Award-winning actor Robert Duvall has left his footprints all over the Wild West. Watch Lonesome Dove and you'll see an actor radiating dependability and timeworn wisdom! But the actor's early Western career narrates a different history... one of lawlessness, corruption, and murder! Say what you want about Duvall's Western career, but he can hardly be accused of playing the same character over and over again. Just take a look at this rap sheet...

Broken Trail (2006)
In this critically-beloved miniseries that comes courtesy of AMC (ahem), Duvall shrugs off the delinquency of his past to follow the cowboy code, and passes with flying colors. While he's ferrying a shipment of horses across the frontier, Duvall rescues five Chinese women being used as sex slaves. It seems like that the women don't take kindly to being referred to by numbers, but it's clear that Bobby's heart is in the right place.

Open Range (2003)
Duvall here plays "Boss" Spearman opposite Kevin Costner. He's a crusty old coot -- a type Duvall perfected in his late career -- who wants to preserve the frontier's open range. In a way, Duvall's old-timer reminds us of another late period performance: John Wayne's portrayal of Rooster Cogburn, Duvall's nemesis in True Grit. The similarities even extend to injuries. Duvall fractured his ribs during the filming, a feat that the Duke matched in a mishap during lensing of The Undefeated.

Continue reading "Beyond Broken Trail and Lonesome Dove - The Cowboy Career of Robert Duvall" »

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While a bottle of rye whiskey is the ubiquitous tonic in the Wild West, some cowpokes need their pick-me-ups a bit stronger. Traces of hard drug use were pretty scarce in Westerns before the late '60s, when filmmakers were still under the censorship controls of the Hayes Code. Of course, that's not to say that offenders don't pop up in Westerns from time to time, as they do in...

Don't Come Knocking (2005)
Playwright Sam Shepard wrote this neo-Western, and stars in it as a has-been Western actor with a collection of addictions and regrets. After fleeing a shoot in Monument Valley, he does what any on-the-outs cowpoke might do: Heads to the local saloon (casino) and hits the hard stuff (cocaine). Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "Line 'em up, barkeep" -- now doesn't it?

Continue reading "Smoke 'em Up, Cowboy! A User's Guide to Drugs in the Wild, Wild West" »

From his apprenticeship in B-movies to his transformation into an American icon, John Wayne's success at the movies seems pinned to the genre he helped create -- the Western. And while it's easy to think of Wayne as playing the same sauntering cowboy in every movie, there's actually an enormous amount of diversity in his work. "I don't act, I react," was a standard Duke quip. But there's more there than meets the eye. Look close at Wayne's best movies and you'll see layers as deep as the canyons of Monument Valley. 

10. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
Ten minutes in, there's all the familiar signposts of a John Ford flick: A romantic subplot, a foreshadowed battle, and some ethnic comic relief. (For an Irish-American, he sure made them the butt of a lot of jokes!) But what makes this movie truly special is John Wayne's elegiac performance as a retiring Calvary officer, closing the book on his days on the lonesome frontier. Striking a bittersweet note, Wayne comes off more authentic than the self-assured cowpokes he usually plays.

9. True Grit (1969)
The Duke's in an eye patch calling everyone "Pilgrim." For this, True Grit is much beloved among Wayne fans. And there's a lot to like in the actor's broad, Oscar-snatching performance as Rooster Cogburn, an archetype of irascibility -- a very good thing, since Kim Darby's nails-on-chalkboards performance as the young, precocious Mattie Ross is less appealing. Here's hoping Mattie's done more justice in the Coen brothers' upcoming adaptation (that's right!).

Continue reading "Bravo Rio Bravo - Top Ten Westerns Starring the Duke" »

From Robin Williams playing a psycho in One Hour Photo to Jim Carrey playing, well... a psycho in The Cable Guy, actors have always enjoyed upending expectations with their roles. Home Alone's Macaulay Culkin? Check (The Good Son). E.T. cutie-pie Drew Barrymore? Check (Poison Ivy). But those role reversals are particularly jarring in Westerns, where the line between good and bad is so firmly etched in the sand. Which good cowboys have most memorably gone bad?

Burt Lancaster in Vera Cruz (1954)
There are no out-and-out heroes in this darkly humorous tale of greed, and Burt Lancaster's unscrupulous mercenary doesn't come close. He's a wolfish lout who's a delight to watch on screen and a far cry from his Oscar-nominated role as Sgt. Milton Warden in From Here to Eternity. Making him seem more despicable still is that he plays opposite Gary Cooper, who is clearly the lesser of two evils. Critics were stunned -- not necessarily for the better -- and chances are, you will be too.

Henry Fonda in Fort Apache (1948)
When not filming movies, Henry Fonda was often flying kites with best friend Jimmy Stewart. (Seriously.) But that doesn't mean he hasn't played the villain: While his role as the evil man in Once Upon a Time in the West is flashier, his turn here as a lieutenant who leads his men to be slaughtered on the cross of his own ego deserves accolades -- it's delicious to see Fonda playing the arrogant fop.

