High Noon - Movie Review

Until recently, I thought all Westerns consisted of a simple, boring formula - a man, a gun, a frontier. I was wrong. All Westerns do consist of a simple formula - a man, a gun, a frontier - but it's far from boring. Like the murder mystery (a genre of which I am a devotee), the formula has been buffed and polished till it nearly loses its originality, but given the clearly defined parameters, it can be spun into infinite varieties.

For instance, you have The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance which is a Western - but with ideas and a cameo from George Bailey. You have The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which is a Western - but with black humor, eccentric music, and an edgy moral ambiguity setting it apart from the more stolid John Wayne fare. You have The Man From Snowy River which is a Western - but in Australia. You have Life on Mars which is a Western - but in 1980s Manchester. The formula is effective, but far more flexible than I imagined.

Episode 9: In This World, There's Two Kinds of People...

...those with loaded guns, and those who dig.

Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's Dollar Trilogy. Are Westerns a libertarian fantasy? What is the modern concept of manhood? How should the West deal with the Copenhagen shooting and radical Islam? Who's Canon Andrew White? All this and more in the ninth episode of The Pilgrim's Podcast.

True Grit (2010) - Movie Review

In 2010, the Coen Brothers (infamous for such bizarre epics as O Brother Where Art Thou) released True Grit, a remake of a John Wayne movie. What happened next took everyone by surprise: It was a hit. In fact, it pretty much dethroned the original, with its extraordinary blend of moral clarity, black humor, and phenomenal acting.

I have two primary comments.

One, I never knew that Leaning on the Everlasting Arms was such an excellent Western theme song. It should have been obvious.

Two, it’s a crime that Hailee Steinfeld’s name was not on the front of the case. A crime. Only seldom (I think of Christian Bale and Q’orianka Kilcher) have I seen such impressive child acting.

On that note, it’s really Steinfeld (then fourteen), as Mattie Ross, who carries the movie, despite the presence of big names like Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and Josh Brolin.