Tag: Western
Slow West, my son: Go see
The genre in which John Wayne once set out to kill his niece because she’d had hands laid on her by an “Injun” has become more reflective in recent years; elegiac even.
The Western is now less concerned with drawling former Confederates and more about allegory, about the decline of myth and the uncertain rise of civilization al a Unforgiven or The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.…
The Salvation isn’t looking to redeem anyone
As the oldest film genre – the first ever feature, The Story of the Kelly Gang, arguably qualifies as one – the Western weaves a well-worn path through the cinematic landscape.
There are certain elements we’ve come to expect from tales of those rangy, ranging men, like the redemptive arc of our hard-bitten protagonist, and those we haven’t, like an abundance of CGI.…
The Wolverine: a Western-Samurai-superhero mashup with claws
After four years in the wilderness, the X-Men’s hairiest, surliest associate is back with his own feature film. And good news: it’s not X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
There was a lot to feel hopeful as The Wolverine approached. Even with the original director, Darren Aronofsky, having dropped off the project, there was still the Chris Claremont/Frank Miller source material in place – the cool Japanese milieu, Wolverine as a ronin (samurai without a master) – and, of course, Hugh Jackman, who is to the 20th Century Fox X-verse what Robert Downey Jr.…
Django Unchained lets Tarantino loose with a bloody tale of race and revenge in antebellum America
Is there a more outwardly exciting director at work today than Quentin Tarantino?
It’s been three years since the release of Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino’s revisionist history cum Spaghetti Western account of Nazi killers and vengeful Jews in occupied France, and a further fifteen since he arguably created a whole new type of cinema with Pulp Fiction.…