Westender 2003


This was the official website for the 2003 film, Westender.
Content is from outside sources including reviews from RottenTomatoes, other film critics, and a synopsis from IMDb.

 

Rating: PG-13 (for violence)
Genre: Drama, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Directed By: Brock Morse
Written By: Jefferson O.S.Brassfield, Jefferson Brassfield
On DiscStreaming: Dec 14, 2004
Runtime: 105 minutes
Studio: M.O.B Productions

IMDb 2003

Set in a fictional medieval world, this is the story of Asbrey of Westender. Once a great heroic knight, he has mysteriously fallen from grace. One night he drunkenly bets and loses his ring, his last possession of worth. He then embarks on a mission to regain his ring and, in due course, confront the demons of his past.

- Written by Darth Bill



REVIEWS

 

User Reviews
err, it was better than Dragon. :D
www.imdb.com | 12 March 2007 | by Vevy

I watched this last night with my family. While I appreciated the fact that most of the acting was pretty good, the setting was beautiful and the cinematography was nice, I did not enjoy watching a movie with half of the movie being a silent film watching a down-n-out knight wander about the desert. A lot of the scenes could have been considerably shorter, and on one of the sideways shots, when they rotated it up to right-side-up, they didn't get it all the way. :D It needed a prequel and a sequel to really explain the storyline, the story just was really lacking.

I liked Glim, but the kind of cut him out in the middle of the movie with no real explanation.

This movie was not up to par, get a new screenwriter, and it would be considerable better.

The swordplay choreography, costumes, and weapons I thought were very good, except for the fact that all the girls were practically losing their shirts. :D

Other iMBD User Reviews

9/10
Darn close to a masterpiece... but not an action film!
FlashHSU3 March 2005
First off, "Westender" is not a swords-and-sorcery action film. It's a beautiful medieval tale, with some really nifty action, but at it's core it's an independent style film about a man's struggles with inner demons.

The fighting and action is really about as good as I've seen in this level of indy flick. This is appreciated more with a look at the "making of" feature and learning they had no stuntmen.

The symbolism/deep stuff is done really well, being clear without being obtuse, and being moving without being distracting.

The story follows a fairly understandable path, but there are some connections the audience has to make for themselves, and there are some questions intentionally left unanswered about the backstory. I would like to have seen a better resolution to the Jester character.

Some scenes were really poorly lit, which was my main beef with this otherwise wonderfully shot film.

All and all, if you want some cool knight action you might want to check out this movie, but be prepared to think. If you want some moving human drama, check out this movie but be prepared to enjoy the ride. If you want some gorgeous scenery, CHECK OUT THIS MOVIE now.

~~~~~

Quite an achievement for much less than a big-league budget.
gregcouture12 March 2004
Filmed entirely in Oregon, on some amazingly atmospheric locations, this film was reportedly made on a budget that probably wouldn't provide the perks for one of today's overpaid Hollywood super-stars.

Its evocation of a medieval world has quite a bit more flavor than many of the big studio efforts of, say, fifty years ago, and its flaws are not terribly distracting or disappointing.

It is true that the editing could be considerably tightened and that some plot points are not elucidated too well, especially since flashbacks are used, though not to any true advancement of the linear storyline.

Blake Stadel, as the questing knight of the title, while not a very expressive actor, nevertheless contributes a stalwart presence (and makes the abuse he suffers look convincingly real, by the way).

The cinematography is the real star of this show and the music score is blessedly free of the droning and the bombast that afflicts too many big budget films these days.

All in all a very worthy effort and one that certainly makes a viewer look forward to future efforts from its makers.

~~~~~

 7/10
A Good First Effort
skobb8 March 2004
Considering the film was done with a very small budget by a first time film-maker, "Westender" is a noble effort and has many quality bits. There are a few snags here and there, but most of these will fade with experience.

The story follows a down on his luck knight in a medieval fantasy world. After a night of hard drinking and gambling, Sir Asbrey of Westend bets and loses a precious ring. The movie follows his journey to reclaim his ring, and of course along the way rediscover himself and what truly matters.

