Budd Boetticher, Randolph Scott, and the remarkable Ranown Cycle of Westerns. "Boetticher is one of the most fascinating unrecognized talents in the American cinema...Constructed partly as allegorical Odysseys and partly as floating poker games where every character took turns at bluffing about his hand until the final showdown, Boetticher's Westerns expressed a weary serenity and moral certitude that was contrary to the more neurotic approaches of other directors on this neglected level of the cinema." - Andrew Sarris. Hero to the French New wave and early subject of Cahiers du Cinema auteur theory, Boetticher's films are true treasures of American cinema. Martin Scorsese on Ride Lonesome and The Tall T: Clint Eastwood on Comanche Station: Taylor Hackford on Buchanan Rides Alone and Decision at Sundown. [more inside]
posted by vronsky on Nov 27, 2009 - 10 comments

Chicago based designer & music fan J Tyler took it upon himself to craft a music video for The Arcade Fire song "My Body Is A Cage" using clips from the classic Sergio Leone film Once Upon A Time in the West. The clips evoke the elegaic, reflectively somber beauty in the song remarkably well - so well that the video reached the attention of someone in the Arcade Fire's camp, who emailed Tyler and requested his permission to post his work on their official site. If you have the bandwidth, I highly recommend this direct download link to a high-res quicktime version, it's much, much better than streaming flash.
posted by jonson on May 20, 2007 - 72 comments

Without doing any work of your own, now you can make a movie about a few conspiracies to murder the exiled premier of Nigeria. Was it the cowboy, the wizard, or the well-endowed humanoid animal creature in the corner? Or was it an entirely different story altogether?
posted by Subcommandante Cheese on Dec 6, 2006 - 4 comments

A Dozen Eccentric Westerns, Ten Neglected Science Fiction Movies, and Ten Overlooked Noirs selected by Jonathan Rosenbaum. A follow-up to an earlier post on offbeat musicals.
posted by jonp72 on Sep 8, 2006 - 56 comments

A Fistful of Westerns.
posted by srboisvert on Nov 3, 2004 - 6 comments

Do you know this scream? Originally labeled in studio reels in 1951 as Man Being Eaten by Alligator, the sound effect now known as the Wilhelm has turned up in dozens of films; sound designers have made a game out of sneaking it past the director's notice. This NPR feature (includes link to RealAudio file) tells much of the story of the Wilhelm Scream. Or you could just watch the best of Wilhelm, compliled in this (27MB) video compilation (read the making-of here). (By the way -- an orc in The Two Towers lets out a Wilhelm as he falls to his death.)
posted by argybarg on Jan 3, 2003 - 45 comments

What a great TV night! The Wild Bunch on Encore followed by The Searchers on AMC. I have a sixer of Guiness and a sixer of PBR in the fridge, so before tonight is out, I'm sure I'll have an urge to put on a cowboy hat, mount up and shoot me some varmints. All kidding aside, some nights the TV gods just seem to smiling down on me.
posted by jonmc on Dec 12, 2001 - 44 comments