Free Republic

Dating all the way back to the very birth of American cinema in the 1910s, the western genre was pioneered by national filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks and Sam Peckinpah, releasing such respective classics as The Searchers, Rio Bravo and The Wild Bunch. Though, after decades of dominance, by the 1960s, the genre had become stiff, with the arrival of Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone shaking up generations of stuffy cowboy tales. Inspired by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, Leone brought an iconic style to his Western trilogy that included A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and his...

Oscar winner Ennio Morricone, composer of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and “The Mission” and among the most prolific and admired composers in film history, has died. He was 91. Morricone died early Monday in a Rome clinic, where he was taken shortly after suffering a fall that caused a hip fracture, his lawyer Giorgio Asumma told Italian news agency ANSA.

Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer who wrote the iconic theme tune to The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, has died aged 91. His death was confirmed by his lawyer, Giorgio Assumma, who said he died in a hospital in Rome early on Monday.

With his victory in Florida, Sen. John McCain has become the clear front runner for the Republican nomination. It’s worthwhile, therefore, to take a closer look at what kind of president he might be. The Good: While Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity sometimes portray McCain as a virtual clone of Ted Kennedy, the fact is that he is a true fiscal conservative—certainly more of a fiscal conservative than, say, Mitt Romney. He is well known as an opponent of earmarks and pork barrel spending. But perhaps more importantly, he has long been an advocate of entitlement reform. He was early...