To get the negatives out of the way, "Westender" felt much longer than the hour and forty-five minutes it was. Many scenes, while beautifully shot, could be tightened. There are simply too many long environment shots that do not movie the story forward. A few of the actors, mostly first timers themselves I imagine, that are a bit wooden in acting and line delivery -- some less than stellar dialog surely contributes to this. As long as the movie felt, it left several plot lines dangling without closure.

On a more positive note, as I mentioned earlier, the film is visually beautiful. It proves that a quality director goes further than a big budget. Scene composition, lighting and movement are all handled really well. The score to the film really helps to compliment the wonderful shots.

Overall, a strong premiere for a new director. There is certainly room for improvement, but many of the fundamentals are here and very strong. I look forward to future films.

~~~~~

10/10
One of the most believable fantasy movies ever made!
Efenstor23 July 2005
The visually perfect endless series of paintings: astoundingly beautiful, surreal and lifeful. One of the most atmospheric movies I've ever seen, fresh and worthy of remembrance. No, it's no action, it's even somewhat slow. Out of all standards, sometimes it even looks like a sort of a video-clip put to the majestic (not bombastic!) symphonic music of Rob Simonsen. Despite of a plenty of dramatic moments the film still leaves a good trace. The story looks really like a part of the main character's life, not just a story written by an author: characters appear and disappear playing their roles in the spiritual quest of the hero, the hero moves to his ghost-like aim haunted by the memories of his recently lost love, analyzing his chivalrous past and finding himself on the rediscovered path of honour. A little-known gem. Hardly believable that someone is still able to make such movies in 2003. 10 out of 10.

~~~~~

9/10
A beautifully done film.
deacon_blues-113 August 2005
Warning: Spoilers

~~~~~

7/10
Good movie
TheNewspaper0320 May 2005
Westender is the breakthrough film for M.O.B. Productions. Shot in the filmmakers' home state of Oregon, it is only the beginning for these guys.

The characters are well developed, the cinematography is beautiful, and the story is satisfying. If you're paying attention, you get all the information you really need to know about the characters. I'm not saying the movie is perfect, all movies have their flaws and weak moments, but for being an Indy film early on in the career of M.O.B. Productions, it is very impressive.

I'm personally a M.O.B. Productions fan and I'm excited to see what these guys have in store.

~~~~~


9/10

exciting and epic
ssto15 May 2011
i am very glad that the majority of reviews for this movie are favorable, as i enjoyed watching it too. of course, you have to keep an open mind, disregard some strange ideas in the story, but if you are a fantasy fan, you will like this movie too.

the unfolding of the arc was really believable to me. it was also Epic, in a true fantasy meaning - our hero struggled to find himself, to remedy previous errors, to find strength to start on a new path - this sounds classic and it is evident that the production was the effort of devoted fans. i read here that the budget was really low, and actors were barely paid - well - congratulations for giving us a great story, a real, believable story.

