“Ain’t no one gonna tango with the Rango” Director Gore Verbinski knows star Johnny Depp’s penchant for fast-talk rambling only too well. After helming the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, he decided to take an odd turn into animation with the PG-rated Rango, taking his lead with him for the journey. Using a quasi-motion [...]

“A saucy line will not get you very far with me” The Coen Brothers have been on such a roll the past four years. While they’ve gone serious for the most part, the trademark wit has not disappeared from the dramatic entries to their oeuvre. Still able to hit the funny bone full bore—see Burn [...]

“He said that if the Devil came at me, I could shoot him with a gun” A character at the end of Terrence Malick’s debut feature film Badlands tells antihero Kit that he is “quite the individual”. That could be the understatement of 1973. Based on the 1950s Starkweather-Fugate killing spree, the film tells the [...]

“Tell ‘em I’m gonna be a farmer” Back in 2007, the film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford made my initial top ten list with its spectacle and grandeur. It was my introduction into the myth and legend of James as well as Ford, a name I was not familiar with [...]

“I have no honor but my promise” I shied away from Billy Bob Thornton’s All the Pretty Horses because the Weinsteins had billed it as a romance and all I had read said it was terrible. Now, almost a decade since its release, and the addition of two stellar films based on Cormac McCarthy novels, [...]

“For a gunman, you’re one hell of a pessimist” Director George Roy Hill had a little success when working with Paul Newman: two Best Picture and Best Director nominees with classics The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid along with a cult classic in the hockey comedy Slap Shot. The Sting is one [...]

“Everything eats meat likes a dead buffalo” It kind of flew under the radar, but Ed Harris’ film Appaloosa is a pretty solid western. As only his second foray behind the camera, after the good art biography Pollock, Harris has upped the stakes a bit in terms of scope and execution. Sure an old time [...]

“Watch those false notes” Never having watched many Westerns, I just know from what I have heard, that they are chock full of anti-heroes. Men who live conflicted lives and, while they may do the right thing, probably only help others when it ultimately serves their own purposes. These aren’t businessmen, but just plain men [...]

“Recapitulating the act of betrayal” The man, the myth, the legend, and the movie title. In what could be my favorite film name of all-time, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is much more than its superfluous moniker. From its bloated runtime to its slow, methodical pace, Andrew Dominik’s epic tale [...]