Westerns With Dad

I’ll just say it outright: After a two year battle with pancreatic cancer, my father has passed away. I don’t know what words can do it justice, but here’s quite a few anyway. I’ve recorded a final episode, the bulk of which is a conversation with my immediate family about my father’s legacy, and a lot of talk about what kind of man he was. I think it more or less speaks for itself, and I understand if it’s not something you want to listen to, but I do believe the episode itself is less depressing and more affirming than you might imagine. You’ll hear about the things Dad loved, the passions that drove his life, and true to the spirit of the podcast, a whole lot of digressions about nonsense and anecdotes about movies. We play a long car ride game. It’s been a difficult time, and I wanted to provide some closure for the show. Thank you all so much for listening, it has meant an enormous amount over the last two years. You guys are the best. I wish we could keep doing the show, but this how it goes. Here are some pictures of the man, and despite the sadness we feel right now, something I’d like to underline is how tremendously he lived, and what a good time he had doing it. He made a lot of other people’s lives better, and had a pretty damn good one himself. Thanks again for listening.  

On this episode, we’ll be discussing the new limited series on Netflix, Scott Frank’s Godless! The small mining town of LaBelle becomes the battleground for a conflict between two outlaws, one good, one very bad, and the population, mostly widows, find themselves in a war for their way of life. Real western stuff! Despite appearances to the contrary, this is much more of a straight-up western in the old tradition than you might expect, and on those terms, it succeeds quite well. Topics of conversation include the confused doctrine of madman villain Frank Griffin, the winning performances and puzzling script decisions throughout, Sheriff Bill McNue’s essential Bill Paxton-ness, the unfortunately scripted fate of the Buffalo Soldiers, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, friendly ghost Indians, pointless sexual violence, and the panoply of various characters coming in and out of LaBelle and its surroundings over the course of the show. In truth, this is such an epic show that we probably could have filled four hours, so this isn’t nearly as detailed as our usual episode, but the long and the short is that if you’re listening to this podcast, Godless is probably worth your time. It’s all just so handsomely appointed! Other topics of conversation include the upcoming Super Bowl and the surprisingly similar female Goodfellas riffs Molly’s Game and I, Tonya. You can find us online at westernswithdad.com, or on iTunes of course, where you could even leave ratings and reviews to increase the profile of the show, thus helping us! And please feel free to email us any questions or film recommendations at [email protected]! On the next episode, we’ll be talking about The Good, the Bad & the Ugly, completing our coverage of the Man With No Name trilogy! Godless was directed by Scott Frank and stars Jack O’Connell, Jeff Daniels, Michelle Dockery, Scoot McNairy and Merrit Wever.

Finally, an episode we’ve been looking towards since the start, one of the most beloved American Westerns and a film listed on the AFI’s list of Hundred Best Films: 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, featuring the classic pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the titular roles. An affable, seriocomic romp through the end of the legendary Old West, the film features two of the greatest movie stars in history defining and perfecting their screen personas. The film, a loose ramble about the adventures of two infamous bank robbers, features countless iconic scenes, a delightful oscar-winning screenplay with hilarious dialogue written by William Goldman and a contentious 60s-influenced score by Burt Bacharach, which despite its Oscar wins and fame, kind of rubs Dad the wrong way! Topics of conversation include Dad’s Robert Redford story, the historic pairing of these two actors (as well as alternative Sundances originally approached for the role), whether or not the film is a deconstruction, Hugh Jackman’s high level of charm and low level of good movies, the role of destiny and fate in the story, and of course the famous ending, as well as the conspiracy theory regarding Butch’s ultimate fate (and whether it even matters anymore). Great film, you should watch. We also talk a bit about Playoff Football and the Vince Vaughn film Brawl in Cell Block 99, written and directed by S Craig Zahler (of Bone Tomahawk fame). If you’d like to reach us online, please email us at [email protected], where you can ask questions or suggest episodes, and visit us at westernswithdad.com to download older episodes that have dropped off the iTunes feed. And speaking of iTunes, why not leave reviews or ratings of the show there, as it increases visibility! Alright! Next week, we’ll be talking about Netflix’s new limited series, Godless. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid stars Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Katherine Ross, and was directed by George Roy Hill.

