Another remake? Shoot me. Variety reports that the latest classic to get the remake treatment is John Ford’s 1962 film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The original starred John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, and Lee Marvin. While the original was set in the old west, Variety reports that the remake may be set …
Standing up for the weak, taking down the corrupt, and seeking justice for all, Pam Grier in these films is the ultimate lone hero, fighting the good fight and looking great while doing it.
The knock on the Academy Awards throughout the years always seem to be how certain actors, directors and films are snubbed in favor of other chosen nominations. Sometimes the justification for these overlooked selections in performances and motion pictures are warranted. Many will agree that a lot of injustices have been committed based on how …
If it were only for Wayne’s performance, which is excellent, Red River would be a vital entry into the Western genre. But there is more to this extraordinary picture. That’s why it’s not only one of the greatest Westerns ever made, it’s an American classic.
Though not one of their greatest efforts (together or otherwise), “Hatari!” has much of what one would want in a John Wayne/Howard Hawks film. It’s casual, friendly, and sincerely straightforward. And it does all come across as having been extremely fun to make.
John Ford’s The Quiet Man is unquestionably one of Ireland’s most well-known films. It remains, to this day, a popular Hollywood love story as well as one of the most dominant representations of Ireland in film. A worldwide success, it won audiences over with its majestic landscapes, lighthearted dialogue, and beautiful cast. Despite its enduring …
“El Dorado” is a refreshing genre classic, at once suggesting topical concerns while conserving an enduring arena for its Hollywood icons to do what they do best. It incorporates much of what distinguished Howard Hawks’ cinema: his uniform themes, style, and tone.
Assault on Precinct 13 Written and directed by John Carpenter USA, 1976 With his filmmaking career beginning in the midst of the new Hollywood and its touchstones in American film history, it’s perhaps easy to see why the work of John Carpenter has been somewhat overshadowed by more celebrated filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Steven …
The Conqueror Written by Oscar Millard Directed by Dick Powell USA, 1956 How bad a film is Howard Hughes notorious disaster, well it only managed to kill John Wayne is all. No not Wayne’s career, Wayne himself. The film was shot on location near St. George, Utah (obviously for its uncanny resemblance to that of …
Westerns may appear as diverse and unruly as the characters they contain, but beneath the ten gallon hats and spurs lie a handful of basic mythologies. This guide selects one movie which epitomizes each legend plus another four outstanding examples, each one given a capsule review and illustrated with a classic movie poster. Click on …
Fort Apache Written by Frank S. Nugent, based on the story by James Warner Bellah Directed by John Ford U.S.A., 1948 It has been recognized that one of the greatest natural symbols of the United States that helped popularize the western genre is Monument Valley, located on the Utah-Arizona state line. Its rocky walls and …
As Sound on Sight’s Western month reaches its conclusion, two of the hosts of your favorite Disney movie podcast, Mousterpiece Cinema, Josh Spiegel and Gabe Bucsko met in the show’s vaunted and secretive HQ to discuss and debate what many people would claim is the greatest Western of all time: the 1956 John Ford film The …
High Noon and Rio Bravo share a fascinating and perhaps singular position in the annals of American cinema as companion pieces of social commentary that also managed to succeed as two of the greatest and most influential Westerns, and indeed films, of their time. Created seven years apart, with Rio Bravo intended as a direct …
‘True Grit’ 1969, written by Marguerite Roberts and directed by Henry Hathaway. Starring John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Jeff Corey and Kim Darcy. ‘True Grit’ 2010, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on True Grit by Charles Portis. Starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and introducing Hailee Steinfeld. …
Rio Bravo Directed by Howard Hawks Written by Jules Furthman, Leigh Brackett and U.S.A., 1959 Being a writer, producer, director or actor during the era when westerns were all the craze, a period which lasted an impressive amount of time, could not always have been very easy. With so many of such films flooding the …
Tombstone Directed by Kevin Jarre, George P Cosmatos and Kurt Russell (uncredited) Written by Kevin Jarre US, 1993 It’s a strange phenomenon, considering just how much of Hollywood takes Western sensibilities and lends them to very different settings, but 1993’s cult movie Tombstone has the classic Western scenario, story and set up but without the …
The “adult” Western – as it would come to be called – was a long time coming. A Hollywood staple since the days of The Great Train Robbery (1903), the Western offered spectacle and action set against the uniquely American milieu of the Old West – a historical period which, at the dawn of the motion picture …
The Western was a movie staple for decades. It seemed the genre that would never die, feeding the fantasies of one generation after another of young boys who galloped around their backyards, playgrounds, and brick streets on broomsticks, banging away with their Mattel cap pistols. Something about a man on a horse set against the …
On December 14, 2012, a young man named Adam Lanza broke into a primary school and fatally shot 26 people in the small village of Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Twenty of them were children, aged 6 or 7. On that day, no matter where I went or what I did, I couldn’t stop thinking about the …
[one_half] As he has before, Edgar Chaput has inspired me with one of his pieces, this one – part of SOS’s recent Bond Fest — concerning the loopy 1967 Casino Royale. As I commented on Edgar’s piece, I didn’t disagree that Royale was a royal mess after having passed through the hands of one director …
We love crime movies. We may go on and on about Scorsese’s ability to incorporate Italian neo-realism techniques into Mean Streets (1973), the place of John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950) in the canon of postwar noir, The Godfather (1972) as a socio-cultural commentary on the distortion of the ideals of the American dream blah …
A while back we posted an article titled Alternate Universe Movie Posters, a collection of some really amazing alternate movie posters including one for a Halloween film starring Kim Novak and Robert Mitchum. Recently Peter Stults was inspired by those poster designs and decided to move forward with the theme by creating images for what …
1)Nashville (1975) Robert Altman’s Masterpiece captured America in the 70s like one else: All its confusion, disappointment, and uncertainty. The film follows 24 different characters over a period of as few days in Nashville just before a political fundraising concert. We take a peak in the lives of country music superstars, hippies, aspiring singers, mothers, …