Thursday Movie Picks: Small Towns

2017's Thursdays are in short supply, but there are a few left. This week, our wonderful host for Thursday Movie Picks, Wanderer at Wandering Through the Shelves, has chosen to use this one for us to talk about films dealing with small towns. It would be an easy topic, except for the fact that there are far too many to choose from. I kept it simple. Real simple.


The small town here is just a village in Japan that is being terrorized by bandits. The locals seek protection and hire a down-on-his-luck samurai to give it to them. Realizing he can't do it on his own, he recruits six others to help him do the job. The result is a phenomenal film that appears on tons of those lists of the greatest movies of all-time. And with good reason. It's a sprawling epic with a story and characters that pull you in. It's a bit of a slow burn, and can eat up much of your day at three-and-a-half hours in length, but it's so worth it.


The small town here is just a village in Mexico that is being terrorized by bandits. The locals seek protection and hire a gunslinger to give it to him. Realizing he can't do it on his own, he recruits six others to help him do the job. Hey, that sounds familiar. It should. This is the star-studded American remake of my first pick. It's not quite as awesome, but it's plenty good, quicker paced, and chops offs about 80 minutes off the runtime.


The small town here is just a fledgling town on the American frontier that is being terrorized by an evil mining tycoon. The locals seek protection and hire a rogue U.S. Marshal to give it to them. Realizing he can't do it on his own, he recruits six others to help him do the job. Hmmm. If you sense a pattern here, congratulations, you're actually awake while reading this. Anyhoo, this one is, obviously, a star-studded American remake of the star-studded American remake of Seven Samurai. The emphasis here is on fun and this film has plenty of it. Sure, it doesn't do anything new, but it's good popcorn-munching time.