Merry Christmas, everyone! On this special holiday episode of Westerns With Dad, we’re discussing the little-seen 1997 Canadian TV production, Ebenezer! Starring noted Western stars Jack Palance and Ricky Schroeder, it’s an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ oft-adapted classic, A Christmas Carol, reset in the Old West. Utterly inessential, clearly not intended for posterity, and fairly half-assed in every aspect of production, it works best as a clear demonstration of both Jack Palance’s dynamic charisma and the utter indestructibility of the Dickens story. This ends up being a bit of a love letter to both Palance (oh, so many impersonations), and to the original story and its myriad adaptations, many of which we reflect on. The general agreement is that the Alastair Sim version is the best. We detail the strange decisions and adaptation choices made in transposing this story to the Old West, covering such topics of conversation as the the hugely underwhelming ghosts, particularly the largely unremarked-on Native American Christmas Past, imagined head canon for Fred Scrooge’s arrival in the Canadian frontier, Palance reading EE Cummings, the strange, presumably-Canadian uniforms the constabulary wears, and a brief accounting of some of our favorite other Christmas films, with a digression on the current whereabouts of Christmas Vacation’s Randy Quaid, now a mythic folk hero. We also discuss the new Star Wars film, The Last Jedi, which we both liked quiet a bit. We’ll be back in January with the frequently requested 70s classic, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid! In the meantime, you can reach us online at westernswithdad.com, where you can download older episodes of the podcast that have dropped off iTunes (such as the Balance starring Shane and City Slickers). You can email us as well, at [email protected], where you can ask us questions of suggest future episodes, and speaking of iTunes, why not rate or review the show there to increase our search engine viability! As we have no presence on Twitter or Reddit, it’s the only means we have of promoting the show! Happy Holidays! Ebenezer was directed by Ken Jubenvill and stars Jack Palance and Ricky Schroeder, which is about it.

On this belated episode, we are talking about both versions of the Charlie Portis novel True Grit! The original, from 1969, is famously the film that won John Wayne his Oscar, and the 2010 remake from the Coen Brothers! Both are great, as it turns out, and surprisingly similar in a number of ways (largely owing to the use of Portis’ dialogue, we assume, having not read the original book). Both are largely esteemed classics of the genre, well worth your time, although they’re so beloved you’ve probably seen one or both already. Topics of conversation include a merciless comparison of each film’s lead performance (in which Dad discovers a new appreciation of Kim Darby), a few digressions on the Coens filmography, the popularity of Jeff Bridges’ performance as Rooster Cogburn and his attempts to reuse it in the following years, and a fair number of impersonations, of Bridges, Wayne, Robert Duvall, and Josh Brolin’s mush-mouthed villain Tom Chaney. Thanks for waiting for us on our late holiday schedule! We talk a little about current Western projects to keep an eye on, and other recent viewings (Dad’s umpteenth viewing of A Christmas Story, and my appreciation of Guillermo del Toro’s latest, a interspecies romance set during the Red Scare, The Shape of Water. In the next episode of Westerns With Dad, we’ll be talking about a barely known Canadian TV movie entitled Ebenezer, a Western-set Christmas Carol retelling starring Jack Palance! Who knows how that’ll go! True Grit 1969 stars John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell and Robert Duvall. True Grit 2010 stars Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin.

Jim Jarmusch’s utterly bizarre 1995 ‘Acid Western’ Dead Man is the subject of this episode, featuring Johnny Depp at his height as a tenderfoot traveling into the Frontier and also, potentially, the reincarnation of the poet William Blake. Shot in B&W and featuring a unique Neil Young soundtrack, Dead Man defies easy description and is a strong contender for strangest film we’ve covered on the show. And while I reveled in the unusual, avant-garde style and philosophical explorations, Dad found the whole thing remarkably interminable, a word that will come up more than a few times when describing the experience of watching it! Real split decision on this one. Topics of conversation include solipsism, the most likely interpretation of the film (involving a soul’s journey from life to death), the gorgeous desolation captured on film, the huge list of entertaining and confusing cameos the film boasts (Robert Mitchum! Crispin Glover! Iggy Pop!), the moments of shocking violence or striking dream imagery, Neil Young’s aggressively atonal and divisive score, the value of confrontational art, and the validity of Acid Western as a categorization. There’s also some good car horns in the background for you! Can’t be helped sometimes, my street’s a disaster lately. Letting you in on the behind the scenes drama a bit here, we had some internet issues while recording this, and one thing that got lost by the way side was Other Things We’ve Seen Lately! For the record, I saw the new Thor movie (funny!) and the new Justice League movie (boring!), and I assume Dad watched the Seahawks season kind of start slipping away. Come visit us online at westernswithdad.com and email any episode recommendations or questions to [email protected], and why not come by iTunes and leave us a rating or review? It improves our visibility! On the next episode, we’ll be talking about both versions of the Western classic, True Grit! Dead Man was directed by Jim Jarmusch and stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Lance Henriksen, Michael Wincott and a whole bunch of other people.

