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Silence is golden. Combine that with a serious western hero, and you have gunpowder to burn. (Just one of the many promos pics of Olyphant aiming a gun. Note the un-western tie.) One of the best modern takes on the classic laconic western hero is U.S. Marshal Rayland Givens, from the master of gab, Elmore Leonard. Leonard’s dialogue–from . . . → Read More: Justified My Love; or, Elmore Leonard Updates Western Hero   Leave a comment  Cowboy Moments, Cowboy Mythos, Cowgirl Mythos, Film Reviews, Movie Quotes, Pulp Westerns and Paperbacks; Book Reviews, Reach for the Skies!, The Good the Bad the Fugly  boyd crowder, cowboy code, cowboy hero, Elmore Leonard, harlan county western, justified, modern western, silver-screen western hero, timothy olyphant, western cliches Steer the rattling wagons into a tight circle! Protect the women and children! Draw your six-shooters as whooping Indians on painted war ponies streak over the rise of a hill! Look sharp, Tonto! This isn’t just a tired western stereotype, it’s a Silver-Screen Western Hero Equation! c. 2011 es cowboylands In reel life: Earnest pioneers moving to promised . . . → Read More: Circle the Wagons!; or, More Advice from a Besieged Writer Some Silver-Screen Western Heroes have big pecs and holsters hanging alongside their brass balls. The Silver-Screen Western Antihero Some have breasts that don’t sag and thighs without cellulite, even if they try to wreak vengeance in a poncho. Gratiuitous Raquel Welch photo All ride into town and act all aloof and lo! They get the girl and kick the . . . → Read More: A Silver-Screen Western Hero’s Journey; or, The Rough and Ready Life of an Unpublished Author 2 comments Cowboy Moments, Cowboy Mythos, Cowgirl Mythos, Reach for the Skies!, Reel Life vs. Real Life, What Would Gary Cooper Do?, Wrangling a Novel cowboy hero, cowboy up, essential western plots, novel writing, novel writing can suck, reach for the skies, western cliches, writing novels is great In a reckless land…In a lawless place…Sometimes one man can make all the difference. –voice-over of trailer, The Miracle Rider
The story is an old one. Clichéd even. But satisfying. Writer’s hopes for perfect manuscript leading to speedy publication, six-figure salary, film, and several homes around the world are killed in some suitably dramatic, bloody way. The writer, . . . → Read More: The Miracle Rider; or, How Tom Mix Saved My Novel 4 comments Cowboy Moments, Cowboy Mythos, Cowgirl Mythos, Movie Quotes, Reach for the Skies!, The Good the Bad the Fugly, What Would Gary Cooper Do?, Wrangling a Novel 1930s serials, b-westerns, cowboy hero, cowboy up, novel writing, silver-screen western hero, the miracle rider, tom mix, western cliches, western movies, western serials, westerns, when will i ever finish this novel, writing novels is great When things get gritty–gnarly deadlines, eye-batting heroines to save, elderly cats to inject with life-saving H2O, classic whiskeys to be drunk, blog posts to write after, like, weeks–it’s time for a gritty soundtrack. I hereby invoke you… RED. DEAD.
REDEMPTION. Sometimes Roy Rogers’s warbling will not do. Sometimes Morricone’s coyote-ish howls are too . . . → Read More: Mojo Rising; or, The Red Dead Redemption Songs “We deal in lead, friend,” says Steve McQueen. And the 1960s western was born. Exit stage left the single-minded lone gunfighter shooting it out with a single-minded lone villain, the only real conflict between the two being who is the fairest of them all. It had been an epic time–a time when one man’s word had more . . . → Read More: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall; or, The Magnificent Seven’s Professionals ‘R’ Us 6 comments Cowboy Moments, Cowboy Mythos, Cowgirl Mythos, Film Reviews, Men Were Men and Women Were Women, Movie Quotes, Reel Life vs. Real Life, The Good the Bad the Fugly classic western plots, conflicts in westerns, essential western plots, kurosawa, magnificent seven, seven samurai, silver-screen western hero, steven mcqueen, western cliches, western kurosawa, western myth, western samurai, westerns, yul brynner “Find hungry samurai. Even bears come down from the mountains when they are hungry,” states the Old Man of the beleaguered village in Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. In the next scene, in a nearby town, four peasants look for samurai who would deign to fight for them against ruthless bandits. But would a noble samurai ever . . . → Read More: Of Rock Stars and the Rest of Us; The Seven Samurai’s Western Revival 4 comments Cowboy Moments, Cowboy Mythos, Film Reviews, Movie Quotes, Origins and Originals, The Good the Bad the Fugly, What Would Gary Cooper Do? conflicts in westerns, cowboy hero, cowboy kurosawa, essential western plots, isao kimura, kurosawa, seven samurai, silver-screen western hero, takashi shimura, toshiro mifune, western cliches, western genre, western samurai, westerns Writing a novel is not for the common mortal. And I have been all too mortal these days. Too whiney. Too morose. Too passive. Just like the hero of my novel (or so I’ve heard from my ever-patient agent). The End. Ho hum.
Or have I been pressed to set the novel-in-progress . . . → Read More: The Way of the Novel; or, Cowboy Up and Write Already 2 comments Cowboy Moments, Cowboy Mythos, Cowgirl Mythos, Pulp Westerns and Paperbacks; Book Reviews, Reach for the Skies!, Reel Life vs. Real Life, The Good the Bad the Fugly, What Would Gary Cooper Do?, Wrangling a Novel cowboy up, cowboylands, novel writing, novel writing can suck, self-help, western cliches, what would a cowboy do, writing novels is great It’s one of the hoariest cliches of westerns known to humankind: the cliffhanger. You know, the dramatic end of the episode when the good guy faces certain death and hangs from a cliff/is trapped in a room with a powderkeg’s lit fuse/is about to be eaten by mountain lions, only to save himself against all odds . . . → Read More: Get Your Heroic Story Arc On; or, The Teachable Moments of Cliffhangers 3 comments Cowboy Moments, Cowboy Mythos, Cowgirl Mythos, Reach for the Skies!, Reel Life vs. Real Life, The Good the Bad the Fugly, Uncategorized, What Would Gary Cooper Do? awesome cowgirls, b-westerns, classic western plots, cliffhanger, cowboy hero, cowgirl power, essential western plots, female western heroes, linda stirling, silver-screen heroines, silver-screen western hero, western cliches, western cliffhanger, western heroines, western movies, westerns, zorro's black whip Bemoaning a canceled flight is uncowboylike. Would the Duke have crabbed about a few snowflakes and a change in travel plans? Would Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn have groused about downscaling from flight to bus, which exponentially increases the chance of seat mate with bad breath, fartage capability, and/or x-treme chattiness?
No! As a poet friend reminds . . . → Read More: On Blizzards and Canceled Flights; or, The Holing Up of Cowboylands |
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