Westerns would be something I should see in the movie itself. Perhaps this discussion will be more fruitful after I've seen the movie. But what other movies I may have seen would you consider spaghetti Western-esque?

You've seen the Leone "Dollars" triolgy, so you've seen probably the three best known ones.

Just having seen those three movies, you will likely instantly recognize the part of the film that's a direct homage to Leone, even though none of the trappings have anything to do with a western.

Just having seen those three movies, you will likely instantly recognize the part of the film that's a direct homage to Leone, even though none of the trappings have anything to do with a western.

Yeah, I totally agree with Sean. It's pretty (deliberately) blatant.

Just having seen those three movies, you will likely instantly recognize the part of the film that's a direct homage to Leone, even though none of the trappings have anything to do with a western.

Does it involve a train?

Yes, but it was more specific than that -- something along the lines of holding the fork upside down in the left hand on the plate while pushing the food onto it with a knife in the right.

I don't know any other way to do it.

I'm just intrigued that all these things were considered German, when it seems to be more of a Continental/Anglo-Saxon divide.

I'm just intrigued that all these things were considered German, when it seems to be more of a Continental/Anglo-Saxon divide.

Well, technically, the comment that was made on the fingers was that a German would never do the "index, middle, ring" gesture, not that the other was German per se. And it was specifically a region-neutral German accent that started the whole thing off.

ION, Top 10 forgotten and underrated Sci-fi movies

Cool that eXistenZ and Gattaca are in there. But is Brazil underrated?

Nearly every film on that list has a devoted cult following that I feel disqualifies it from being "forgotten."

to catch up, my middle finger cooperates quite well, I just can't get the little finger to do anything without the ring finger getting involved, either up or down. They're so co-dependent.

There seems to be more of a sense of isolation/desolation in Spaghetti Westerns, ie, the long establishing shot of an empty landscape and one guy on a horse. A lot of SF has the same feeling.

My ex-husband would screw the three finger hypothesis all to hell; he used the little, ring and middle finger to indicate three. I've been known to do that myself, occasionally.