So, I've had a ponder about this. I sort of liked cowboy stuff when I was a kid, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The High Chaparral and so on. But I went off it. Even though I've enjoyed the occasional western film since then, Sergio Leone's stuff, Josey Wales, and others, when it comes to it, there's a voice that says "you don't want to watch cowboy shows". I "quite" enjoyed 1883, but not the high-profile sequel (historically) Yellowstone. The less said about the middle-sequel 1923 the better.
So I've decided to give myself a kick up the backside and stick Deadwood on Plex. See how it goes.
There's been quite a few great westerns (including modern-era westerns, if you count stuff like No Country for Old Men) released in the intervening years, along with the usual duds. Bone Tomahawk is pretty wild.
“A man with nicotine, protein, caffeine, and creatine coursing through his veins is an unstoppable force.”
> there's a voice that says "you don't want to watch cowboy shows".
Yeah, that's why it took me 20 years to watch this. I often enjoy cowboy things when I watch them, but I don't think I ever enjoy the setting itself. To enjoy that *setting* I'd want something like Little House on the Prairie, I think (I dunno, not seen it since I was like 12 but I remember enjoying the setting!)
But, and this will sound like wankery, but Deadwood isn't *really* a cowboy show. In the same way that Sopranos isn't a mafia thing as like Godfather or Goodfellas are. But more so, it's more not a cowboy show than Sopranos isn't a mafia show. It has some of the trappings like the saloon is a big deal and there's a [redacted] of [redacted] who're [redacted] and there's like literally one [redacted] but they're all used differently, and for different reasons.
It's a *little* bit a deconstruction of cowboy mythos and stuff. But it's much more just using that setting to talk about something.
If it helps, the writer initially wanted to make a show set in ancient Rome, following civic guards before Roman law was codified. But HBO wouldn't let him cos they were already making Rome. So he switched it to the old west.
Anyway, no need to convince you since you're onboard! You *shan't* regret it!
"the writer initially wanted to make a show set in ancient Rome"
If you ever feel you're missing something by not reading detective/whodunnit stuff, try the 'Falco' series by Lindsey Davis. Set in Rome during the rule of Vespasian.
It is as much a horror movie as a western, which by many contemporary accounts, the old west wasn't far from. So maybe a more accurate depiction, FWIW. Otherwise it's just a proverbial horse opera.
“A man with nicotine, protein, caffeine, and creatine coursing through his veins is an unstoppable force.”
Books sort-of-about cowboys to whatever degree that I have read and thought excellent but as yet not seen a movie or television adaptation of:
Lonesome Dove
Blood Meridian
All The Pretty Horses
Butcher's Crossing
Books etc and so on where I have also watched the thing:
True Grit, both movies are worth a look for different reasons. It's pretty standard cowpokin' though I guess, not exactly anything else to say.
Sisters Brothers as mentioned, it's pretty funny.
The Revenant: surviving bleak conditions for a long time.
Ones where it's just the movie or TV I have experienced in most cases even if there is a book:
Hateful 8: Quentin Does Cowboys and it's exactly what you'd anticipate.
Outer Range: Nice setup, waste of time execution, avoid this.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: Coen Brothers Do Cowboys (again) and it's exactly what you'd anticipate. Provided a handy "First time?" meme to the Internet.
3:10 to Yuma: Cowboys and Trains, just like they used to do, so standard action really.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: Can't really remember, but it is well-regarded so perhaps I will try again. I think Nick Cave has a cameo in it for some reason.
The Proposition: They have cowboys in Australia?! Nick Cave wrote this and did the soundtrack with Warren Ellis.
Tombstone: I have noticed people recently saying this was an overlooked gem and have intended to get around to watching it and finding out if they're right.
Then assorted Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner of course.
She churns them out, but they're fun. Historical detectives are really only a subset of a subset with Cadfael probably the best known. I do like Falco though. There's a brooding cynicism to him that gives the series a satisfying noir feel.
Yeah, about Yellowstone. I think you have to be able to at least sympathise a bit with the main characters. John Dutton III is just unlikeable. Packed to the gills with entitlement and casual brutality. But the main problem is he's boring. I don't give a fuck about his plans and intrigues. Probably doesn't help that I don't find Kevin Costner a very appealing character in real life.
I've watched the first season of Outer Range and *quite* enjoyed it. It never quite felt like they were entirely sure what their idea was but I enjoyed the intrigue and the performances.
Yeah that was how I felt, like it might ultimately get really good and yet never seemed to quite do it. But evidently it all got a lot worse in the next season and they were just making up the story as they went rather than having any idea where it should go.
Yes, it's definitely a horror film. It's unfortunate that the horror aspect is an invented native American tribe that specialises in nauseating cruelty such as mutilating women, blinding them and cutting off their limbs, cannibalism, various other awful practices. I agree that many of the white protaganists are as grimly repellant as the old west probably was.
Oh. You didn't like it. Probably the only movie I've seen where I reacted somewhat similarly was Kingsmen. I'd forgotten the gruesome and variously offensive readings of BT, I just remember a highly original overall treatment. We're in the middle of watching Woman Walks Alone, in which assorted atrocities are verbally described in some graphic detail, but not shown. It includes a sympathetic retelling of the wild west, from the natives' perspective, using an irritatingly flat and anachronistic delivery. Good intentions.
“A man with nicotine, protein, caffeine, and creatine coursing through his veins is an unstoppable force.”
Now that Milko has mentioned it I’ll say that Tombstone is one of my favourites.
If Young Guns is ‘80’s Hollywood’ then Tombstone is ‘90’s Hollywood’. I found it more enjoyable than Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp that came out the same year.
Other favourites are ‘Once Upon A Time in the West’ and ‘Pale Rider’.
Pale Rider is a Clint Eastwood film about gold panners going up against a mining company. Not too original and probably some nostalgia involved from watching it since I was a kid.
Horizon: An American Saga Part 1 I saw at the cinema and found it to enjoyable - if a little close to dragging at times. With it not doing well there’s a possibility Part 3 won’t happen (part 2 had been done before the 1st part was out).
