The 1980s can be defined by many elements. Big hair and shoulder pads, bright colours, rampant consumerism. Cinematically, the decade saw the development of a particular type of action movie, a sub-genre that reconstituted American masculinity severely wounded by the Vietnam War with Reaganite assertion and nationalism. Indeed, the presidency […]
Western
Kill Them All and Come Back Alone (1968): The Dirty Half-Dozen of the Spaghetti Western (Review)
Released to Blu-ray on Studio Canal’s Cult Classics label comes a rip-roaring Spaghetti Western from 1968, Enzo G. Castellari’s wonderfully titled Kill Them All and Come Back Alone starring Chuck Connors, the rangy former basketball and baseball player and star of popular Western TV serials The Rifleman and Branded and […]
Dead Man (1995) A wholly unique surrealist Western (Review)
For an extended period of time, the Western was the United States’ most beloved genre of film. Despite its popularity briefly dying as film transitioned between silent films and talkies, it was kicked back into the spotlight with John Ford’s Stagecoach; from that point onwards many directors such as Ford, […]
A Time for Dying (1969) Audie Murphy’s Last Stand (Review)
Mad Dog Morgan (1976) A nonchalantly average & confused Australian Western (Review)
Joe Strummer, The Pogues: Straight to Hell – Pop Screen Episode 47
Johnny Guitar (1954) Oh, Vienna! (Review)
To the unconverted, Westerns are a predictable genre in which the same archetypal characters, settings and situations recur over and over again. To fans, Westerns are a fabulously varied genre in which the same archetypal characters, settings and situations can be combined in an infinite number of original variations. Think, […]
Vengeance Trails (1966-70) Four Classic Westerns (Review)
Straight Shooting (1917) and Hell Bent (1918): John Ford quietly establishes the Western’s essentials (review)
The history of silent cinema is famously patchy, and it’s not surprising when you look at how these films were churned out. Straight Shooting, the first film in Eureka Masters of Cinema’s double-bill of silent-era John Ford films, is the earliest surviving film from the future director of The Searchers. […]