Western genre feature film resurgence 2010-2015

[foxhot]

I, too, believe we could use a lot more pro-Union protagonists in Westerns, as opposed to Southern fighters. I don't consider OUTLAND a Western, and since DJANGO is deep South-set, it's really only an adapted Spaghetti Western. And while THE FLINTSTONES was clearly a HONEYMOONERS rip-off, wasn't THE JETSONS a FLINTSTONES one? Not to get off the track too much...
One film I don't believe was mentioned here was the excellent TRUE GRIT remake, which if you leave out DJANGO is currently the most nationally sucessful, barring inflation.
I think there is something to be said for the geographic argument regarding Westerns, but there is also ocasional room for leeway, thematically or location-wise. They'd be the exceptions to the rule, however.

[Christopher]

foxhot wrote:

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And while THE FLINTSTONES was clearly a HONEYMOONERS rip-off, wasn't THE JETSONS a FLINTSTONES one?

Not really -- there are some clear similarities, but it's not a direct imitation, more a parallel creation. This essay says The Jetsons was inspired more by the visions of optimistic futurism that were in vogue at the time, "a projection of the model American family into the future." Which is rather different from the more dysfunctional Kramden and Flintstone families. And George Jetson himself was based on his voice artist, George O'Hanlon, and his trademark character Joe McDoakes, a hard-luck everyman who'd appeared in a series of comedy film shorts in the '40s and '50s.

[stj]

I didn't want to waste much time on your views a second time. But fortunately, following the link didn't take much time to find when you started misrepresenting my views as well as simple facts about the movies. I lost any respect for your ability to interpret posts or movies here:

J.T.B. wrote:

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Even so, that's a long way from supporting the earlier contentions that Westerns were doomed by their outmoded racial views.

A "Western Robin Hood" story accounts for only a small percentage of Western movies. The James gang has just as often been depicted as genuine "bad guys," often very charismatic, but clearly on the wrong side. Far more influential for Western movies were the examples of lawmen like Wyatt Earp and Pat Garrett, who promoted their stories tirelessly in their lifetimes, even in Hollywood in Earp's case. Usually the stories, even if based on real characters, were so fictionalized the the average moviegoer would have little or no idea of the politics originally involved.

Here are the top 15 most commercially successful Westerns according to George Lucas's Blockbusting, Alex B. Block, ed.

1. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
2. Duel in the Sun (1947)
3. How the West Was Won (1963)
4. Dances with Wolves (1990)
5. Shane (1953)
6. The Outlaw (1943)
7. Unforgiven (1992)
8. Maverick (1994)
9. The Alamo (1960)
10. Jesse James (1939)
11. True Grit (1969)
12. The Covered Wagon (1923)
13. Red River (1948)
14. Little Big Man (1970)
15. Vera Cruz (1954)

I can find little "racist" content in that list. Numbers 3 and 12 have stereotypical Indian fighting, but even the silent Covered Wagon has scenes showing the Indians are fighting for their way of life. Numbers 4 and 14 are emphatically pro-Native American, and 7 and 8 have strongly positive black and Native American characters, respectively. The rest, race plays little or no part. As for Robin Hood stories, the 1939 Jesse James is indeed one example, but it is fictionalized and leaves James brothers' Civil War origins out completely. In the movie they are pushed into crime by corrupt land-grabbers.

The reason that TV Westerns outlasted movie Westerns is simple: It was the same thing continued elsewhere. The B-picture Western, which could be produced on an industrial scale by Hollywood, shifted to television just as viewers switched from going to the pictures and seeing serials, newsreels, B- and A-features to getting most of their entertainment at home and only going to the movies for big features. The well-established system for mass-producing Westerns was a natural fit for TV and played a big part in shifting the center of the television industry from New York to California. There were still feature film Westerns made in Hollywood, but the genre was not nearly as dominant as on TV. And the reason they died out on TV was also simple: There were too many and people tired of them, and the new field of demographic research showed that younger viewers preferred sitcoms and detective shows.

--Justin

The bold face is added. I skipped over the misrepresentation of my contentions about race. Nor did I remark about how your supposed explanation is not even an explanation. It took decades and decades for soap operas and detective shows to more or less vanish from the TV network schedules. Why did it take so much longer for there to be too much of those shows? They suffered from overkill too. (Yes, I know that detective shows are overexposed still.)


