Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
DrewInWisconsin ·
December 10, 2011 at 5:36pm
My fellow Ricocheteers:
I would like your recommendations for good Westerns. It's never been a genre that I've been interested in, and so my education regarding Westerns is sorely lacking. As we settle in for the Winter I imagine that an inordinate amount of time will be spent in front of the television.
I recently watched The Searchers, and enjoyed it far more than I expected. But before I go wasting my time on sub-par Westerns . . . I thought I would ask the assembled Ricotarians for their suggestions.
- Comment (120)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (5)
Comments:
Jul '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
I'll second Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Did anyone say Shane? If not well it's my favorite.
Little Big Man second as well.
Jeremiah Johnson
The gunfight at the end of open range is awesome, the cinematography of Dances with Wolves is great.
If they ever make Blood Meridian I'm in. ALL IN!
Two Tommie Lee Jones ....The three burials of Miguel Estrada and No Country for Old Men.
Quigley down under for fun
Liberty Valence for sure and basically all Duke's flicks
Jun '10
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
I like Legends of the Fall quite a bit even though the novella by Jim Harrison is even better.
Jan '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
I'm hlad someone finally mentioned The Searchers. It is a truly dark movie, from a time westerns weren't dark. A really great John Ford film. I concur on all the Sergio Leone films with Eastwood, as well as The Outlaw Josie Wales. The new True Grit is better than the original in every single way. I am also a fan of Dances with Wolves. No Country for Old Men is not technically a Western, but has the spirit of one, along with some of the trappings. Open Range is uneven, but has the greatest shoot out scene ever filmed IMO.
Oct '10
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
Meek's Cutoff.
Apr '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
I've seen The Ox-Bow Incident 19 times. It stinks on ice.
I enjoy the spaghetti westerns.
For comedy westerns, the Trinity series is variably good.
Sep '10
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
Unforgiven is in a class by itself.
Aug '10
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
Glenn the Iconoclast: I've seen The Ox-Bow Incident 19 times. It stinks on ice.
I enjoy the spaghetti westerns.
For comedy westerns, the Trinity series is variably good. · Dec 10 at 3:15am
My Name is Nobody.
Feb '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
The Awakening Land, a TV mini-series based on Conrad Richter's trilogy of novels. Not a typical western---no cowboys--but it's about the settlement of the west (Ohio, at the time) so it counts. Really outstanding.
Nov '10
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
Glenn the Iconoclast:
I enjoy the spaghetti westerns.
What makes them even more fun is to watch them after watching the samurai films on which many were based.....
BTW - others mentioned My Darling Clementine, it's a great film with great cinematography, just leave your knowledge of history at the door.
Jun '10
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
Dave Carter:
Blazing Saddles (What can I say? I'm a tad eclectic.) · Dec 9 at 4:11pm
Admit it guys. For men, flatulence humor is as good as it gets. The beans/campfire scene isn't just movie-making, it qualifies as cinema.
Aug '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
KC Mulville:
... but when justice ceases to be a personal virtue and becomes a product that lawyers sell (and advertise on TV) ... then justice has lost something important.
Your entire post is great, and I think you're on to something. Westerns don't exactly show us a world free from civilization, -- the settlers bought civilization with them, after all -- but they show us civlization put to the test.
Freed from the direct and indirect pressures to act in a civilized manner, could a society remain civilized? What kept the frontier settlements from descending into anarchy? Was the law just an artificial construct after all? Was civilization itself an illusion?
We often hear that modern Americans would never have been able to survive under the conditions the early settlers faced. I'm certain that quite a few people would surprise us (and themselves) with their ability to endure hardship. But would they survive with morality intact? Or would the law of the jungle be the rule?
Apr '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
Ride the High Country. The Magnificent Seven.
Aug '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
I'm currently reading the Little House books to my kids. I often find myself amazed by their ability to survive in (to me) extreme conditions; and to find joy and contentment in simple things.
Granted, the stories are a bit whitewashed, the author putting the best face on sometimes horrible situations. (She also skipped large portions of the family history because they were just too terrible to write about.)
I find it interesting that there are so many "frontier stories" aimed at little girls. Call it the "Little House Effect" if you like, but the popularity of those books meant that there would be a kajillion imitators, both factual histories and fictional. Yet I can't imagine that the frontier was a pleasant place for women.
To what do we attribute this? Could it be that out on the frontier it was the women who actually recorded what happened, who wrote letters telling of their struggles and trials, because the men were just too busy trying to survive?
Anyway, enough of that. It's a combination of the history of the frontier era and the depiction of civilization in extremis that makes the Western genre fascinating to me.
Apr '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
I could not agree more! John Ford anything is great due to the fact he always kept his ensemble cast (out of their love and respect for him I'm sure) for the bulk of his movies. He did that genre better than anyone accept
I thought Costner did a fab job with Open Range though and wish he would try more of the same style and quality.
Apr '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
Gus Marvinson: Winchester '73 with Jimmy Stewart.
Love. It. · Dec 9 at 4:11pm
A great western and a superb study in the character of good and evil which often is missing from todays movies.
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
Val Kilmer's performance is worth watching Tombstone for. Silverado is another newer, fun ensemble movie. Stagecoach, Rio Bravo, Red River. The end of Unforgiven is just apocalyptic. Hayley Steinfeld in the new True Grit is amazing. I'll see if I can think of others.
Apr '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
KC Mulville:
When justice isn't a personal virtue anymore, then stop the merry-go-round, I want to get off.
That could be a great topic for a thread in it self given what transpires around us all every day along with the tragedy of Penn State.
Feb '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
DrewInWisconsin...the Little House books were written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose daughter was Rose Wilder Lane, who became a writer of political philosophy and is considered a Founding Mother of libertarianism. Rose was apparently also involved in the writing of her mother's books, though it's not clear exactly how much.
I haven't read Rose's political work yet, but it sounds interesting. I found out about her via an article on Isabel Paterson, another Founding Mother of libertarianism, whose book The God of the Machine I did read and thought worthwhile.
Apr '11
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
Given the topic of westerns and having recently re-watched the new True Grit I was struck by the fact that while having enjoyed the Cohen brothers adaptation of the book what I felt was missing was the heart and soul of the characters which was evident in westerns of the past such as The Searchers and The Oxbow Incident as two examples.
Any one else have similar feeloings?
Dec '10
Re: Your Movie Recommendations Please: Westerns
Indeed. My ex watched Tombstone the night before she went into labor and my son is named Kilmer as a result.