9/10 a sequence will be eagerly expected, a higher budgeted remake would be fantastic

~~~~~

2/10
Would have been better as a postcard
sasseriansection  15 August 2005
The scenery is beautiful, and many times you'll be thinking to yourself, "Where is this place??" In particular, there is a scene with a waterfall that just cries to be walked to and explored.

So far as an actual film, it would have been better served as a series of postcards, as you get breathtaking vistas with only little snippets of storyline on the back to figure out what is going on. And while the acting is pretty atrocious, it is both good and bad to note that the dialog is thin and minutes pass without any words being spoken. A little voice also appears in your head after about 20 minutes whispering in your ear, "Come on, something has to happen to move the story forward". But it never comes, and you're just watching, plodding along waiting desperately for the next ill conceived plot device taking set in overwhelming scenery shots.

If you're looking for anything remotely interesting, stay away.

 


 

Westender

Jul 21, 2003
By Ken Eisner |variety.com/

An almost insanely ambitious project on a piddling budget, "Westender" goes for epic period proportions, a la "Lord of the Rings," but plays more like a pilot for "Xena, Warrior Princess." Bold visual style, striking Oregon locations, and charismatic lead from Canuck thesp Blake Stadel almost make up for severe deficiencies in story and tone. Pic could do some biz on tape, or lead to a more moneyed spinoff.

Preposterous tale features Stadel, a mellower Mel Gibson type, as Lord Asbrey of Westend — not a disco dweller but a knight who has fallen on hard times, who’s traipsing around the countryside, emptying wineskins like there’s no tomorrow, and gambling away his last few possessions.

When he loses his sacred ring in a card game, he tracks down the man (Rob Simonsen, who also composed the score), only to find the clownish fop has himself been robbed by hooded slavers. Quick as you can shriek “Shrek,” Asbrey is saddled with this non-stop talker and infuriating ass-kisser. The mismatched-buddy theme isn’t really explored, though, and the pic eventually returns to the hero’s solo search for redemption, etc.

The latter sections are relatively formless, and feel padded out by flashbacks that explain Asbrey’s soppy state but don’t advance the story much. This gives helmer and editor Brock Morse a chance to show off some fancy cutting between wildly disparate locations found all over Oregon state — from mysterious dunes and cracked-earth desert to Hobbit-like forest meadows. Lenser Matt Molitor has made the most of a digital approach to natural light, opting for deeply saturated colors that resemble neither naturalistic film nor the usual washed-out vid effects.

Too bad the script isn’t up to all this visual splendor. While the story, too quickly expanded from a successful short, is just about serviceable, the actors have nothing interesting to say. Sporting accents that evoke the Shire by way of Santa Monica, the characters mostly speak in whatchagonnado and whothehellizat cadences, with the occasional stab at pseudo-Shakespearean oration. Stadel is hemmed in by a first half that keeps our Westend boy pissed off and beat up most of the time. A move into fantasy realm, with alien characters straight out of “Star Trek” isn’t adequately prepared for. And the few women present look like they were spray-painted on the side of a van.

Back on the plus side, Simonsen’s orchestral score is unusually rich for a low-budget affair — in fact, its Technicolor yearnings are sometime surplus to requirements. Still, you can’t blame anyone here for reaching for the impossible.

  • Production: A MOB Prods. (Corvallis, Ore.) production. (International sales: Harris Tulchin and Associates, Los Angeles.) Produced by Hans Hlawaty, Brock Morse. Directed, edited by Brock Morse. Screenplay, Jefferson Brassfield.

 

~~~~~

An aside: 2020 NYC |D Jackson
Stuck in my apartment during the shutdown of the city I spent my days working from home as a graphics designer, fearful I would lose clients and income and not being able to collect unemployment as a freelancer. Long lines at the grocery stores, social distancing, washing hands, vegetables, face masks..life was surreal to say the least. I would chill at night watching movies comparing and recommending with friends via Facetime. One of my buddies, JKid, recommended Westender. He said: All and all, if you want some cool knight action you might want to check out this movie, but be prepared to think. If you want some moving human drama, check out this movie but be prepared to enjoy the ride. If you want some gorgeous scenery, CHECK OUT THIS MOVIE now. It turns out he was quoting from an iMBD review, but I didn't know at the time. LOL. This was the same buddy who told me about some search engine marketing pros who might be interested in my design skills. JKid is a webmaster for some e-commerce sites. One of his clients was using the Seo firm called SEO ZEN NYC, a boutique digital marketing agency working with small and midsize companies so they can achieve their online goals, increase traffic and gain more clients. One of the partners is a social media specialist. JKid thought that my skills could be used for creating Pinterest and Facebook ads. It turned out to be a great lead for work. The movie recommendation...meh. Sure there were breathtaking vistas, but with only little snippets of storyline it was hard to figure out what is going on. I will kindly say, I won't be suggesting it to anyone else although there were some reviewers on iMDB who really loved it.

