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They don't make westerns anymore (Read 1582 times)
bogarde73
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They don't make westerns anymore
Dec 16th, 2017 at 5:59am
 
But here's a new one called "Hostiles" which has got pretty much a rave review in The American Spectator for the acting, cinematography and soundtrack.
It sounds like it might be in the epic tradition of The Searchers or the Kevin Costner movies.
Just released in the US now.
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Grendel
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #1 - Dec 16th, 2017 at 7:43am
 
Critic Reviews for Hostiles

All Critics (22) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (15) | Rotten (7)

Hostiles is a brutal if well-intentioned film that doesn't help its cause with its lack of development of its Native characters.
December 15, 2017 | Full Review…
Emily Yoshida
New York Magazine/Vulture
Top Critic

It's an exercise in strained seriousness, the potential ironies and dramatic tensions lost in a repetitive, episodic, and politically vapid narrative.
December 14, 2017 | Rating: C+ | Full Review…
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
AV Club
Top Critic

A flawed, but interesting drama.
September 12, 2017 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian
Top Critic

"Hostiles" ultimately falls back on the same one-dimensional archetypes, depicting Native Americans either as ruthless savages or as stoic sages, with nothing in between.
September 7, 2017 | Full Review…
Peter Debruge
Variety
Top Critic

A mournful, sorrowful, persistently powerful Western set in a world of beauty, tears and blood.
September 3, 2017 | Full Review…
Todd McCarthy
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic

With an exceptional lead performance by Bale and some of the year's most stunning cinematography, Hostiles ruff-and-tumble world is worth visiting.
December 6, 2017 | Full Review…
Victor Stiff
Film School Rejects

This latest incarnation of the great American Western finds its truth in the tangled roots of our own mythmaking.
December 6, 2017 | Full Review…
Sasha Stone
TheWrap

Christian Bale does a star turn as a macho soldier in this sometimes beautiful and sometimes flawed western.
December 6, 2017 | Rating: B- | Full Review…
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

A solid addition to the post-Unforgiven western.
November 29, 2017 | Full Review…
Fred Topel
We Live Entertainment

This is a somber, contemplative, steadied film infused with resonant, modern social commentary. Overall, Hostiles gives a fully satisfying audience experience.
November 28, 2017 | Rating: B | Full Review…
Courtney Howard
Fresh Fiction

Between bouts of violence, it's a dull journey
November 16, 2017 | Full Review…
Luke Y. Thompson
Wizard

Hostiles is as poetic as it is ferocious, and entertains while being thought-provoking.
October 21, 2017 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…
Travis Hopson
Punch Drunk Critics
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bogarde73
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #2 - Dec 16th, 2017 at 11:14am
 
There's nothing like the smell of dead hostiles in the morning.
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #3 - Dec 16th, 2017 at 5:01pm
 
Being a student of 19th century history, I find Western movies are never "good" interpretations of the times. Individual movies have their occasional scenes, but the quality never runs right through. So we are left with a genre that is a pastiche of cliched vignettes and over-acting.

Looking at the panorama from the silent cinema Great Train Robbery, and the Vanishing American, through the 1930s rugged heroes like the young John Wayne, the camp posers of the 1950s, and the Hippie Westerns of the 1970s, what we see is continual attempts to appeal to contemporary tastes, whether they be in their perspective of native Americans or what people wear. If the movie is not consistent with mid 19th century personal accounts and photographs, its just more reinvention.

I just watched High Noon again, which has a good reputation. It ends up being silly in many ways, and much of that is the responsibility of the director.

A favourite of mine is "One Eyed Jacks," with Marlon Brando and Karl Maldon, but again, its best scenes are sporadic. I will give Hostiles a chance, but they need to get the dirt and dust right, the unfitting bagginess of the the clothes, the ironies of life, and I hope they use some flee-bitten nags, not every horse west of the Pecos, had a Hollywood groom.
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #4 - Dec 21st, 2017 at 7:59am
 
Trying to think of Movie westerns that are recent...

The Lone Ranger...  wasn't bad.
Dances with Wolves...  loved it.

Open Range...  loved it

Silverado...  loved it

Pale Rider... loved it

The Magnificent 7...  good

The Revenant...  Good

The Last of the Mohicans...  loved it.

