Top 12 TV Westerns

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-top-12-tv-westerns-of-all-time-a7379346.html

Stagecoach: The Texas Jack Story - trailer

In a Valley of Violence - trailer

Stalin vs John Wayne

That time Stalin tried to have John Wayne Killed

http://trib.al/smhkjPY

Larry McMurtry vs. Cormac McCarthy

"As codified by Texas literary giants like Walter Prescott Webb and T. R. Fehrenbach, our quasi-religious history has often resembled historical fiction—a triumphalist mythology that a generation of “revisionist” (i.e., factual) historians has largely failed to budge from our collective psyche. Instead, ironically, the task of debunking all those popular misconceptions has fallen to contemporary Western novelists. Historical revisionism, it seems, wears better in cowboy boots; over the past three decades, the nihilistic anti-heroism of McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (1985) has evolved into Meyer’s more complex but no less morally desolate frontier, where everyone is either a victim or a thief. While the new offerings by Wittliff, McMurtry, and Guinn are considerably less apocalyptic in tone than McCarthy’s and Meyer’s books, they similarly challenge old-school readers with timely meditations on racism, sexism, and even economic inequality. "

Five Sundowns episode of Bonanza

Watched two Bonanza episodes recently. I remember my old man watching reruns of Bonanza when I was a kid but I haven’t really watched the show as an adult. The two episodes we watched were “Hound Dog” and “Five Sundowns to Sunup”. Bonanza was a show that offered different types of episodes ranging from the comedic to the suspenseful and dramatic.  “Hound Dog” was the former and “Five Sundowns” was the latter.

“Hound Dogs” doesn’t really hold up well but “Five Sundowns”, directed by veteran director Gerd Oswald, holds up really well.

It opens with a man sitting on the roof of a building, holding a shotgun, keeping a watchful eye over the town. It’s clear something just happened and we’ll find out what in short time. The sheriff has been shot, Ben Cartright steps up to wear the badge. Before long the battle lines are drawn and both sides are heading for a reckoning.  There is a definite Rio Bravo influence. It is a great western story condensed to a shorter time frame. The plan that the bad guys hatch is simple and effective. The stakes are effectively raised. The only downside is that the resolution is a little forced for such a dark set up but that is due to this being a series rather then a film and as such a couple of potentially dark avenues aren’t really explored.

The episode is available to watch on Youtube. I suggest checking it out.