the alamo

For those who consider the Western as an art form there will always be debate on which films should be counted among the greatest in the genre: down to personal taste and protracted argument would be 3.10 To Yuma (1957, Van Heflin vs Glenn Ford in a story by Elmore Leonard); Posse ('75 Kirk Douglas vs Bruce Dern); The Gunfighter ('50, Gregory...
> culturalelsewhere/2784/the-missing-a-film-by-ron-howard/

The reputation of the epic Western has been somewhat tarnished in recent years, but the tradition of outsiders and the lawless world they inhabited is an honourable one. However, by the mid-Sixties, with the rise of the anti-hero and a more gritty kind of cinema, it took the Italian director Sergio Leone to re-invent the tired...
> culturalelsewhere/2687/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-the-directors-cut-dvd-the-horse-opera-of-death/

The early years of the 21st century saw a revival of gritty, realistic and unglamorous westerns with morally ambivalent characters. Clint Eastwood (of course) had set the tone in the early Nineties with Unforgiven; Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall resurrected the genre to great critical if not commercial success in 2004 with Open...
> culturalelsewhere/2691/the-bravados-and-bandolero-dvd-westerns-of-the-outlaw-kind/

Recently the Kevin Costner movie Dragonfly from 2002 turned up on television. You'd probably never heard of it. I hadn't. It's hard to believe that after Dances with Wolves of 1990 and the inexplicably popular The Bodyguard of just two years later that it could all go downhill so fast for Costner. Just three years after getting...
> culturalelsewhere/2686/open-range-and-the-alamo-dvd-the-return-of-the-real-westerns/

PART ONE: LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO AMERICA My fans are troubling me in America. You expect it in the Monte Vista Hotel in Flagstaff, however. This character-filled landmark within whistle-blow of the Santa Fe rail line and just off Route 66 has hosted any number of famous characters, living and dead. From Zane Grey and Humphrey...
> travelstories/273/america-driving-across-the-country-april-may-2004/

In the city of Los Angeles -- which is 19th-century Spanish for "the land where men walk on four wheels" -- it sometimes seems that only the socially disenfranchised take the bus. That's not entirely true, of course. Every day any number of good honest folk ride the MTA -- but so, too, do veterans of the alcohol wars, strange men...
> travelstories/272/la-by-bus-carless-in-car-town/

Drive through America's southern states tuned to country music radio stations and you'll hear it; Letters from Home by John Michael Montgomery. It's real catchy, was still in the top 20 of the country charts after six months, and you can guess what it's about. But in case you miss the sentimental message the video is even more literal:...
> travelstories/270/austin-texas-2004-deep-in-the-arse-of-texas/

Norbert shuts off the small outboard and pulls the propeller out of the brackish water. He loosens the weeds which have fouled it and tosses them away. We sit in the silent stillness of Lake Martin beneath cypress trees and Tupelo gums, some of which are 300 years old. They have their roots in soil more than a metre below the still surface....
> travelstories/268/breaux-bridge-louisiana-in-cajun-country/