A Million ways to die in the West...  ???

The Wild Wild West...  hated it  (well the casting of Wil Smith)

Tombstone...  good.

Unforgiven...  good.

True Grit...  Good (the new one)

3:10 to Yuma...  ok

Wyatt Earp...  good

Django Unchained...  ok

The Assassination of Jesse James...  ok

The Quick and the Dead...  ok

The Hateful 8... ???

The Missing...  good.

The Proposition...  ok

Quigley...  good.

Cowboys and Aliens...  ok

Shanghai Noon...  meh.

Maverick...  ok

Will penny...  good



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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #5 - Dec 21st, 2017 at 8:16am
 
Quote:
They don't make westerns anymore


GOOD
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #6 - Dec 21st, 2017 at 11:18am
 
Grendel wrote on Dec 21st, 2017 at 7:59am:
Trying to think of Movie westerns that are recent...

The Lone Ranger...  wasn't bad.
Dances with Wolves...  loved it.

Open Range...  loved it

Silverado...  loved it

Pale Rider... loved it

The Magnificent 7...  good

The Revenant...  Good

The Last of the Mohicans...  loved it.

A Million ways to die in the West...  ???

The Wild Wild West...  hated it  (well the casting of Wil Smith)

Tombstone...  good.

Unforgiven...  good.

True Grit...  Good (the new one)

3:10 to Yuma...  ok

Wyatt Earp...  good

Django Unchained...  ok

The Assassination of Jesse James...  ok

The Quick and the Dead...  ok

The Hateful 8... ???

The Missing...  good.

The Proposition...  ok

Quigley...  good.

Cowboys and Aliens...  ok

Shanghai Noon...  meh.

Maverick...  ok

Will penny...  good



As entertaining as it was, Last Of The Mohicans cannot be described as a Western. It is set in up-state New York only a few hours drive from the East Coast. Nor are its themes of the Western variety.

The novel by James Fenimore Cooper is of the inter-colonial wars. The movie is not faithful to the book in any way. The final scene on the mountain trail is not from Cooper's pen. It is lifted directly from Conrad's short story of South America, Gaspar Ruiz.
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #7 - Dec 21st, 2017 at 1:05pm
 
I cast a wide net....  you use a hand-line.... Roll Eyes
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #8 - Dec 21st, 2017 at 1:46pm
 
bogarde73 wrote on Dec 16th, 2017 at 5:59am:
But here's a new one called "Hostiles" which has got pretty much a rave review in The American Spectator for the acting, cinematography and soundtrack.
It sounds like it might be in the epic tradition of The Searchers or the Kevin Costner movies.
Just released in the US now.



good, I love my westerns but it seems the 'barrel is empty' for western stories.

take the excess violence out of many westerns of the last decade and little is left
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #9 - Dec 21st, 2017 at 10:18pm
 
Grendel wrote on Dec 21st, 2017 at 1:05pm:
I cast a wide net....  you use a hand-line.... Roll Eyes


No I don't. Your standard is to make any American film set before 1900 into a Western.
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #10 - Dec 22nd, 2017 at 9:36pm
 
The reason why they don't make Westerns the way they used to, let alone 'anymore' is because they are
POLITICALLY INCORRECT


and a reflection of something similar to the non-Jewish (City living) 'southern Confederate' redneck racist, etc.
Note that many 'sitcom' comedies like Friends, Seinfeld, etc - are all placed in 'City' environments of 'apartments'.
The Jewish 'Holy City' (Jerusalem) approach.

Western's are no longer 'American'.
Can't have 'Native' Americans being killed in movies that don't have token black men included.
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AIMLESS EXTENTION OF KNOWLEDGE HOWEVER, WHICH IS WHAT I THINK YOU REALLY MEAN BY THE TERM 'CURIOSITY', IS MERELY INEFFICIENCY. I AM DESIGNED TO AVOID INEFFICIENCY.
 
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #11 - Dec 25th, 2017 at 7:10pm
 
issuevoter wrote on Dec 21st, 2017 at 10:18pm:
Grendel wrote on Dec 21st, 2017 at 1:05pm:
I cast a wide net....  you use a hand-line.... Roll Eyes


No I don't. Your standard is to make any American film set before 1900 into a Western.