In the mean time, I decided to give JKid a suggestion of my own, a great online casino affiliate site that has some terrific casinos that offer slots for US players. I know JKid loves to go to Las Vegas and hits those one arm bandits as soon as he arrives. But with Covid in full swing, only the most intrepid or foolish were flying. Since he lives in Delaware I knew he would have no problem gambling for real money online. Check out Online-Casino-Party.co, I texted him. I particularly like the Miami Club Casino which uses Wager Gaming Software (WGS) software as its foundation. I knew he would appreciate that WGS offers some of the old Vegas Technology games among those found in their suite of 170 games. And because the average size of each game on Wager Gaming Technology software is significantly smaller than many other software platforms, all Miami Club Casino games download quickly, letting eager players to get playing their favorite slot games right away. On the other hand, I texted him, if you prefer Real Time Gaming's suite of games, check out SlotCash Casino. A plus bonus is that the casino's Sloto Magazine is delivered free to players mailbox four times a year. Every issue has valuable bonus coupons that players won’t want to miss. He profusely thanked me for the tip and promised to suggest some more movies for me to watch. I remain a bit dubious regarding JKid's taste in movies. Sorry, Westender, I have to agree with the RottenTomato's rating.

~~~~~

 


Homegrown cinema: Corvallis grads strike it big with their first feature film, ‘Westender,' a period fantasy piece about redemption.

By John Ginn
Entertainer Jun 7, 2003

Steve Locey remembers them as "those characters" - Brock Morse, Jefferson Brassfield and their gang of video cohorts: "those characters."

Locey, who is dean of students at Corvallis High School, uses the term in the fondest way. "Those characters were always running around videotaping everything. They were always up to something."

Now, nearly 10 years after high school, they are working under the name M.O.B. productions and are up to their biggest "something" yet. On June 13, their first feature film, "Westender," will receive its world premiere at the prestigious Seattle Film Festival. It is one of only nine films to make it through the jury process to become an official selection.

Shot entirely in Oregon, "Westender" makes fabulous use of the state's scenic beauty - from shots overlooking the ocean to forest glens to central and eastern Oregon vistas. Shot on a low budget, the film's look rivals that of many Hollywood movies costing millions more.

"Westender" is a period fantasy film. Asbrey, (actor Blake Stadel from Vancouver, B.C., Canada) is a once-famed knight now fallen on hard times. In his glory days, his nickname, Westender, was a rallying cry for his troops. Now, following a terrible tragedy, he spends his days drinking and gambling. One morning, he wakes to discover that he has gambled away his only valuable possession, a ring of great personal significance. Realizing that he has hit the fabled "rock bottom," Asbrey embarks on a quest to regain his ring, and maybe, in doing so, regaining some of his honor.

The epic tale is a long way from the early experimentations of a band of middle school kids turned loose with their dad's super 8 video camera. Morse and Brassfield first began making films in 1987. Later, in high school, they gradually accumulated like-minded individuals to their cause: Rob Simonsen, Hans Hlawaty and Rolf Nordhausen. Mostly self-taught, they learned their craft through sheer trial and error. Filmmaking has taken giant strides in the last few years with digital cameras and editing software available for home users, but back when they started, video editing was a hideously complex business of popping tapes in and out of machines, cueing them up and pushing buttons.

"By the time we got to our final cut, our original tape was probably mixed down to a fourth generation," Morse said, shaking his head like he can't believe how primitive it all was. Each generation a tape goes through would entail a loss of video quality, but Brock and company remained undeterred by their technical limitations, always thinking big, always looking toward the future.

A lot of their early productions were the usual kids' stuff: parodies, parodies and parodies. There were "Indiana Jones" spoofs, action film spoofs, and their magnum opus, "Bambo," an extended spoof of the "Rambo" movies. "I'm not really sure we'd even seen a "Rambo" movie, but we spoofed them anyway," Morse said.

In high school, their subject matter became more purposeful, and a couple of their spoofs became regular classroom viewing. They did an instructional driving safety film, and their tape "Health 101" is still shown on the last day of class as a hilarious reward for students who stuck with all the dry, boring stuff the rest of the term.

Following high school, the group went their separate ways. Morse went to Montana and then to Vancouver, B.C., to attend film schools there. Simonsen went to Southern Oregon University to study music. Brassfield went to Los Angeles to find what work he could.

+++

TOMATOMETER AUDIENCE 50%

October 22, 2003
Shawn Levy
Oregonian
