At first Margaret and George Blackledge might be confused for Clark Kent’s parents. After all, they are played by Diane Lane and Kevin Costner, both looking comfortably weathered like a favorite sweater. Their rural Montana home would be a retro dream for an urban hipster wanting a little bit of country, but it turns out …
The opening sequence of The Sisters Brothers is visually striking in what you cannot see. In the distance, flashes of gunfire light up complete darkness. You make out that some gunfighters are on the porch of a house, the rest are hiding in the bush. As bodies drop, the victorious gunslingers (the titular Sisters brothers) …
It is 1892 New Mexico, and the violence and genocide that has shaped the Europeans’ settlement in the American West is winding down. Hostiles’ difficult opening scene shows a gang of marauding Indians slaughter almost an entire family of white settlers, leaving with their horses and setting fire to their homestead. But then the next …
You know the slogan: “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”? Now imagine an even more exclusive adult playground, where for a measly fortune you can indulge every appetite or every sin imaginable. This playground is set in a vast park, mirroring the Wild West, where men can be men and women can be… virgins …
The Revenant (which I know from seeing the excellent, unrelated French series Les Revenants) means one who has returned from the dead. Though this is not really explained in this brutal film by Alejandro G. Iñárritu (perhaps, at some point, one of the French trappers muttered something I missed?), you can pretty much get the …
When Tombstone came out, it was the battle of the Wyatt Earp movies, with Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp being released within a year of this one (as Hollywood is wont to do). I remember hearing that Tombstone was the superior rendition of the tale of the Earp brothers’ showdown with the bad guys in the …
Oh, man, I loved The Man From Snowy River when it first came out in the 80s. I wasn’t really a horse girl, but I was obsessed with Australia. I even had the movie poster for Return to Snowy River on my wall, despite the fact that it was kind of a weak sequel and …
If you’re inclined to feel put off by a film called Let God, perhaps you’d feel better about watching something called The Trail. One sounds specifically aimed at Christian audiences, while the other sounds entirely nondenominational. Marketed under both titles, Let God actually works either way. Though is tackles issues of faith, there’s nothing heavy-handed …
Out in the Old West, there was a disproportionate amount of men to women. The men came seeking adventure and fortune, and the few women that followed them were often “business ladies” of their own sort, if you know what I mean. By the time these men wanted to settle in the West, pickings were …
As someone who unexpectedly kind of loved When Calls the Heart, I was thrown off when its sequel, When Calls the Heart: Lost and Found began with a reworking of the plot. Instead of traveling to Coal Valley in the company of a charming constable, Elizabeth Thatcher (Erin Krakow) tumbles out of a stagecoach alone. …