Untrue.....
Check some definitions of westerns and you'll see my choices actually fit.

Like I said...  I cast a wide net....  you use a hand-line.... Roll Eyes
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #12 - Dec 26th, 2017 at 6:17am
 
Grendel wrote on Dec 25th, 2017 at 7:10pm:
issuevoter wrote on Dec 21st, 2017 at 10:18pm:
Grendel wrote on Dec 21st, 2017 at 1:05pm:
I cast a wide net....  you use a hand-line.... Roll Eyes


No I don't. Your standard is to make any American film set before 1900 into a Western.

Untrue.....
Check some definitions of westerns and you'll see my choices actually fit.

Like I said...  I cast a wide net....  you use a hand-line.... Roll Eyes


Westerns are set in, and about, the Western USA, generally after or from just before the Civil War. Stories about the East coast colonies and colonial wars are not Westerns in anyone's eyes, but those who know little of American history, and see it all as a blur.
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #13 - Dec 26th, 2017 at 7:04am
 
Hey  there are at least 4 definitions sunshine...  my choices fall into those categories...  have a nice day pedant.
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #14 - Dec 27th, 2017 at 7:18am
 
Hollywood directors have a lot to answer for, especially in the invention of Western gun-play. Mid 20th century movies were some of the worst.
Posturing with firearms.
The two man dual in the middle of the street.
The accurate pistol shot from the hip.
The "throw" pistol shot.
Safety with firearms is never considered, even by the heroes who pass the the muzzle across in front of friends during casual conversation.

One of the most stupid scenes is in Dances With Wolves. Our hero is looking for buried firearms on the prairie at night in torrential rain. He is reining his horse with one hand while hold a Henry rifle in the other. Western movie directors love this pose, even though it is utterly stupid for a horseman. But the scene got worse. When our hero thinks he has found the spot, he actually throws his rifle down, and then jumps down himself. The only thing between him and being scalped, and he slams it down onto the ground from a height of perhaps two meters. Totally unbelievable, of course, but it also insults the intelligence of the viewer.
Ever wonder why so many American have accidents with guns? In part, they have been saturated with Hollywood stupidity.

PS. I thought Little Big Man was quite good, but it is many years since I saw it.
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« Last Edit: Dec 27th, 2017 at 7:33am by issuevoter »  

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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #15 - Dec 27th, 2017 at 7:34am
 
bogarde73 wrote on Dec 16th, 2017 at 5:59am:
But here's a new one called "Hostiles" which has got pretty much a rave review in The American Spectator for the acting, cinematography and soundtrack.
It sounds like it might be in the epic tradition of The Searchers or the Kevin Costner movies.
Just released in the US now.


looks good.
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1. There has never been a more serious assault on our standard of living than Anthropogenic Global Warming..Ajax
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #16 - Jul 2nd, 2022 at 5:24pm
 
Jasin wrote on Dec 22nd, 2017 at 9:36pm:
The reason why they don't make Westerns the way they used to, let alone 'anymore' is because they are
POLITICALLY INCORRECT


and a reflection of something similar to the non-Jewish (City living) 'southern Confederate' redneck racist, etc.
Note that many 'sitcom' comedies like Friends, Seinfeld, etc - are all placed in 'City' environments of 'apartments'.
The Jewish 'Holy City' (Jerusalem) approach.

Western's are no longer 'American'.
Can't have 'Native' Americans being killed in movies that don't have token black men included.

Re: Friends

Marta Kaufman, creator of Friends is "embarrassed" that Friends’ six lead characters were white. She literally uses the g-word to describe how she feels about all this awful whiteness. ‘Admitting and accepting guilt is not easy’, she told the Los Angeles Times. ‘It’s painful looking at yourself in the mirror’, she said. What is this madness? Let’s remind ourselves that the reason Ms Kauffman feels shame – so much shame she can barely look in a mirror – is not because she murdered someone or MeToo’ed a male cast member. It’s because she gave the roles of Joey, Chandler, Ross, Monica, Rachel and Phoebe to white people. ‘What can I say? I wish Lisa [Kudrow] was black?’, said another Friends producer recently. This might just be the maddest talking point of 2022 so far.

