Well... excuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!
Posted on 01/11/2010 11:34:55 AM PST by stillafreemind
Not only are there no stand outs as far as actors go, but writers don't seem to be able to come up with an interesting western story line without nudity, extreme violence and horrible language. Why is that? How did Gunsmoke last those many years without nudity? A shy grin, wink and a nod between Matt Dillon and Kitty was sufficient and somehow much more palatable than seeing them rip clothes off and get down to business.
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Well... excuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!
“Are Westerns Dead in America?”
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The sixties, drugs, hippies and their generations of offspring have answered that for us!
The old westerns soon to be even remembered by only a very small remnant of old American dinosaurs...
Agreed. Remake of “3:10 to Yuma” was a really good movie.
There are actually a few guys-guy actors still out there — Russell Crowe, Bruce Willis, Gerard Butler, Christian Bale, Mel Gibson. Check out 3:10 to Yuma (with Crowe and Bale) ... best modern Western I’ve seen in a while.
Believe it or not — Leonardo DiCaprio has actually been in some really good guys-guy (not girly/metrosexual), roles lately (The Departed, Blood Diamond, Body of Lies, etc.) DiCaprio is one of those actors I want to dislike ... but he keeps doing reasonably good movies.
SnakeDoc
The writer of this article is a maroon to not recognize that Eastwood carried the Banner for excellent Western movies after John Wayne and James Arness. I know if a good Western comes on (i.e. any old John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movie) it is a guarantee that my butt is parked for the next 2 or 3 hours. The Searchers and The Outlaw Joesy Wales remain my favorite westerns of all time.
Te big question is....Who will keep the Western tradition and follow in Clint’s footsteps.
I have to put in a word for Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead. Yes, it’s over the top and a bit cartoony, but I can’t take my eyes off it whenever it’s on the tube. For the type of movie it is, it’s perfectly made.
One could argue that “Avatar” is simply a western wherein the peace-loving, educated, socially-advanced Indians are blue and the cowboys are psychotic, drooling murderers a la “Little Big Man,” surely one of the most loathsome attacks upon the U.S. ever to slither out from a Hollywood studio.
“Are Westerns Dead in America?” For sure!
Brokeback Mountain is what the West has become.
Indeed. You'd see it as more of a backside.
Good point on Joesy Wales. Anyone with a spine would at least attempt to act like he did after his wife was raped and murdered along with the murder of his young son.
The movie is based upon the book “Gone to Texas” by Forest Carter and is my favorite Clint Eastwood film.
Has this guy just discovered that America moved away from Westerns in the late 60s and 70s. Of course the reality is most space born sci-fi is westerns with ray guns. The themes of isolation, self sufficiency, and the occasional mysterious “Indian” are all there.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
The Cowboys!
The hollyweird types will only allow metro-sexual types now and they are way too sensitive for a gunfight at the OK corral. Plus they need a smarter and domineering woman to function properly.
Good point on Josey Wales. Anyone with a spine would at least attempt to act like he did after his wife was raped and murdered along with the murder of his young son.
The movie is based upon the book “Gone to Texas” by Forest Carter and is my favorite Clint Eastwood film. It is called a ‘Revisionist Western’ simply because the Union sympathizers (i.e. Kansas Redlegs who killed his family and Union Calvary) are shown in a negative light, which is absolute PC bullshiite. (Like there can’t be heroes and villians on both sides of the Civil War).
Now that was when dogs were real dogs!
Is Big Jake out in HD now? ...I have the old VHS & DVD, but HD would be great.
Silverado, Last Man Standing, Battle beyond the stars, the last two merely stolen from Jap- oops I mean Western classics.
True enough. Haha. Actually, I discriminate when it comes to nudity ... I’m very anti-male-naked (unless I’m the male) ... I’m very pro-female-naked.
SnakeDoc
I think it was Hollywood's PC mentality that largely did in the Western. Progressives feel negatively about American history and are largely disinclined to study the past. At the same time, the Baby Boom 60's ushered in an age of self-absorption glorifying the culture of groovy, cool, psychedelic hipness and rejecting all else as "square" at best, and evil at worst. That tendency toward inward-focus has only hardened with time while its practitioners seem to grow ever more unsatisfied, requiring progressively larger doses of weirdness to deliver the same rush of purposeful distraction.
Many Westerns were and are passion plays, meaning they dealt in moral judgment, with duels between good and evil, and timeless struggles between right and wrong. What helps make a Western great is the moral ambiguity experienced, and often suffered by its characters.
Clint Eastwood, one of the few people able to keep the genre that he helped shape as an actor alive as a director, has used this theme frequently, as in his film "Unforgiven".
But here are other hallmarks of Westerns - sweeping vistas, dramatic fight sequences, intense dialogue, explicit religious symbolism and moments of unexpected revelation - that have been taken up in recent years by films that are not Westerns: specifically I'm thinking of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, whose author imbued his stories and characters with many of the same timeless themes and qualities, respectively, as existed in classic Westerns by directors like John Ford and Sergio Leone.
A culture such as Hollywood's that eschews moral judgment and religious symbolism naturally turned away from the Western as a mode of artistic expression, but it remains a uniquely American art form and one whose revival would be welcomed by many of us grown weary of the state of our popular cinema.
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