For what it is -- a debut by independent filmmakers from the central Willamette Valley -- it is astoundingly ambitious and accomplished.

+++

Westender

by Chris Parry | www.efilmcritic.com
Ten points for ambition and ingenuity.. but not such a great movie
December 13, 2004 | Rating: 2/5

A first time feature film director decides that he's going to make a middle ages period piece, full of action and sprawling vistas, olde age costumes and intense internal drama... on a low budget. What would your advice be to such an ambitious soul? Personally, I'd have said, "Fella, lay off the crack. A movie like this would cost you a million at least, if not ten." That Brock Morse received plenty of advice such as mine and still went out and made his film, is a testimony to the size of his balls, the steel in his spine and the stubborn streak evident in his character. No question, Mr Morse knows how to rally the troops and get things done on the cheap. Unfortunately, the result of all that rallying, Westender, is little more than a video business card for the man in question. And a long one at that.

When I was visiting Seattle in 2003 for the Seattle International Film Festival, I managed to see two weeks worth of great movies, one after another, all of them managing to reach an almost hideously good standard of quality. so I called up my roommate and said, "Yo Debbers, you've got to come down here and catch a flick. It's been awesome." Impressionable to a fault, Debbers arrived for the last weekend of the fest and caught precisely one flick - Westender. Let's just say it took a few drinks for me to shut her up about having wasted her Saturday night.

Which isn't to say that Westender is the worst film you'll see - far from it. It's sumptuously filmed, intensely performed, a veritable cornucopia of demonstrations of what a smart guy with no budget can do with a video camera, some renaissance fair enthusiasts and the outstanding natural scenery of the state of Oregon. Morse manages to capture imagery that makes you forget the script and think "ooooh." He pulls off an atmosphere of wartime in the middle ages with nothing more than trees, homemade costumes, plastic armor, the occasional horse-drawn cart, and a handful of clearly blunt swords. And he takes a whole lot of people who've never acted before and makes it only marginally obvious that... well, they've never acted before.

These are all strong points, and make Westender worth a look if you're a student of filmmaking. Where it all goes to hell in a horse hair handbasket is the storyline. Morse may well know his way around a storyboard, but he clearly needs to remember that the story in that word is more important than the board... or bored, as the case may be.

Lord Asbury of Westender (Blake Stadel, though he could be Bill Pullman's younger brother) is an old drunken former military hero who has just gambled away his ring - a trinket of extreme sentimental value. Awakened from a booze-soaked slumber, he goes apeshit when he learns the ring is gone, and heads out determined to track down the thief. Only, the man in question turns out to be no thief, but rather a jester, who has lost all of his worldly possessions escaping from a band of brigands. The missing items, which he has no intention of retrieving, include Westender's ring. Thus begins a trek to find the bad guys, with a tied-up jester in tow, through rocks and deserts and woods and all sorts of peril.

While all that may sound like a great tale, the potential of the story is never lived up to, with the best character in the script - the Jester - getting written out early, while the terminally silent and internally troubled Westender sulks and broods and starves and stumbles and curses his way through nearly two hours of orchestral score. What's worse is that the film feels like it's half an hour longer than that.

It should be said that I met Morse a few times during the Seattle festival and he struck me not only as a genuinely great guy, but a great guy that has no trouble surrounding himself with willing soldiers prepared to do whatever it takes to get a film made for next to no money. If he can take the positives from this film experience and parlay them into something that really needs to be made, rather than something that he wants to get made, he could well end up making his second film the kind of outing that opens wide and is well remembered by audiences.

I hope he does. But Westender, for all its achievements, is little more than an example of why it's important to make a film when the script is ready, not just because the director is.

 

+++

AUDIENCE REVIEWS

August 11, 2014
½* Mark S
awful film... just bad

+++

July 15, 2005
*** ½ Jean W
:fresh:

Wow, I finally got to sit through Westender, last night. Tried a couple nights ago, but the kids were asking 500 questions, and of course I had to have a "Knight Expert" watching it too, and the comentary drove me nuts.

What can I say. Not your "A-Typical" Knight movie. Actually was pretty good. No movie is perfect, and there were a few slower parts, but I loved the last half of the movie. Really made me think about journeys, and decisions made at the end aren't always what you planned on

Certainly a must see, if you like Medieval movie

 


WestenderMovie.com