Continue reading "That Dastardly Henry Fonda! When Good Cowboys Go Bad" »

Fans of Kristanna Loken, the gorgeous bisexual movie star who earned big points for sex appeal as the "Terminatrix" in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, might be wondering where she is these days. Her 2007 role as Paige on Showtime's The L Word was solid and satisfying, but fleeting. According to buzz, she is starring as a character named Hottessa in the upcoming National Lampoons Awesomest Maximus, but details on that movie are scarce. And Loken's other 2009 project, Darfur, rumored to be ready for release at the end of this year, is unlikely to yield much in the way of bikini time.

While we await her next opportunity to light up the big screen, let's have a look at Loken's role in T3, the title on which she cut her teeth to become an official hottie and landed her on the map (and on the computer desktops of college boys worldwide). Loken expertly stokes the fire of an enduring message, a fact that is as true now as it was in 2003: Sex sells. And sex not only sells; usually, it wins.

Continue reading "There's Something About Terminator 3's Kristanna Loken" »

Leading man Gregory Peck is probably best known for his role as crusading lawyer Atticus Finch in 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird. But like many actors coming of age in the 1940s, he also had a considerable career in Westerns. Interestingly enough, his frontier characters display not only the moral fortitude of his Mockingbird character, but are frequently those the jurist would lock up: Thieves, gamblers and killers. Read on for a round-up of Peck's greatest gunslinging hits.

10. Billy Two Hats (1974)
Those who anxiously awaited the pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Heat have nothing on cinema's greatest meeting of the minds -- Gregory Peck and I Love Lucy's Desi Arnaz. In this heist Western, the two team up for a robbery that goes awry and viewers can probably guess the rest of the plot themselves. Most interesting as a curiosity, Billy Two Hats boasts another odd claim to fame: Filmed in Israel, it has the honor of being a "Matzo Western."

9. Shoot Out (1971)
If there's one sub-genre most of us would like to die a slow death, it's the "guy-saddled-with-a-precocious-kid" movie (see Cop and a Half). Here, Peck plays an aging outlaw out to settle an old score. But his quest for revenge is hobbled when he's saddled with a cute 6-year-old. For actually making this cliched trope work somewhat, this one gets a nine.

Continue reading "Western Holiday - The Top Ten Greatest Gregory Peck Westerns" »

Like it or not, the end of summer looms, and it's just about time to shake the sand out of your beach blanket, wean yourself off the Coors Light, and get back to reality. September's the time of year for facing your fears -- of irresponsible credit card balances, of stagnant careers, of whatever worrisome issues you've been so expertly avoiding for the last three months. What you need now is some inspiration. A shot of Schadenfreude! And as legions of comic book nerds can attest, for lessons on fear conquering, there are few characters better to turn to than Bruce Wayne.

Continue reading "How a Shot of Bruce Wayne Could Help Calm Your End-of-Summer Jitters" »

The relentlessly publicized examination of Michael Jackson's death this summer is only the latest example of the world's ravenous fascination with forensic science -- particularly with the cold, antiseptic light it sheds on all the terrible ways to die. We are a country of rubberneckers, mesmerized by death and all the terrifying details that could potentially go along with it. For all our love of safe, clean, Will-Smith-saves-the-world fairy tales, we are also damn near obsessive about gritty police investigations. Alas, CSI, Law & Order, and all their unholy offspring are on hiatus, so what's a forensics junkie to do? Glad you asked.

If newly torturous ways to die, corpse mutilation, the stench of decay, and twisted killers strike your fancy, then please direct your attention to The Bone Collector, in which a fresh-faced Angelina Jolie stars opposite Denzel Washington in a police procedural that may not quite qualify as high art, but will satisfy all your forensic cravings nonetheless.

Continue reading "Jonesing for Mid-Summer Police Procedurals? There's Always The Bone Collector" »

As the Yankees once again rule the American League, it's nice to look back to a time when major pictures showed the Bronx Bombers getting routed and everyone in the audience cheered. If there is no other reason to watch this sometimes hackneyed 1989 movie, it's for the good old-fashioned dose of schadenfreude it offers those of us out there who hate the Yankees.

And the drubbing the Yanks get from a ragtag band of Cleveland Indians players here is particularly satisfying. The Indians' relief pitcher, played by Charlie Sheen, is an ex-con known as "Wild Thing" because he can throw a pitch 100 miles per hour, but has no aim whatsoever. The team's star hitter is a voodoo worshipping Cuban-born outfielder who thinks his bat is inhabited by the spirit of a god he calls "Jobo."

Continue reading "Major League Fans Know Hating the Yankees Is Not Just 1989" »