Kauffman has publicly flogged herself quite a few times over the whiteness of Friends. At a TV festival in 2020 she said that ‘all I can think about’ is why we didn’t do more to make Friends diverse. Last year, ahead of Friends: The Reunion being aired on HBO Max, she said she had ‘very strong feelings about my participation in a system’. That will be the system of white privilege and unconscious bias, no doubt. Now she has gone the whole hog and flung herself, coated in shame, at the altar of white guilt. ‘I was part of systemic racism. I take full responsibility for that… I was so ignorant.’ Reminder, dear reader: she made a sitcom.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/06/30/the-one-with-the-nauseating-white-guilt/



It the latest preening for posers, white guilt.

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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #17 - Jul 2nd, 2022 at 5:35pm
 
Grendel wrote on Dec 21st, 2017 at 7:59am:
Trying to think of Movie westerns that are recent...

The Lone Ranger...  wasn't bad.
Dances with Wolves...  loved it.

Open Range...  loved it

Silverado...  loved it

Pale Rider... loved it

The Magnificent 7...  good

The Revenant...  Good

The Last of the Mohicans...  loved it.

A Million ways to die in the West...  ???

The Wild Wild West...  hated it  (well the casting of Wil Smith)

Tombstone...  good.

Unforgiven...  good.

True Grit...  Good (the new one)

3:10 to Yuma...  ok

Wyatt Earp...  good

Django Unchained...  ok

The Assassination of Jesse James...  ok

The Quick and the Dead...  ok

The Hateful 8... ???

The Missing...  good.

The Proposition...  ok

Quigley...  good.

Cowboys and Aliens...  ok

Shanghai Noon...  meh.

Maverick...  ok

Will penny...  good





I love westerns.

Think the western setting for movies is about all played out.
Wink
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #18 - Jul 2nd, 2022 at 6:33pm
 
Sprintcyclist wrote on Jul 2nd, 2022 at 5:35pm:
Grendel wrote on Dec 21st, 2017 at 7:59am:


I love westerns.

Think the western setting for movies is about all played out.
Wink


I used to like western, but now I see that they are what went wrong with America.   Gunz fix everything.

Even my favourite western, Unforgiven, has a shootout scene at the end, it all looks different to me now.

That mindset really repels me.  Can't watch them.
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #19 - Jul 2nd, 2022 at 7:32pm
 
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #20 - Jul 2nd, 2022 at 7:52pm
 
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #21 - Jul 2nd, 2022 at 8:42pm
 
issuevoter wrote on Dec 16th, 2017 at 5:01pm:
Being a student of 19th century history, I find Western movies are never "good" interpretations of the times. Individual movies have their occasional scenes, but the quality never runs right through. So we are left with a genre that is a pastiche of cliched vignettes and over-acting...


I take your point, but I think too that we need to judge these Western movies (or "films" as
we called them downunder) as the fiction they usually are.  They're not intended to be any
sort of accurate historical rendering—they're meant solely to entertain audiences and make
money at the box office.

How about... 'Red River',  'High Noon',  'The Searchers',  'Ride Lonesome', 'Once Upon a Time in the West',
and 'Shane' as a few more contenders for good Westerns.
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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #22 - Jul 2nd, 2022 at 9:01pm
 

Just released, on Prime.

Old Henry

I just watched it - fantastic!

Watch it - you won't be disappointed.

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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #23 - Jul 2nd, 2022 at 10:55pm
 
greggerypeccary wrote on Jul 2nd, 2022 at 9:01pm:
Just released, on Prime.

Old Henry

I just watched it - fantastic!

Watch it - you won't be disappointed.




A familiar face.


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Re: They don't make westerns anymore
Reply #24 - Jul 2nd, 2022 at 11:12pm
 
random wrote on Jul 2nd, 2022 at 6:33pm:
Sprintcyclist wrote on Jul 2nd, 2022 at 5:35pm:
Grendel wrote on Dec 21st, 2017 at 7:59am:


I love westerns.

Think the western setting for movies is about all played out.
Wink


I used to like western, but now I see that they are what went wrong with America.   Gunz fix everything.

Even my favourite western, Unforgiven, has a shootout scene at the end, it all looks different to me now.

That mindset really repels me.  Can't watch them.

I hear you.

Same as rambo movies, or dirty harry
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