“‘Major Dundee’s Warring Cuts Reflect Sam Peckinpah’s Place in Film History”

A major catastrophe about a major asshole, directed by a major asshole and starring yet another major asshole, given new life on Blu-ray, where we can watch all of these majors collide – in two cuts! Continue reading →

“‘News of the World’s Handsome, Old-Fashioned Western Is Premium Late-Career Tom Hanks”

An actor who has been good through much of his career, and great in the rest, continues striving to be better, and that’s why he’s an icon. Continue reading →

The 20 Best Westerns on Netflix

I must confess that I found the utter dearth of really great Western films available for streaming on ye olde Netflix not only perplexing, but disturbing. You’re telling me that Netflix can’t manage to put twenty great Western films up on its site, and instead can only manage to put a much smaller number than that, plus … Continue reading →

Review: Cowboys & Aliens, 2011, dir. Jon Favreau

It’s amazing that in a single year we saw the release of four alien invasion films, and of that quartet only one turned out to be any good. How do three different directors miss the mark making variations on the same type of movie? Being kind, Super 8 only falls off the rails in its last … Continue reading →

Review: Meek’s Cutoff, 2011, dir. Kelly Reichardt

Meek’s Cutoff feels something like an oddity in the western genre, and I mean that in the best way possible. There’s no denying the western influences clearly embedded in its cinematic DNA; Kelly Reichardt’s fourth feature very much draws from that celluloid tradition, but she’s not telling a story about cowboys and Indians or marshals … Continue reading →

Review: True Grit, 2010, dir. the Coen Brothers

True Grit— via the Coen brothers– represents a landmark in the oeuvre of Ethan and Larry as the first pure genre movie they’ve attempted together. Even Blood Simple only dabbles in genre cinema; True Grit on the other hand can (and arguably should) be treated and appreciated as an uncomplicated and honest contemporary Western movie. … Continue reading →

Review: Rango, 2011, dir. Gore Verbinski

Gore Verbinski got his kid’s movie in our spaghetti Westerns and neo noirs, and the results are surprisingly excellent. Rango, Verbinski’s 2011 animated story of a chameleon who lives in a terrarium and possesses aspirations of stage acting, is a gem, madcap and nutty and palatable for kids but most rewarding for movie lovers and … Continue reading →