However, the notion that there was little or no concern with race, when Duel in the Sun is about, well, I quote from imdb: "Beautiful half-breed Pearl Chavez becomes the ward of her dead father's first love and finds herself torn between her sons, one good and the other bad." Race plays little or no part?

But in your version, this becomes:

J.T.B. wrote:

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And this from the guy who posted such off-base stuff as:

• Henry Fonda was the hero in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
• There are rarely Union Civil War veterans as heroes in Westerns
• Major Dundee wasn't the hero in Major Dundee
• Wild Bill Hickock's wartime service was never dealt with in a move
• Vera Cruz was racist because the Gary Cooper character was a former Confederate
• Duel in the Sun was racist in its treatment of the Pearl character

I think informed readers can make up their minds about who knows what they are talking about.

No thanks.

You just make shit up.

[J.T.B.]

stj wrote:

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However, the notion that there was little or no concern with race, when Duel in the Sun is about, well, I quote from imdb: "Beautiful half-breed Pearl Chavez becomes the ward of her dead father's first love and finds herself torn between her sons, one good and the other bad." Race plays little or no part?

If you had watched the movie, you would know that its editorial position is clear: The bias against Pearl as a suitable wife is wrong, shown most notably through the morally-centered (and Southern!) Lillian Gish character.

I won't hold my breath for your exegesis on the Henry Fonda character in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.

[Samaritan]

I watch The Rifleman on Me TV and think this could work now. A Man, His Son and His Gun?

Maybe?

[scifib5st]

About a month ago, the Brian and Jill show, Pod cast, found on the internet or Sticher the brian and jill show.com. They interviewed Kurt Russell, they talked about Tomstone. It was a great interview, Kurt is now filming a move about a mining in Alaska.

[scifib5st]

Ok, sorry for posting agian.... but I'm watching a program called the "Virgnan" which I rember from you childhood, 1963 called "Man of Violenc" With Tramps and gest stars DeForest Kelly and Leonard Nimoy,,,, De plays a Dr. and Leonard is an indaian scout...
it's on ISNP on Direct TV Chan. 364...

[Lt. Cheka Wey]

Are ''manchurian westerns'' like The Good, the Bad and the Weird part of this western resurgence?

[jefferiestubes8]

scifib5st wrote:

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They interviewed Kurt Russell, they talked about Tomstone. It was a great interview, Kurt is now filming a move about a mining in Alaska.

thanks.

Deadline reports Olyphant has signed on to star alongside Kurt Russell, Peter Sarsgaard, Richard Jenkins, and Jennifer Carpenter in the directorial debut of the feature's screenwriter S. Craig Zahler. A horror thriller set in the Wild West, Bone Tomahawk centers on four men—presumably Olyphant, Russell, Sarsgaard, and Jenkins—who set out into treacherous terrain to rescue settlers captured by a gang of cannibalistic cave-dwellers that live outside the borders of established civilization.

The film is slated to shoot next spring in New Mexico, though it's unclear on where the movie will be set. I can't help but wonder if Zahler's inspiration from the film came from the notorious Colorado Cannibal, Alfred Packer, who was said to have murdered and eaten his traveling companions during the winter of 1873-1874.

via

moviepilot.com give us the headline:
'Stagecoach meets The Hills Have Eyes in this gruesome horror western'
geez...

[flandry84]

Flicking through imdb's trailer section I just sqw Wesley Snipes' latest effort "Gallowalkers".Blade vs. Zombies in the old west...yeah....'nuff said.

These horror/science fiction westerns are doing great aren't they?Ask Daniel Craig

For fuck sake(apologies)but a blind man could see that these hybrid westerns are going nowhere(the bargain bin maybe).And look at the sucess that a "traditional western" like True grit has been.
Where are the famed studio execs heads at?

[jefferiestubes8]

I noticed Wyatt Earp's Revenge is now on Netflix, and Amazon Instant. I put it in the Queue. I'd rather watch a lower budget Western than a contemporary-set modern day Western. Has anyone seen it?

In a couple months the Christian Slater Dawn Rider also comes out on DVD only. I'll check it out too.