In Contention

Tag: westerns

  • ‘Blackthorn’ trailer

    Things were looking up for the western after “True Grit” pulled in solid bank last year. But after “Cowboys & Aliens” took a massive dump at the box office this summer, well…I’m trying to keep the faith. We have a few projects on the way, others still percolating. One of them is Mateo Gil’s “Blackthorn,” featuring Sam Shepard as Butch Cassidy and proceeding from the premise that the famed outlaw made it out of Bolivia alive. The trailer was released today via Apple. Check it out by clicking the image below, or watch an embed after the jump.

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  • INTERVIEW: Talking westerns and only westerns with ‘True Grit’ actor Jeff Bridges

    Last year was the best opportunity to do the career retrospective thing with Jeff Bridges, right at the starting gun of an Oscar-winning steamroll through the film awards season. This time around, the actor is nominated for his sixth Academy Award, for his work in the Coen brothers’ “True Grit,” and it seemed a conversation about westerns might be novel.

    So a little over a year after that hefty interview and roughly 10 months after he paid homage to his parents on the stage of the Kodak Theatre, we got together at the same restaurant to talk up the genre that sparks some of his earliest memories of the film business.

    “I was always thrilled when my dad would be doing a western,” he says, “because I knew he’d be coming through that door after work, all dressed up like a cowboy. And I’d get to put all his stuff on and I’d be smelling the horses on his clothes, all of that stuff.”

    Indeed, the actor remembers going to set and cracking up at the sight of actors sitting atop ladders and acting as if they were on horses for the camera, the veil of filmmaking totally lifted. But he also recalls an instance when his older brother and fellow actor, Beau, disrupted a take during the filming of “High Noon,” which starred their father, Lloyd Bridges.

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘True Grit’ writers, producers and directors Joel and Ethan Coen

    Directors Joel and Ethan Coen have evolved into the quintessential American filmmakers of our time since charging onto the indie scene over 25 years ago. It was a trajectory hinted at in early depictions of Prohibition-era gangsterism (“Miller’s Crossing”), post-war Capitalism (“The Hudsucker Proxy”), Midwestern slice-of-life peculiarity (“Fargo”) and epic folk land adventurism (“O Brother, Where Art Thou?”), but it was a trademark that snapped into clarity in 2007 with their thematically potent examination of a country at a crossroads, “No Country for Old Men.”

    It seemed only a matter of time before they turned their attention to the quintessential American genre: the western.  But the word “western” didn’t really figure into their thinking when they set about re-adapting Charles Portis’s novel “True Grit” for the big screen.

    “To us, in a weird way, if you were going to put it into a genre, it was just a young adventure story,” Joel says. “It takes place in America in Oklahoma in 1878, so yeah, it’s a western, but the other thing almost kind of preceded it in our thinking. So I guess it wasn’t consciously approaching it as a ‘western’ in quotation marks. It’s an adventure story with the trappings of the old west.”

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  • 12/15 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Nudie ‘TRON,’ the Scotts eye westerns, Dorff talks Coppola’s ‘Somewhere’

    • Behind the scenes of “How Do You Know.” [Making Of]

    • Anne Thompson talks to “The Company Men” director John Wells. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • The western shows further signs of life under Ridley Scott and Scott Cooper’s helm. [Deadline]

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  • The Coens’ no-frills ‘True Grit’ hearkens to western heyday

    I’ve seen the Coen brothers’ “True Grit” twice now, and it’s not because the film is some “Inception”-like, mind-bending narrative maze. Quite the opposite, actually. I saddled up to it a second time yesterday morning because I wasn’t quite anticipating what I got the first time around and I wanted to consider it further knowing what it was.

    You see, this isn’t really “a Coen brothers film” to me. Outside of an opening act bathed in their usual trappings, the film feels almost anonymous, lacking the fingerprint stirringly present in each and every one of their efforts. And it’s all very much by design, by the way.

    “True Grit,” in its second screen iteration, is a classic western cut from traditional cloth. With its wide vistas, simple narrative and focus on character dynamics (as well as a handful of unrefined horse-back riding effects shots), it’s fair to say it bears more of a resemblance to the work of Anthony Mann, John Ford and Budd Boetticher than it does that of the Coens. The film isn’t focused on being as tight and complete as most of their films, and indeed, inchoate was very much a goal here.

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  • ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ teaser poster

    I have to say, the highlight of Comic-Con this year, for me, was Universal’s “Cowboys & Aliens” panel featuring a 10 minute reel of surprise footage that was enough to have me waiting with bated breath for Jon Favreau’s comic adaptation.  Today, Yahoo! Movies has debuted the teaser poster from the film.  There’s also a countdown clock indicating that the trailer will hit in two days.  I’m totally on board.  Check out the full image after the jump.

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  • Damon finds inspiration in Tommy Lee Jones for ‘True Grit’

    It seems like I’m desperate for any morsel on the Coen brothers’ upcoming “True Grit.” If you haven’t guessed by now, it’s the film I’m most looking forward to this season, and every time that trailer drops before a film, I perk up immediately.  I’m in the tank and I haven’t even seen it.

