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The Western Thread...
- Thread starter Men_in_Boxes
- Start date
ymoc
Member
I've recently watched Old Henry. If you haven't seen Old Henry, go watch Old Henry. The "twist" had me rockin' in my seat.
Tim Blake Nelson is just spectacular in this. He is not a particularly good looking bloke, but his charisma is through the goddamn roof and I could watch him peal potatoes and enjoy myself.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12731980/
Fart Knight
Al Pachinko, Konami President
Basil King
Member
Love my old school spaghetti westerns (dollar trilogy, original d’jango)
But i also love the modern western that is Yellowstone and 1883
I’m all about the Dutton family. Cowboy hat goes on the head on Sunday’s.
But i also love the modern western that is Yellowstone and 1883
I’m all about the Dutton family. Cowboy hat goes on the head on Sunday’s.
Jsisto
Member
Never been huge on westerns, but I really want to start watching some of the classics, so I’ll definitely take some of the suggestions here’s! Been on a samurai film kick recently and there’s a lot of parallels between that and westerns. I have really fond memories of watching the Lonesome Dove tv miniseries with my dad when I was a kid.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I've heard a few interviews with Kevin Costner throughout the years and he's brought up this dream Western passion project he eventually wants to do. Well, it apparently just got the greenlight. Not sure what the current vision I definitely remember him saying something like "Maybe it's a theatrical release trilogy, or maybe it's a TV miniseries..."
www.google.com
He's also said that he thinks there's only 10 or so great Westerns. Hopefully this makes 11.
Kevin Costner Sets Late Summer Start For His Passion Film ‘Horizon,’ Epic Period Western
Kevin Costner Sets Late Summer Start For His Western Passion Project 'Horizon'
www.google.com
He's also said that he thinks there's only 10 or so great Westerns. Hopefully this makes 11.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Supposedly Mel Gibson was writing+directing a remake of The Wild Bunch. I don't know it's current status but that sounds like a pretty good match.
Mel Gibson To Co-Write & Direct ‘Wild Bunch’ Remake At Warner Bros.
Mel Gibson To Co-Write, Direct 'Wild Bunch' Remake At Warner Bros.
www.google.com
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Not a genre out there that allows low budget productions to look this good. I prefer a little more Robert Duvall glint in my westerns but this'll do.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Haven't seen it yet. You recommend it? I've heard a pretty wide range of opinions on it.
I think Unforgiven has been brought up the most by different members in this thread. That's certainly a highly regarded classic. Hell or Highwater is one of my personal favorites that's relatively new.
I think I understand why I like the genre more today. I binged Reacher last week and there was a scene where Reacher looks at a bag of kitty litter and studies it. At that point, I realized I couldn't care less about all the intricacies and layers to the complex conspiracy.
Westerns are almost all like "There's 4 bad dudes coming to Town. Will you help me stop em?" The plots are so simple that the storytellers get to focus on character that much more.
Raven117
Member
Hmmmm....that's hard to say. Its an interesting character(s) study for sure. I wouldn't say it scratches the itch of a "western" in the way we are using the term in this thread. It flows into your second point...because the stories are somewhat simple...you can focus on characters and symbolism way more than some "conspiracy" driven "plot twists" and stuff like that.
That said...you could tell the story without it being set in the West and nothing would change....As opposed to some of these other classics...where the "West" is a character and necessary for the story.
Its slow...its plodding...its subtle in the way it develops its characters...the ending is earned...And through all that slowness...there is actually alot to talk about in what it all meant.
I suppose I will just say that if you are in the mood for a slow burn character study that every so often gives those beautiful panoramic western shots...then give it a go. But if you are looking for stuff like Unforgiven, Fist full of Dollars...stuff like that....probably not the movie you want to go for.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Kevin Costerns Horizon project is looking like a 4 film epic...
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/kevin-costner-horizon-directing-four-movies-1235299756/
- 4 films.
- releasing every 3 months.
- over 170 speaking roles.
- spans 15 years.
- filming starts in August.
I'm a Make a Wish kid aren't I?
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/kevin-costner-horizon-directing-four-movies-1235299756/
- 4 films.
- releasing every 3 months.
- over 170 speaking roles.
- spans 15 years.
- filming starts in August.
I'm a Make a Wish kid aren't I?
Sounds interesting. Post-modern westerns can get real preachy though, I hope Costner remembers to make the films engaging and perhaps a bit fun. Going by DwW and Open Range he tends towards the maudlin but maybe we'll get something more like Silverado instead.
Chronicle
Member
"You better bury Ned right!... Better not cut up, nor otherwise harm no whores... or I'll come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches."
Unforgiven was excellent. Loved the gun fight in Open Range.
If anyone can tell me, I've been looking for a western all my life. I just remember the end from when I was very young. My mother was watching. A soldier (I think) followed some guy into a barn or building and the had a gunfight. The soldier ended up being burned. It was pretty gruesome for me as a child but I've always wanted to watch the whole movie.
Anyone know? Would be great if you did.
Unforgiven was excellent. Loved the gun fight in Open Range.
