This post contains spoilers for the first season of "Westworld" and the end of "The Fabelmans."
HBO's "Westworld" is perhaps the greatest one-season show that got stretched out unnecessarily to four seasons only to be canceled just shy of the finish line. When it first premiered in 2016, "Westworld" had a lot going for it. Where else were you going to enter a saloon and hear player-piano versions of alt-rock hits like Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" and Radiohead's "No Surprises?"
Another thing "Westworld" had going for it — back when it was still set in the AI-powered theme park that gave the show its name — was its sweeping vistas that were already right at home in the Westerns of John Ford. These references to the legendary director's work were done by design, and they weren't the only thing "Westworld" pulled from Ford. Consider the very name of Westworld's founder,...
HBO's "Westworld" is perhaps the greatest one-season show that got stretched out unnecessarily to four seasons only to be canceled just shy of the finish line. When it first premiered in 2016, "Westworld" had a lot going for it. Where else were you going to enter a saloon and hear player-piano versions of alt-rock hits like Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" and Radiohead's "No Surprises?"
Another thing "Westworld" had going for it — back when it was still set in the AI-powered theme park that gave the show its name — was its sweeping vistas that were already right at home in the Westerns of John Ford. These references to the legendary director's work were done by design, and they weren't the only thing "Westworld" pulled from Ford. Consider the very name of Westworld's founder,...
- 4/15/2023
- by Joshua Meyer
- Slash Film
John Wayne might've been an ornery cuss. He might've made the worst film of his career in support of the Vietnam War at a moment when it was clear to anyone with two eyes and a conscience that the conflict was a moral and logistical sinkhole. He was a racist.
But he never wrote a single movie he performed in, and, from everything I've read about him, tailored movies to fit his persona -- i.e. what he thought audiences expected from him as a movie star. "The Green Berets" is an outlier. For the most part, Wayne understood that he couldn't play infallible heroes. He had to bleed. He had to lose a fistfight or two, or at least take some serious lumps en route to a hard-won victory. On rare occasions, he had to die. Regardless of where the film was headed, when he stepped in front of a camera,...
But he never wrote a single movie he performed in, and, from everything I've read about him, tailored movies to fit his persona -- i.e. what he thought audiences expected from him as a movie star. "The Green Berets" is an outlier. For the most part, Wayne understood that he couldn't play infallible heroes. He had to bleed. He had to lose a fistfight or two, or at least take some serious lumps en route to a hard-won victory. On rare occasions, he had to die. Regardless of where the film was headed, when he stepped in front of a camera,...
- 1/5/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
By 1948, Howard Hawks had made just about every type of film over his then 22-year career when he decided to take on the most American of movie genres: the Western. Though he'd made plenty of films about rough and/or ruthless men, the closest he'd come to making a true oater was with 1934's "Barbary Coast," which plays like more of a period crime film set in mid-1850s San Francisco. "Red River," written by Borden Chase and Charles Schnee (based on Chase's serialized novel "The Chisholm Trail"), would be the real deal.
And it almost fell apart before Hawks shot a frame of film.
While the story about Tom Dunson, a determined rancher who turns into a horse-riding Captain Ahab during a harrowing cattle drive from Texas to Missouri, was crammed with action and intrigue, it proved tonally problematic for Hawks' star. Gary Cooper had made several films with...
And it almost fell apart before Hawks shot a frame of film.
While the story about Tom Dunson, a determined rancher who turns into a horse-riding Captain Ahab during a harrowing cattle drive from Texas to Missouri, was crammed with action and intrigue, it proved tonally problematic for Hawks' star. Gary Cooper had made several films with...
- 1/3/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Western films have been a staple of American cinema for practically as long as movies have been made.
Movies in the Western genre are set in the American West, typically between the 1850s to the end of the 19th century. While it has been a stable genre — no pun intended! — it has also been the starting ground for several hybrid genres like Western comedies, Western musicals and horror Westerns.
No other genre’s history goes back quite as far as that of Westerns. According to documentarian David Gregory, “It has been estimated that up to 40 percent of all films made before 1960 were Westerns.”
Although the category reached its greatest popularity in the early and middle decades of the 20th century, with several becoming cult classics, films continued to be made even through droughts for Westerns in the late ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. Actors have also made their name starring in Western films,...
Movies in the Western genre are set in the American West, typically between the 1850s to the end of the 19th century. While it has been a stable genre — no pun intended! — it has also been the starting ground for several hybrid genres like Western comedies, Western musicals and horror Westerns.
No other genre’s history goes back quite as far as that of Westerns. According to documentarian David Gregory, “It has been estimated that up to 40 percent of all films made before 1960 were Westerns.”
Although the category reached its greatest popularity in the early and middle decades of the 20th century, with several becoming cult classics, films continued to be made even through droughts for Westerns in the late ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. Actors have also made their name starring in Western films,...
- 1/1/2023
- by Carly Thomas
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A half century ago, the 42nd Academy Awards was at a cultural crossroads as the ’60s came to a close, judging by its list of nominees and winners plucked from the year 1969. The members finally decided to give one of Hollywood’s most enduring legends, John Wayne, a Best Actor prize — basically, a career achievement honor — for his role as cowboy Rooster Cogburn, an aging gun for hire, in “True Grit.”
For some reason, the Duke never was cited for any of his iconic frontier characters including Ethan Edwards in 1956’s “The Searchers” or as Davy Crockett in 1960’s “The Alamo” — although he did compete as a producer for the year’s Best Picture prize that year. Wayne’s only other nomination as a male lead was in the 1949 war epic “Sands of Iwo Jima.”
Meanwhile, a different kind of shoot-’em-up was also in the running in the form...
For some reason, the Duke never was cited for any of his iconic frontier characters including Ethan Edwards in 1956’s “The Searchers” or as Davy Crockett in 1960’s “The Alamo” — although he did compete as a producer for the year’s Best Picture prize that year. Wayne’s only other nomination as a male lead was in the 1949 war epic “Sands of Iwo Jima.”
Meanwhile, a different kind of shoot-’em-up was also in the running in the form...
- 12/5/2019
- by Susan Wloszczyna
- Gold Derby
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