    I guess everyone involved is getting their patter down, because after a quick EW video interview with child star Hailee Steinfeld yesterday, I stumbled across this interview with Matt Damon from Empire.  It’s actually just a snippet of the exchange.  There’s more in the full issue, which hits stands tomorrow (the cover featuring that first glimpse of Steve Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” that has so many all worked up).

    Damon was asked about the role of Texas Ranger LaBeouf, who looks to offer some comedic balance to the dark retribution and vengeance-seeking air of the film.  And the actor says he looked to a fellow actor for inspiration.

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  • CINEJABBER: Drifting along in the same stale shoes

    Catch up with the idea behind these weekend posts here.

    And speaking of the weekend, thank God it’s here.  That’s all I can say.  I’m still pushing through Peter Weir’s catalogue.  Next up: “Dead Poets Society,” which I probably haven’t watched since I owned the VHS.  But more and more, I’m finding that “The Way Back” is more reflective of his early work, and it perhaps has the most in common with “Gallipoli.”

    After that I’m thinking about re-visiting Kurosawa’s work.  Much of the early stuff I’ve never seen, actually, and it’ll be a nice reprieve from Oscar madness during the season.  Boy is that absolutely necessary.

    But I also need to hunker down and finish reading Charles Portis’s “True Grit.” I’m hoping to do something special list-wise around the release of the Coens’ new adaptation and as much as I loathe the first film, I never sat down and read the novel until recently.  It’s a real charmer and easy to see why the Coens were drawn to it’s no-nonsense prose.

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  • EXCLUSIVE: ‘True Grit’ teaser poster

    A mesmerizing teaser trailer for the Coen brothers’ “True Grit” hit the web Monday, ratcheting up the anticipation further. Today Paramount has offered us an exclusive first look at the teaser poster for the film, a striking, minimalist, wanted poster-esque assemblage that looks like it would make a handsome book cover.  There will be a secondary poster down the line that I imagine will be more traditional.  Have a look at the full image after the jump.

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  • TELLURIDE: Claudia under the stars

    It’s one of the joys of Telluride, the spirit of communal film-going evident in the outdoor screen set up each and every year in the middle of town.  Tonight, I’m heading back to the room, quite drunk and full after a meal with colleagues, and suddenly: the unmistakable wail of a harmonica.

    There is no way I’m going to hear the sounds of Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West,” to me one of the two best films ever made, and not stop to soak it in.  And under the stars?  In the crisp Colorado air?  Sold.

    Unfortunately, it was the end of the film.  I had no idea that was the choice for tonight’s introductory screening (which dovetails with the Claudia Cardinale tribute scheduled during the fest), but I stopped, grabbed a spot on the grass with the rest of the viewers and watched Harmonica exact his revenge with a big smile on my face.

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  • We all got it comin’

    What was the last truly immortal Best Picture winner?  Cases can be made for this or that throughout the years, but for my money, the last film to win the Academy’s top prize that is absolutely a film for the ages was Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven.”

    And you can get the Blu-ray on Amazon for less than eight bucks.  Do it!

    Anyway, nothing other than that on a lazy Sunday.  Though it inspired me to dig up Eastwood’s acceptance speech for his Best Director win back in March of 1993.  Naturally, the Academy is stingy with embeds, but have a look and listen here if you’re bored.

    Oh, and here is Eastwood introducing the film at the AFI’s 40th anniversary celebration a few years ago.  And Gene Hackman winning Best Supporting Actor.  And Eastwood on Hackman’s character, Little Bill Daggett.

    Sorry, I could go on forever about this one.  After the jump, a few choice selections.

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  • First still from ‘True Grit’ and a plea on the western’s behalf

    A few weeks ago I was having coffee with a director, a recent awards season success story who shall remain nameless, who told me in meeting after meeting with acting talent, it seems one thing is consistent: actors want to make westerns.  The obvious catch?  Studios don’t.

    It’s hardly new news that Hollywood brass shies away from period budget, low-yield filmmaking.  It’s partly the reason the genre all but completely died out, that and a failure of western filmmakers to shift with changing socio-political climates and see the genre as one of flux, not stagnated morals and Americana.  But given tax incentives in neighboring states and any number of ghost towns ready and willing to play host to Hollywood crews, the number-crunchers have stayed away.

    It says a lot that a masterpiece of the medium (decade’s best “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”) was left to fight alone at a time when it needed help the most, while second and third string comic book franchises are greenlit daily.  To me, the fiscal bottom line on westerns has become more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than anything else.  Granted, the public isn’t showing up, but a little shove couldn’t hurt.

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  • COMIC-CON: Universal brings ‘Paul’ and ‘Cowboys & Aliens,’ oh my

    With its “Scott Pilgrim” presence already dominating the scene here at Comic-Con, Universal publicity didn’t need to do much else to be top of the nerd mountain this weekend. Then they went and blew the roof off.

    The studio first offered up a sizzle reel for Greg Mottola’s sci-fi comedy “Paul,” which went over well with its tip of the hat to the Con (early scenes show a recreated convention). The director and most of the cast were here to discuss the road trip movie with a twist, but that was just an hors d’oeuvre.