If anyone can tell me, I've been looking for a western all my life. I just remember the end from when I was very young. My mother was watching. A soldier (I think) followed some guy into a barn or building and the had a gunfight. The soldier ended up being burned. It was pretty gruesome for me as a child but I've always wanted to watch the whole movie.
Anyone know? Would be great if you did.
dr_octagon
Banned
It would help if you gave us a date range, where/how you watched it, and any details like if the soldier lived, was he the main villain, etc. If you have some more info you should post it at stackexchange, there is a section there for finding stuff just like this.
thegame983
Member
I just watched 1883 (prequel to Yellowstone - though nothing like it) and thought it was excellent.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I wouldn't say it's a great poster, or even a good poster, but damn this summer is going to be fun!
(Please don't let it be DEI propaganda please)
I choose to believe!
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Highway Star
Member
DKehoe
Member
I'm about halfway through a rewatch of Deadwood. I haven't seen it since about 2009 and it's even better than I remembered. I never got around to watching the film because it had been so long since I had watched the show that I felt like I needed to refresh myself on it. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how that wraps things up.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Holy **** this looks good.
AJUMP23
Gold Member
we have a whole thread about it now.
Do mah eyes deceive me or do we only have to wait TWO MONTHS betwixt chapters? HALLIELUJAH!!!! Bout DAMN TIME they figured out this "part 1/part 2" nonsense and how to do it right!
It does bother me a bit that the only villain seems to be that rat faced bandit kid. I know Costners claim to fame was humanizing the noble savage but I hope there are some more nuances. I feel like manifest destiny, western expansion, and the general flow of human migration into/at the expense of the current population is something that requires a delicate touch these days as it's pretty easy to make white settlers "the bad guys" but then to look at migration now that is often as antagonistic....its tough.
I was kinda hoping for more of a Silverado "glory to the Western FILM" vibe rather than a more serious historical bent, but I'll be there regardless. Costner is in like 3 of my top 5 westerns, he has a gift for them for sure.
It does bother me a bit that the only villain seems to be that rat faced bandit kid. I know Costners claim to fame was humanizing the noble savage but I hope there are some more nuances. I feel like manifest destiny, western expansion, and the general flow of human migration into/at the expense of the current population is something that requires a delicate touch these days as it's pretty easy to make white settlers "the bad guys" but then to look at migration now that is often as antagonistic....its tough.
I was kinda hoping for more of a Silverado "glory to the Western FILM" vibe rather than a more serious historical bent, but I'll be there regardless. Costner is in like 3 of my top 5 westerns, he has a gift for them for sure.
RJMacready73
Simps for Amouranth
I'm gonna assume everyone in here has read Empire of the Summer Moon, was over the moon to here that Taylor Sheridan is making a movie out of this incredible book, if you haven't read it do yourself a favour and get it immediately, such a crazy good book about the Wild West, didn't know half the shit that went on during that time period
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Mini Western renaissance?!
The Dead Don't Hurt. Written and directed by Viggo Mortensen. Music composed by Viggo Mortensen. Releases on May 31st.
The Dead Don't Hurt. Written and directed by Viggo Mortensen. Music composed by Viggo Mortensen. Releases on May 31st.
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
Bass Reeves was a real life lawman. You HAVE to look up his life story... The man was a true legend!
I loved the series! It was amazing and heartbreaking and cool and angering and ... Just watch it! You can binge it now!
I know Hollywood doesn't really show it but there were a lot of real life black cowboys. In fact, that's where the name came from. Black men were cow handlers and were called "boy" by the ranch owners... Eventually that evolved into "cow boys"
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I was skeptical of this claim, so I googled the origin and here's what I found...
"Cowboy" was first used in print by Jonathan Swift in 1725, and was used in the British Isles from 1820 to 1850 to describe young boys who tended the family or community of cows.
Etymologists trace the use of the term cowboy back to 1000 AD in Ireland. Swift used it in 1705, logically enough, to describe a boy who tends cows. Modern usage, first in hyphenated form, dates from the 1830s in Texas. Colonel John S. "Rip" Ford used the word cow-boy to describe the Texan border raider who drove off Mexican cattle during the 1830s. The term carried a tinge of wildness, of life at the fringes of law and "civilization."
The name cowboy for the mounted herdman of cattle is almost a direct translation of the Spanish word vaquero from vaca meaning cow.
There does seem to be a number of ideologically driven sources post 2020 that attempt to redefine the word in racial terms.
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Krappadizzle
Member
Thanks for bumping this thread, I missed it the first time around and there's a few things in it I haven't seen yet. I love the genre in general but I haven't watched much recently other than maybe a year or two ago watching 1883. Definitely can't wait to check some of this out.
I'll add that I remember being a kid and my dad having Lonesome Dove on a bunch of VHS and me thinking it was gonna be a boring Western thing and then getting enthralled with it. I need to rewatch it, I haven't seen it in over 25 years or so.
I'll add that I remember being a kid and my dad having Lonesome Dove on a bunch of VHS and me thinking it was gonna be a boring Western thing and then getting enthralled with it. I need to rewatch it, I haven't seen it in over 25 years or so.
Bulletzen72
Member
Saw Bone Tomahawk about a year ago and thought it was pretty good! Worth a watch!
