Search results for query: *

I haven't seen director Richard Donner's Maverick since it came out in 1994. There are still a good number laughs along along the way in this epic light-hearted comedy. Nice cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond (Oscar winner for CE3K). Lots of guest stars from Western tv shows and movies from the...

Watched Tombstone for the first time today. Experiencing Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday and Michael Biehn as Johnny Ringo trade Latin phrases with each other was somehow the realization of a cinematic dream that I hadn't realized that I had. The cast is almost unreal, and also includes Kurt Russell...

After the box offices successes of Unforgiven and The Last of the Mohicans for a few years more big Westerns were made. Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp is an expensive epic that's more than three hours long, and feels almost like a miniseries. Wyatt Earp got mixed to negative reviews and lost a lot...

The Last of the Mohicans from 1992 is my favorite Western of all time. Just as the cgi era was dawning it's a true epic where everything is real, and more importantly the emotions feel real as well. Everything about this film fits together—the music by Trevor Jones, the cinematography by Dante...

My first memory of Unforgiven was watching the trailer for it in a halfway full theater in Santa Barbara in 1992, and hearing the gasps and murmurs from the audience when Clint Eastwood's aged and beaten face was seen. Many in the audience had grown up seeing Eastwood's younger faces, from his...

Bite the Bullet is a horse race Western inspired by a real story starring Gene Hackman and other famous names from 1975. Directed by Richard Brooks (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Elmer Gantry, The Professionals) this epic has striking cinematography by Harry Stradling Jr., but from my pov there's too...

From 1939 until the late 1970s Westerns poured forth from Hollywood like a river. It must have seemed during most of those years like the genre would never decline to the small numbers each year that we've seen for the past 45 years. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly seems like an apotheosis and...

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly was one of the first movies I got on blu-ray back in 2009. But I first saw roughly the last half of the movie when I was at a gaming convention with some high school friends all the way back in 1983, when I was 18. While we were playing Risk and Ogre the movie was...

Wonderful score by Maurice Jarre. Great stunts, especially by Woody Strode and Burt Lancaster. Very witty and quotable screenplay. Fine cinematography. My rating on The Professionals from 1966: A+ Picture quality for the blu-ray: A+ Grant (Ralph Bellamy): "You bastard!" Rico (Lee Marvin)...

One of my favorite Westerns is the epic Cinerama film How the West Was Won. There are many films that can give you a feeling of having almost lived many years in one sitting, and this is one of the best for that. Wonderful cast, immersive cinematography, fantastic score by Alfred Newman, songs...

One-Eyed Jacks, directed by and starring Marlon Brando, was the last Western filmed in VistaVision. It was a troubled production that exposed a million feet of film and ended up costing $6 million dollars, which is probably double what it should have cost. The original version by Marlon Brando...

I'd be interested in additional challenges as well. Other possible categories to consider might be to watch movies of a specific decade in any genre, or maybe Warner Archive releases of all decades, or perhaps Film Noir and Neo-Noir, or maybe science fiction films.

Yesterday I watched both the original The Magnificent Seven from 1960 and the new version released in 2016. I'd long been a fan of the 1960 version, including its iconic score by Elmer Bernstein. I also really enjoy Yul Brynner's performance, which became the template for his role as a robot in...

Warlock is an unusual Western with a fine cast. Strong performances all around. Normally I'm a fan of matte paintings of this era, but there's one at the start of this movie that doesn't work well because it seems so obviously fake. My rating for Warlock from 1959: B+ Picture quality for the...

The 1950s is my favorite decade when it comes to Westerns. As an example, The Big Country from 1958 is a beautifully-made and thought-provoking film directed by the great William Wyler. He directed movies like Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Heiress, Ben-Hur, Funny Girl, and many...

After watching the 1957 version of 3:10 to Yuma I felt I should watch the 2007 version, and try to decide which one I liked better. I saw the 2007 version first in a theater with some friends, and only maybe ten years later did I see the original. At that time I liked the new version better, and...

The most expensive Western of the 1950s was the $6 million dollar production of the Broadway hit Oklahoma!, which was the first movie made in 70mm Todd-AO. This epic musical comedy is still wonderful, spectacular, and funny. When I was a kid my Dad would once in a while wake us up with the song...

The Man from Laramie is more movie gold from Anthony Mann, James Stewart, and everyone else involved in this classic. Watched this movie again today and it was even better than I remembered. One of my top Westerns. Got some emotions in a few places. My rating for The Man from Laramie: A+...

I was first introduced to "Joan Crawford" through Faye Dunaway's over-the-top performance in Mommie Dearest. In 1981, at the age of 16, I could usually borrow one of my parents' cars and go to a movie by myself if I felt like it. Mommie Dearest was not the kind of film that any of my high school...

As I've been going through my blu-rays for this Western challenge chronologically there are a few I've skipped. One is an absolute favorite, High Noon from 1952, but I watched High Noon a few months ago and wasn't ready yet to see it again. Another I started watching but couldn't get myself to...

Some Twilight Time blu-rays, like for Garden of Evil from 1954, let you listen to the isolated musical soundtrack as you watch the movie. Garden of Evil's musical soundtrack is by Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo, etc.). Here are the opening couple of minutes of that score: This music is stark and...

Each time I've watched Broken Lance since I got the Twilight Time disc back in 2015 I've liked this movie more. It's now one of my favorite Westerns for several reasons—the noir flavor of it, the compelling use of CinemaScope by by DP Joseph MacDonald, the dramatic music score by Leigh Harline...

Escape from Fort Bravo from 1953 is maybe the first widescreen Western of the 1950s (?) and is well directed by John Sturges (Bad Day at Black Rock, The Magnificent Seven, etc.). I enjoy the star power in Escape From Fort Bravo, including William Holden, Eleanor Parker (a dozen years before...

About ten years ago I bought and watched the blu-ray of the 1952 film Viva Zapata!, and dusting the top off of the case off this morning I realize that this is the first time I've watched it again since then. This Mexican Western has impressive credits: written by John Steinbeck, directed by...

Great cast for The Naked Spur, and all of them give some of their best performances. Oscar-winning cinematographer William Mellor (A Place in the Sun, Bad Day at Black Rock, Peyton Place, etc.) makes excellent use of the real locations in Colorado and California. Tension-inducing stunt work...

Rancho Notorious is a jarring and garish Western filtered through director Fritz Lang's German sensibilities. At the end you might wonder how those two guys are just riding off what with the production code of the time, but the lyrics of the song played during that last scene takes care of that...

My Western movie today was The Gunfighter from 1950, starring Gregory Peck. This movie was recognized on its release for exploring the costs of violence through its weary title character Jimmy Ringo, who is trying to chart a new path in life. Skip Homeier plays the key role Hunt Bromley...

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is my favorite John Ford movie and my favorite John Wayne film. First saw it about thirty years ago, and since the Warner Archive blu-ray came out in 2016 I've watched it every few years. Here's what Robert Harris wrote about the pq back then... "Warner Archive's new...

I first saw the 1948 version of Three Godfathers back in the vhs rental era sometime in the 90s. I liked it a lot even though it was a bit corny at times, and rather broadly comedic at the end. The recently released blu-ray is a knock-out visually since it's from the three-strip Technicolor...

Fort Apache features great performances by Henry Fonda and John Wayne. This is an essential Western that I've watched maybe half a dozen times over the years. I looked up the New York Times review when it opened, and even on opening day the significance and quality of the film was recognized...