    The roof-blowing was owed completely to Harrison Ford’s first-ever appearance at the convention. It was a geek’s wet dream as Han Solo/Indiana Jones took to the stage at Hall H in handcuffs (which we all thought was making light of an earlier incident where a stabbing occurred in the hall, but was actually a pre-planned gag, as in Favreau had to drag Ford to the convention in shackles). Ford was there to help promote Jon Favreau’s “Cowboys & Aliens,” which had a surprisingly robust presence during the presentation.

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  • Do the Coens have their eyes set on a singing cowboy?

    singing cowboyA few hours ago I sat down with T Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham to talk about the songs from “Crazy Heart.” I’ll be cooking up that piece as the introductory installment of our Tech Support interview series with below-the-line and craft personnel tomorrow, but Burnett mentioned something that totally caught my attention about a potential Coen brothers film..

    Of course, the Coens have had a number of projects stall out over the years, or more to the point, they’ve managed to leave some things on the back burner.  Everyone is still waiting for stuff like “To the White Sea” and “Hail Caesar,” after all.  But Burnett told me that it was actually the Coens who told him about Ryan Bingham, the singer/co-writer of “The Weary Kind,” who they were exposed to while filming “No Country for Old Men” in Marfa, Texas a few years back.

    “One of the things they have on the horizon includes a singing cowboy and they were thinking Ryan Bingham would be good,” Burnett said.

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  • Ang Lee re-cutting ‘Ride with the Devil’

    (from left) Skeet Ulrich, Jewel Kilcher and Tobey Maguire in Ride with the DevilGuy briefly mentioned this in Friday’s round-up, but I thought I’d address it more fully here.

    I kind of feel like I owe it to myself and to Ang Lee to give his forthcoming re-edit of “Ride with the Devil” a look.  This is, of course, despite a severe personal disinterest that settled in when I first saw the film 10 years ago.  But as a fan of the western genre, it seems only right to see what Lee originally had in mind.

    I wasn’t aware, as Anne Thompson discusses in a recent piece, that the film represents the only project Lee ever edited away from his vision at a studio’s request.  It doesn’t sound significant, but apparently the 11 minutes Lee trimmed (from an original 146-minute running time) were significant enough that Focus Features honcho (and frequent Lee collaborator) James Schamus has decided to dipped into the Focus-owned Polygram library to restore Lee’s version of the film.

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  • Why not remake ‘Gunsmoke’ as a TV series instead?

    GunsmokeIt’s become gospel that there is no shortage of cribbed thinking and conservative rehashing going on in Hollywood these days.  And now it seems the trend is stretching into the slightly revitalized western genre with CBS Films’ development of a feature film based on the old “Gunsmoke” television series.

    The film recently landed writer Gregory Poirier (he of “Rosewood” and “National Treasure: Book of Secrets”), but as I read through Boris Kit and Stephen Zeitchik’s Risky Biz Blog story at The Hollywood Reporter, I kept wondering why Hollywood doesn’t take the next step here and just revamp the property as a full-blown series once again.

    “Gunsmoke” was filmed at the Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio up in Newhall, right outside of Santa Clarita.  I’ve been there a couple of times and the Veluzat brothers, Renaud and Andre, who own the property, are stand-up guys who get a lot of business out of their old town set.  But not many westerns are going through there anymore, beyond the occasional Hallmark Channel entry.  The last time things were booming was back in the “Deadwood” days.

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  • ‘Jonah Hex’ poster

    I Tweeted a far-away shot of the new “Jonah Hex” poster from the exhibition hall yesterday, but luckily there’s a better image floating around the net now.  I kind of dig it:

    Jonah Hex

  • 1976: the last hurrah of the American western

    Jack Nicholson in The Missouri BreaksThe western was not yet dead in 1976 when  four high-profile installments were released to varying degrees of success. Four years later, of course, Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate” would kill the genre for several years (and United Artists for longer), and though it has seen ups and downs in the years since, for the most part, the western remains one of the least popular genres with studios.

    In my opinion, Cimino’s film was never as bad as the critics said it was at the time.  Many of them were lying in wait for a Cimino failure, hoping to ambush him for the lies told during the press interviews for ‘The Deer Hunter,” which won the man an Oscar and was the Academy’s choice for Best Picture. He was not a Vietnam veteran, he had never seen Russian Roulette used as torture, in fact he had never been out of America until he made the “The Deer Hunter.”  This all but ruined Cimino’s reputation, which is somewhat sad because the man had a hell of an eye for detail.

    That of course was the issue with “Heaven’s Gate”; though stunning in its detail, the film is insufferably slow and ponderous, with perhaps two truly stunning sequences, the best among them the community roller skating sequence, which pulsates with energy driven by a young man, the film’s composer David Mansfield and his fiddle, as they skate around the rink, veering in and out of surrounding bodies.

    There was a time in the 1950s and 1960s when 20% of the films coming out of Hollywood were westerns. There were 26 prime time western programs on television, all popular, and John Wayne ruled as the top box office star. By the 1970s, westerns were made less frequently, and Wayne’s box office throne had been usurped by another star of the genre: Clint Eastwood.

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