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
I think two or more things can be true at the same time. Maybe the definition I gave is more colloquial than definitive. However, it's believed that buckaroo comes from Vaquero because of a mispronouncing of the Spanish word.
However, I suggest giving this article a read:
SirTerry-T
Member
Tarantino knows the good stuff...
I think the article raises some good points about there being freed blacks in the west, but 25% seems waaaaaaay too high. You can scroll through dozens and dozens of pictures of groups of ranch hands and cowboys, and while the coloring of the film and the resolution can be dodgy, virtually all look to be white. Maybe thats some sort of selection bias about who was allowed to be in a photo or who kept them for 100+ years, but I'd think that if 25% of cowboys were black you'd see a LOT more photos of them and they would feature in stories more prominently (though granted, a ton of these stories were written back east with little direct experience.
But anyway, here was a flick I dug a lot
whatever happened to Mario van Peeples? He was never the greatest actor but damn he had the looks and the swagger.
And I still link him to Nina van Peeples though I don't think they are in any way related
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
I think the article raises some good points about there being freed blacks in the west, but 25% seems waaaaaaay too high. You can scroll through dozens and dozens of pictures of groups of ranch hands and cowboys, and while the coloring of the film and the resolution can be dodgy, virtually all look to be white. Maybe thats some sort of selection bias about who was allowed to be in a photo or who kept them for 100+ years, but I'd think that if 25% of cowboys were black you'd see a LOT more photos of them and they would feature in stories more prominently (though granted, a ton of these stories were written back east with little direct experience.
But anyway, here was a flick I dug a lot
whatever happened to Mario van Peeples? He was never the greatest actor but damn he had the looks and the swagger.
And I still link him to Nina van Peeples though I don't think they are in any way related
Yeah they're not related. LoL! Their last names are different, too ... Peeples vs Peebles. He still works... His son is in the business now, too. His dad, Melvin, passed away a few years ago.
As for why more black people aren't in more photos from that era... Remember, this is still America in the 1800s. But also, most black cowboys were just that: cowboys. They tended to and herded cattle and were horse wranglers. They didn't have the fame of a Nat Love or Jim West or even a Bass Reeves. They were freed or escaped enslaved black folks. The West was one of the few places they could experience true freedom. Where some could make a living or carve out their piece of paradise. 25% isn't a big number.
Even with their notoriety, it's only in the last few years most people have even heard of them. Shoot, even I pushed back at the notion of famous black cowboys because there were no famous depictions of any in all of Hollywood... Most people pushed back at the idea of black cowboys because of that mindset. Even still, believing them to be rare when they truly weren't. Black people helped populate and build the West... Along with the Chinese immigrants, First Nations and Mexican-Americans.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Have you read the article? It doesn't support the claim that 25% of cowboys were black.
The assumption seems to be based on the following quote...
"By 1825, slaves accounted for nearly 25 percent of the Texas settler population. By 1860, fifteen years after it became part of the Union, that number had risen to over 30 percent—that year’s census reported 182,566 slaves living in Texas."
It requires a lot of mental gymnastics to go from that quote to "One in 4 cowboys was black."
In the end, I'm going to go with the idea that the word cowboy is indeed NOT a racial epithet. Hell yes!
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
That's not what I said. "Boy" was the racial epithet used towards black cowhands. Not the word cowboy.
Also, earlier in that article it says this:
"Few images embody the spirit of the American West as well as the trailblazing, sharpshooting, horseback-riding cowboy of American lore. And though African-American cowboys don’t play a part in the popular narrative, historians estimate that one in four cowboys were black."
You're talking solely about Texas in your quote... I'm talking about, and the article backs me up, about the West at large. And freed or escaped enslaved black Americans at that. Your quote is talking about JUST the enslaved.
AJUMP23
Gold Member
Have you seen Shane?
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
Best modern Western to ME is 1:10 to Yuma.
Edit... I meant 3:10 to Yuma
Edit... I meant 3:10 to Yuma
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NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt
Gold Member
The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford is still my Favorite Western and my Favorite Movie of All Time
This discussion got me to crack out my Time Life "The Old West" series book The Cowboys. Right on page 2 of the text they say 1 in every 6 or 7 was mexican, similar number was black, for a combined 1 in 3 but a more reasonable individual 15ish% black which seems to map to the pretty long term percentage of black versus "other" in America. And that book was published in 1973, so not only was it within living memory of folks where could have seen this stuff first hand, it was well before any "wokeness". Plus there were plenty of english and europeans that wrote about their experiences who presumably would not have had the degree of "erasing blackness" an American might.
Anyway, regardless of the exact percentage, I've no issue with multi-ethnic westerns because dammit its a WESTERN!
Now I wanna play Red Dead Redemption again.....
Anyway, regardless of the exact percentage, I've no issue with multi-ethnic westerns because dammit its a WESTERN!
Now I wanna play Red Dead Redemption again.....
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
That's been my whole argument... Regardless of percentage, I just don't want continued erasure. Even now in this day, plenty of people don't believe there were any black cowboys... Or that if there were, they were rare. It took me a long time to accept that they were real.