Every year I catch at least one western at the SXSW film festival. Maybe there is only one each year. Either way, this year it was traditional western, The Ballad of Lefty Brown. Jared Moshe’s story has a catch though, he offers the sidekick, the bumbling cowboy behind the hero, his own chance at the […]
By far the most entertaining film I saw at the 2016 SXSW film festival. Horror actor, writer, director Ti West (The Sacrament) delivers his most accessible work to date, a western set in 1890 of all things. It was Hawke’s second feature debut at the festival, and by far the better of the two. What’s
The only thing Antoine Fuqua’s version of “The Magnificent Seven” adds to the slew of remakes that came before is diversity. Based on the original 1954 “Seven Samurai” by Akira Kurosawa, then Americanized into a western in 1960, a sequel in ’72, then a TV-series in 1998, this story has been told to death. Fuqua
The second semi-mainstream western of 2016 offers a bit more excitement than Natalie Portman’s Jane Got a Gun. The Duel, comes to us from Kieran Darcy-Smith who is predominately a television director. The western reunites Hunger Game co-stars Woody Harrelson and Liam Hemsworth, in a classic battle of good and evil. From the violent opening
Gavin O’Conner’s female western was plagued by production and post production problems that sealed its fate. Produced by Oscar winner Portman, co-written by Edgerton, this not so daring western had all the ingredients for something special, but like the Tommy Lee Jones / Hilary Swank western, never carves out its own unique piece of the
Auteur filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is arguably one of the great American talents. His films which he writes, directs, produces and often edits, create such fanfare that the noise, more than anything, drive people to the theater.
Only one other western in recent memory has combined elements of horror, although Ron Howard’s The Missing never took the gruesome route S. Craig Zahler delivers here.
The Keeping Room is fascinating and there is really no other way to describe a film that manages to find a slice of the Civil War, uncovered in American cinema. Everyone involved in the project is relatively new to cinema. Ironically 32-year-old actress Brit Marling is the seasoned veteran here. Director Daniel Barber only
Lack of western’s got you down? Look no further than the directorial debut of John Maclean’s Slow West. Bouncing around film festivals for six months, Slow West is an odyssey of poetic characters, providing sarcasm, nostalgia and love in every persona. Slow West would likely be the result if Tarantino and Scorsese teamed up in
Writer/director Robert Duvall does something with his latest western / crime drama that you wouldn’t expect. Wild Horses ventures into new territory for Duvall as he tackles sexism, homophobia, and other prejudices. From the opening scenes of the film where Duvall’s character finds his youngest son with another boy, all bets are off where this