Rio Grande [Blu-ray]

Manufacturer: Image Entertainment Brand: FONDA,HENRY Model: 4963003

From Western legend Sergio Leone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) comes a rollicking shoot-'em-up! Young, ambitious gunman Nobody (They Call Me Trinity's Terence Hill) sets his eye on his idol, gunslinger Jack Beauregard (Once Upon a Time in the West's Henry Fonda), who's intent on sailing off into retirement. Deciding his hero should go out with guns blazing, Nobody sets him up for a showdown with a pack of the deadliest bad guys in the West, triggering an unforgettable finale that's become an action comedy legend! My Name is Nobody is a spoof of spaghetti Westerns, but it's also a legitimate, highly regarded entry in the genre. Its pedigree is purebred, as it was executive produced by the maestro of spaghetti Westerns, Sergio Leone, as a personal farewell to the genre that he helped to create. It's a transitional film, cheekily acknowledging the impact of The Wild Bunch and Sam Peckinpah (whose name is seen on a gravestone in one scene) and the popularity of Terence Hill, whose comedic "Trinity" films represented the last gasp of the once-glorious spaghetti Western. All of these elements are beautifully combined in the amusing tale of Nobody (Hill), an ambitious young gunman in 1899 who idolizes a legendary gunslinger Jack Beauregard, played by Henry Fonda in his final Western (and his second for Leone, after the classic Once Upon a Time in the West). Before Beauregard can retire in peace, Nobody sets up a final showdown of epic proportions, and the great Ennio Morricone en...

Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD) Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT Model: 4971255

A cattle baron fights with his foster son on the first cattle drive up the Chisholm Trail. Directed by Howard Hawks. Any short list of the all-time greatest Westerns is bound to include this 1948 Howard Hawks classic about an epic cattle drive. Red River features one of John Wayne's greatest performances. Like his Ethan Edwards in John Ford's 1956 masterpiece The Searchers, the Duke plays an isolated and unsympathetic man who is possessed by bitterness. Wayne is Texas rancher Tom Dunson, who adopts a young boy orphaned in an Indian massacre. That boy, Matthew Garth (played as an adult by Montgomery Clift in his screen debut), becomes Dunson's assistant and heir apparent--until Dunson's temper gets out of control during a long cattle drive and Matt intervenes to stop him. From that moment on, Dunson swears he will kill Matt. Red River has everything a great Western ought to have: a sweeping sense of history, spectacular landscapes, stampedes, gunfights, Indian attacks, and, of course, Walter Brennan as Dunson's crusty old cook and comic sidekick, Nadine Groot. As a special bonus, the film also features the legendary Harry Carey (upon whom Wayne would base some of his gestures in The Searchers) and his son Harry Carey Jr., who became a fixture in Ford and Hawks Westerns. Red River is essential for anyone who loves Westerns, or movies in general. This one's a real beaut. --Jim Emerson

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Brand: WHV Model: 085391165378

Kung Fu: The Complete Series Collection (DVD)David Carradine stars as a Buddhist monk and hunted man who wanders the American West in the 1870s fighting intolerance and injustice with his mastery of an ancient form of high combat known as Kung Fu.]]> Season OneEverybody was kung-fu fighting after the 1972 premiere of this mystic western starring David Carradine (snatching the role from Bruce Lee) in his signature, Emmy-nominated role as Caine, a stoic Shaolin monk forced to flee China after killing the royal family member who slew his Master. Our wandering hero roams the west in search of his long-lost brother, while eluding American and Imperial bounty hunters, and imparting his ancient wisdom on those he encounters and is compelled to aid. Kung-Fu was never a ratings force, but its cult status was assured long before Samuel L. Jackson referenced it in Pulp Fiction. Along with the inaugural 15 episodes, this three-disc set contains the feature-length pilot that establishes the series' iconography: the inscrutable aphorisms ("When you cease to strive to understand, then you will know without understanding"); the flashbacks to Caine's youth, where the orphaned half-American and half-Chinese boy served as disciple ("Grasshopper") to the Old Man; and, of course, the anticipated moments when the peaceful Caine, like Billy Jack, is reluctantly compelled by some frontier bigot to use his fighting skills. Look for appearances by father John Carradine and brothers Kei...

Manufacturer: Paramount Home Entertainment Brand: Paramount Model: 5524833

Manufacturer: Universal Studios Home Entertainment Brand: Universal

With the integrity and depth of an epic, Shenandoah tells the dramatic story of a man caught in a dilemma. James Stewart stars as a Virginia farmer during the Civil War. He refuses to support the Confederacy because he is opposed to slavery, yet he will not support the Union because he is deeply opposed to war. When his son is taken prisoner, Stewart goes to search for the boy. Seeing first-hand the horrors of war, he is at last forced to take his stand. Shenandoah, a film well-liked in its day, recalls Friendly Persuasion and foreshadows The Patriot as it tells of an American clan traumatized by war on native soil. Virginia farmer James Stewart has never owned slaves, owes allegiance to no one beyond his own kin, and adamantly disregards the North-South strife rumbling just over the hill: "This war is not mine and I take no note of it." That changes when youngest son Philip Alford (To Kill a Mockingbird's Jem) is carried off by Yankees, and the family must ride out to reclaim him. Shenandoah has several affecting moments--notably a homefront atrocity--but much of it is lit and played like a television show. Script and direction are formulaic, Stewart falls back on cozy shtick, and the supporting cast is a collection of bland studio contract players. As the closing credit says: "filmed entirely at Universal City." --Richard T. Jameson

Manufacturer: Paramount Brand: WAYNE,JOHN Model: 2237793 Color: Color

An aging Texas cattle man who has outlived his time swings into action when outlaws kidnap his grandson and wound his son. He returns to his estranged family to help them in the search for Little Jake.

Manufacturer: Paramount Brand: PARAMOUNT - UNI DIST CORP Model: 17735801 Color: color

An alleged 121-year-old white survivor of Custer's Last Stand recalls his checkered life and times. Directed by Arthur Penn.

Manufacturer: Paramount Brand: DUSTIN HOFFMAN Model: 4957011

Recounting how the West was won through the eyes of a white man raised as a Native American, Arthur Penn's 1970 adaptation of Thomas Berger's satirical novel was a comic yet stinging allegory about the bloody results of American imperialism. As a misguided 20th-century historian listens, 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) narrates the story of being the only white survivor of Custer's Last Stand. White orphan Crabb was adopted by the Cheyenne, renamed "Little Big Man," and raised in the ways of the "Human Beings" by paternal mentor Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George), accepting non-conformity and living peacefully with nature. Violently thrust into the white world, Jack meets a righteous preacher (Thayer David) and his wife (Faye Dunaway), tries to be a gunfighter under the tutelage of Wild Bill Hickock (Jeff Corey), and gets married. Returned to the Cheyenne by chance, Jack prefers life as a Human Being. The carnage wreaked by the white man in the Washita massacre and the lethal fallout from the egomania of General George A. Custer (Richard Mulligan) at Little Big Horn, however, show Crabb the horrific implications of Old Lodge Skins' sage observation, "There is an endless supply of White Men, but there has always been a limited number of Human Beings."

Manufacturer: Paramount Brand: PARAMOUNT - UNI DIST CORP Model: 097361451947 Color: color

An aging Texas cattle man who has outlived his time swings into action when outlaws kidnap his grandson and wound his son. He returns to his estranged family to help them in the search for Little Jake.