Audience Member
WHAT. But really WHAT. Czech movies!!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/13/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Oh man, this is such a delight to look at. This film is art in every sense, it's so hyper stylized and exaggerated and surreal that it makes you wonder why the hell its look hasn't been reproduced over and over and over. It's honestly like 60s pop art come to life.
The movie itself has some genuine laugh out loud moments and some pretty excellent satire on advertising and capitalism. It pokes fun at westerns too of course, though I honestly get the sense there's a lot of love in its parody.
The only problem with this film is a scene that could have been straight out of a Lonely Island youtube video if it wasn't for the, uh, black face. Yeah, unfortunately some lame 60s european black face shows up to be exactly what black face is meant to be. I will say at least the camerawork is about as shockingly modern as the black face is shockingly insulting.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
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Audience Member
Colorful parody that can be easily ranked among the comedy giants. Way before Mel Brooks ever thought of his concepts, Lemonade Joe came as an avant-garde blast that mocked American westerns and even hidden racial issues (again, just like Brooks did) but in a less subtle manner and with extraordinary camera tricks and a furious editing. Who needs CGI these days?
99/100
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/22/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The quintessential Western spoof. I liked it better than Blazing Saddles.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/13/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Czech parody of cowboy films? Of course I'd like it.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/18/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Lemonade Joe is a Czech New Wave musical comedy western. It begins with a silent film style battle of cowboys throwing each other through windows and constantly brawling in fast-mo. The camera uses a yellow filter, giving us the wild west is with a lemon tint. Colors change from time to time based on the action, red during a sexy dance number, and blue during a rescue mission in the dead of night, but mostly lemon yellow.
A young girl and her elderly father walk into the bar extolling the benefits of giving up liquor, most notably it will make you a better shot. The cowboys though constantly violent and shooting off a the hip, are perpetually too drunk to ever manage to hit each other. The young girl and her father preach an escape from whiskey and hand out tracts, but the owner of the bar, Mr. Badman is unconcerned, until Lemonade Joe shows up. In a full yellow suit(though its hard to tell in a completely yellow world), and nearly glowing, Lemonade shows up to teach the ruffians some manners, and to extol the praises of escape from Alcohol and the benefits of Kolakola Lemonade (the only Lemonade he drinks).
Quickly the cowboys convert to an all Lemonade town, thinking they to will get Lemonade Joes shooting prowess. But then the terrible Mogofogo arrives in town, he is a kind of magician and master of disguise among gunmen. As fate would have it he is Mr. Badman's brother and the two set out to reconvert the towns people to drinking whiskey again. Though Joe is shown walking past such southwestern landmarks as the Sphinx and the Eiffel Tower, he manages to see when the girl is in trouble and comes back to her rescue.
What ensues is a series of Looney Toonesesque clashes between Lemonade Joe and Mogofogo. Then Joe's secret is finally revealed, that is and always has been an employee of Kolakola Lemonade, who does good deeds and rights wrongs as a kind of free advertisement for the company. The young girl is delighted to hear this, and agrees to marry him immediately, provided she get a percentage of the action. They haggle and he agrees and they laugh and they love.
Lemonade Joe is a rainbow streaked television serial; an old Flash Gordon or Tarzan, but through a lens of Soviet deconstructionism. It's Bertold Brect in the wild wild west.
The rivalry between the hero and the villain is not a moral issue, if Joe wins the cowboys shoot each other and dont miss, when the gunmen's drinking Kolakola there's no need to call the doctor". It's a kill boasts Joe, while Mr. Badman wins the cowboys go back to endless drunken, but not life threatening, brawls. After Mogofogo kidnaps Joe's girl, by exploiting his only weakness alcohol(Joe's kryptonite), Joe tracks him down and instead of punishing him, only asks that he sign a contract stating he will switch from whiskey to lemonade.
In the end the franchise wars, are ended when all of the characters discover they are long lost brothers and sisters. Their father appears and says hero or villain, we all have our use in the company. The father decides to merge the companies into Whis-Kola, a whiskey and lemonade alternative, and satire of Coca-Cola.
I imagine this lampooning of "western" capitalism and product placement in the guise of the American western, would have been very obvious to the Czech audience at the time, and the soviet censors who would have had to decide if the film was ideologically acceptable.
Most importantly this movie is slapstick fun dipped in impossible colors. The comedy is touch and go, and for the most part the novelty of its delivery, and continuous camera tricks keep us interested, though it drags a bit at times. After watching it I completely understand why people would recommend it, it's another in a list of Czech surrealist films like like Daisies, The Cremater, Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders, and Who Wants To Kill Jessie.
I would love to see a Coffin Joe meets Lemonade Joe crossover, but I know its just wishful thinking. A boy can dream though, a boy can dream.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/18/23
Full Review
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