Westerns - Page 21

Manufacturer: Lions Gate Brand: Lions Gate Color: color

An English aristocrat hires Billy the Kid and five other outcasts to guard his New Mexico ranch. Part of what was touted as a late-1980s revival of Westerns (and you can see how long that lasted), this good-looking, empty-brained film was like a spurs-and-chaps version of a Joel Schumacher movie, filled with pretty faces, prettier imagery, and absolutely no new ideas. The idiotically grinning Emilio Estevez is cast as Billy the Kid, who slowly accumulates a gang of Brat Pack buddies (Lou Diamond Phillips, Kiefer Sutherland, Dermot Mulroney) and fashions them into a group of male models with six-guns. The action is confused and the script is trite, though Terence Stamp is intriguing as the old reprobate who helps the gang get its act together. Followed by an even worse sequel. --Marshall Fine

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Brand: WEA Model: 24250

Kung Fu: The Complete First Season (DVD)He is a man of peace in a violent land. David Carradine stars as Kwai Chang Caine, schooled in the spirit-mind-body ways of the Shaolin priesthood by the blind, avuncular Master Po and the stern yet loving Master Kan. Caine speaks softly, but hits hard. He lives humbly, yet knows great contentment. He is the Old West's most unusual hero. But hero is not a word Caine would use. He would simply say, "I am a man." He has no gun, no horse… and no equal. Many miles stretch before him. And many lives will be touched by him. Don't miss all the excitement of Caine's adventures in this Emmy®-winning mystical series that became a global phenomenon and brought martial arts to the masses, popularizing the genre that's alive and kicking in today's hit films and video games.]]> Everybody 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 Keit...

Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Brand: MOVIE

The Oscar(r)-winning team of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer (2001, A Beautiful Mind, Best Director, BestPicture) present a riveting, spine-tingling thriller destined to become a classic! Academy Award(r)-nominee Cate Blanchett (1998, Elizabeth, Best Actress in a Leading Role) is Maggie, a young plainswoman raising her daughters in the desolate wilderness of New Mexico. When daughter Lily (Evan RachelWood, Thirteen) is snatched by a dark-hooded phantom with shape-shifting powers, Maggie's long-estranged father Oscar(r)-winner Tommy Lee Jones (1993, The Fugitive, Best Actor in a Supporting Role) appears suddenly, offering help. Though stunned by his return, Maggie knows she must swallow both hurtand pride if she is ever to see Lily again. Unaware of the frightening events that lurk in the distance, father and daughter set out to track down the fiend that took Lily. But lying in wait is horror so unspeakable it will change them forever!

Manufacturer: Turner Classic Movie Brand: WARNER STUDIOS Model: 5072335

TCM Greatest Classic Films: John Wayne Westerns (4FE) (DVD)THE SEARCHERS John Wayne plays an ex-Confederate soldier seeking his niece, captured by Comanches who massacred his family. He wont surrender to hunger, thirst, the elements or loneliness. And in his five-year search, he finds the unexpected: his own humanity. This 12th John Wayne/John Ford collaboration resulted in a universally acclaimed cinema landmark. FORT APACHE The soldiers at Fort Apache may disagree with the tactics of their glory-seeking new commander. But to a man, theyre duty-bound to obey even when it means almost certain disaster. John Wayne, Henry Fonda and others familiar players from director John Fords "stock company" saddle up for the first film in the directors famed cavalry trilogy. RIO BRAVO On one side is an army of gunmen dead-set on springing a murderous cohort from jail. On the other is a sheriff (John Wayne), two deputies (Dean Martin and Walter Brennan), an unseasoned, trigger-happy youth (Ricky Nelson) and a woman with a past (Angie Dickinson). Howard Hawks directs one of the genres greatest and most influential works. THE COWBOYS John Wayne had one of his richest late-career roles as a leather-tough rancher who, deserted by his regular help, hires 11 greenhorn schoolboys for a cattle drive across 400 treacherous miles. Roscoe Lee Browne, Colleen Dewhurst and Bruce Dern co-star.]]> The Cowboys Almost in spite of itself, The Cowboys has taken its place among John Wayne's most beloved films. It wasn't always that way: When it was released in January of 1972, the film was widely criticized for appearing to promote the notion that boys become men through violence. From a politically correct perspective, this apparent message is arguably deplorable (and some interpreted the film's young fighters as a reflection of young draftees into the Vietnam war), but there's no denying that The Cowboys remains as invigorating as it ever was, no matter how dubious its thematic implications. Based on a novel by William Dale Jennings, and adap...

Manufacturer: Paramount Brand: Paramount Model: 4946958

Marshall Matt Dillon is responsible for keeping the law and respectability in Dodge City in this western action-drama. Gunsmoke captured the courage, character and spirit of the Western Frontier. A TV series doesn't get a more auspicious launch than did Gunsmoke, the first episode of which, broadcast on Sept. 10, 1955, was introduced by none other than John Wayne ("Some of you may have seen me before"). In this historic prologue (included in this first-season round-up), Wayne hypes Gunsmoke as "honest, adult, and realistic." Of James Arness, starring as United States Marshal Matt Dillon, Wayne predicts, "He'll be a big star, so you might as well get used to him." Viewers did more than get used to him. "Mr. Dillon," as his sidekick Chester (Dennis Weaver) calls him, became a television icon who literally stood tall as a steadfast, incorruptible symbol of justice through two of America's most tumultuous decades. The Bravo network ranked him among TV's 50 greatest characters. Gunsmoke was television's longest running Western, and Arness's 20-year stint as Dillon would be matched only by Kelsey Grammer's Frasier Crane (and, by the way, Milburn Stone, who costarred with Arness as crusty, "vinegar face" Doc Adams). For those who grew up with Gunsmoke's full-hour color episodes, this first season will be something of a revelation. The show is in black and white, and, at a half-hour, lean and gritty. Not that Dodge City is Deadwood, by any means, but its reputation as "the Gomorrah of the plains," as Dillon notes in the first episode, is well earned. Most episodes begin with Dillon setting the stage, Dragnet-style, like a frontier Joe Friday. "A man will choose his gun quicker to make a point than he'll draw on his logic," he ruminates at one point. "That's where I come in." Gunsmoke has its share of shootouts and traditional Western action, but the best episodes are gripping psychological dramas. In "Reward for Matt," the embittered widow of a racist Dillon was forced to gun down puts a price on his head. In "The Kil...