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By bucko, on January 13th, 2011%
The stirring, swelling strains of Cimarron (1960), directed by Anthony Mann, music by Franz Waxman, make me want to chop wood and haul water and ride fast horses over wide plains and watch over cattle in the cold moonlight night and sweep a woman into my arms. It’s that insidious. This score would trick anyone into becoming . . . → Read More: Music and the Western; or, The New West’s Bittersweet Lesson
By bucko, on January 8th, 2011%
Cimarron!!! Cimarron!!!!
The woodwinds and brass crescendo, a chorus of voices swells in epic awesomeness. And “epic” is the target word in 1960′s Cimarron, directed by Anthony Mann et al, a frontier saga that swells with its own importance from the opening credits. Full disclosure: I have not yet completed watching this film. Why? Because I have . . . → Read More: Following the Soundtrack of Dreams; or, Franz Waxman’s Cimarron
By bucko, on December 30th, 2010%
Vengeance is mine, saith the main character of True Grit, because I hath paid good money for it. So begins the saga of a trail of revenge from so-called civilized town to wilderness, a narrative trail so often traveled in westerns that it’s become like a tame, broad, well-lit avenue with stoplights.
The players: Grizzled, troubled veteran with heart . . . → Read More: New Grit; or, The Coen Brothers Remake Retribution
By bucko, on December 14th, 2010%
Two words: Special Features.
If your Silver-Screen Western Hero wanna-be has a New Year’s resolution that entails
learning to kick miscreant butt in showdowns
wearing spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle
eating calf nuts on the range in between cattle drives and drinking bad rye in shot-up saloons (whee!)
then he or she is going to need a go-to pick-me-up for those . . . → Read More: The Modern Buckaroo’s Guide to Happiness; or What Else to Give the Silver-Screen Western Hero of Your Life
By flapjack42, on December 1st, 2010%
This Thanksgiving, in between shots of rotgut rye, I gave thanks to all the gods and goddesses of the western world that Flapjack42 has the epic psychic strength to haul the universe into righteousness with the continuing countdown of the top-ten list of the absolute worst animal-as-hero westerns EVER.
Confused by life? Don’t be. Be confused . . . → Read More: Like a Mighty Cannonball; or, Can’t Stay Away from the Worst Silver-Screen Animal Hero Westerns
By bucko, on October 14th, 2010%
Mortal humans who play silver-screen western gods–I mean heroes–have to go through rigorous vocal exercises to deepen their voices, strangle their vowels, and clip off extraneous words like adjectives (the last being a good plan for anyone, actually). These exercises serve to broaden the chest and strengthen one’s cajones–as George Montgomery can attest to.
In The . . . → Read More: A Manly Star in the Firmament; or, George Montgomery’s Vox Viri
By bucko, on October 11th, 2010%
William S. Hart bid adieu to the West and westerns as he loved them in the prologue of 1925′s Tumbleweeds, his last film, reissued in 1939.
He wore too much makeup (OK,unfair–all actors did in silent films), acted in a stilted manner (OK, OK, it goes with silent-film territory), and moralized about how little the westerns being made . . . → Read More: In the Beginning; or, William S. Hart and the Western Cliché Genesis
By flapjack42, on October 5th, 2010%
The deadline hit my shoulder with the force of a bullet and the reins of the stagecoach dropped from my nerveless hands. The coach careened across the dusty road as its six horses, freed from my steady presence on the reins, bolted. The passengers–my beloved characters–shrieking, I tried in vain to pull the brake but nearly . . . → Read More: The Curse of the Return of; or, One More of the Worst Silver-Screen Animal Hero Westerns
By flapjack42, on October 3rd, 2010%
The chasm yawns below me. My fingers ache from their grip on the rock; my feet kick wildly for purchase, nothing between them and novel-revision and work deadlines except dead air–and too few hours.
I feel my fingers giving and I regret the many hours I spent on Twitter rather than doing finger exercises, and I . . . → Read More: The Good, the Bad and the Rinty; or, Another of the Worst Silver-Screen Animal Hero Westerns
By bucko, on October 2nd, 2010%
The Number One Silver-Screen Western Drinking Cliché
Real men drink whiskey, right? Wrongo.
Example #1: Destry Rides Again (1939) In which the new sheriff in town turns every expectation the town has about him upside down.
Deputy Thomas Jefferson Destry, Jr., (James Stewart) arrives in town with a killer reputation to clean it up . . . → Read More: Real Men Drink Milk; or, Overturning Wild Western Clichés
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