Coming from director Delmar Daves, 1956’s Jubal tells a story of sexual obsession on the open plains, highly reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Othello. Starring Glenn Ford as stoic loner Jubal Troop, it has come to more prominence lately, possibly owing to a fine Criterion restoration,  and features a cast of beloved character actors sinking their teeth into some high melodrama with aplomb. An unusually adult 50s western, it’s worth a look for its maturity and as usual, its glorious location photography, as well as a divisive Rod Steiger performance as the Iago of the piece. Topics of conversation include the sexual politics of the story, the morality of Valerie French’s femme fatale, a bit of talk of star Ernest Borgnine’s other great roles (including his wolf pit scene in The Vikings), Glenn Ford’s perhaps excessive stoicism, the abruptness of the conclusion, early Charles Bronson, the status bestowed by a Criterion edition, and man, so many Rod Steiger impersonations. There’s a lot of that. Good movie, as Dad would say. Check out Jubal! And thanks to Ron for the suggestion! Please keep those coming. Also, I have a cold in this one, and though I’ve edited out as many gross sniffles as I could, I’m sure a few snuck in. For this, I apologize. We also discuss some TV, specifically Dad’s current regimen of old Westerns and my recent delve into the new season of Stranger Things (and how it relates to the shows we used to watch in the 80s). If you’d like to suggest a movie or ask a question, please email us at [email protected]! Also, you can help the podcast by leaving ratings and reviews on iTunes, which increases our visibility! Cool! If you’d like to hear back episodes of the show (beyond what’s on iTunes), they’re all there on our website, westernswithdad.com! On the next episode of the show, we’ll be talking about Jim Jarmusch’s odd, poetic 90s western Dead Man, starring Johnny Depp and a bunch of familiar faces. Should be weird! Jubal was directed by Delmar Daves, and stars Glenn Ford, Ernest Borgnine, Rod Steiger, Valerie French and Charles Bronson.

To finish out our October tradition of Spooky Westerns, we wanted to talk about Near Dark, the cult classic vampire western from academy award winning director Kathryn Bigelow, but due to a lack of streaming options, we were unable to easily find it and instead watched a forgotten anthology Horror film no one remembers or cares about, Grim Prairie Tales! In truth, I’ve always been curious about this bizarre title, starring terrific character actors James Earl Jones and Brad Dourif as wandering cowboys sharing a campfire and swapping ghost stories. And it’s not really that good, I’m afraid, but it’s pretty weird, and there simply aren’t any other films quite like this. Dad is perhaps a bit less forgiving. Topics of conversation include the YouTube rip we watched and its horrible picture quality, some Brad Dourif fawning, my debunked theory on the Indian Burial Ground story and its root in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the film’s ambitious feint towards social issues featuring William Atherton as a murderous pilgrim (with a sidebar on Atherton’s post-Ghostbusters woes), several occasions where the storytelling fails, better movies it reminded us of, such as Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which I wish this ended like. A lot of it is us trying not to laugh too meanly, admittedly, but in the end, I enjoyed my time with the film. And again, Dad, less so. You get some impersonations of Jones and Dourif too. You should all see Near Dark though!   We also spend some time discussing a more successful genre mashup, Tales from the Hood, which employs a similar strategy of utilizing the Horror anthology format but to much better effect. On the next episode, we’ll be discussing Jubal, a Western reworking of Othello starring Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine. You can find us online at westernwithdad.com and iTunes, of course (please leave us ratings and reviews to increase the visibility of the podcast!), and you can email us at [email protected], where you can suggest future episodes and also ask us questions!   Grim Prairie Tales was directed by Wayne Coe and stars James Earl Jones, Brad Dourif and William Atherton.

Once again, October means that we’re talking about Horror and Horror-Adjacent movies on Westerns With Dad, and this time, it’s Clint Eastwood’s 1973 allegory about Divine Justice, High Plains Drifter! Taking the form of a more traditional yarn – a town, threatened by villains, hires a gunslinger to defend them – this film slowly reveals itself to be far more diabolic than it initially seems. Topics of conversation include John Wayne’s habit of letting you know when he’s been offended, old Tales From the Crypt comics, the ugly sexual politics of the film’s infamous rape as retribution sequence, Eastwood’s narrow window of screen persona, the evocative excellence of the film’s location shooting, the unseen moral laws of the universe, and their enforcement by Divine Grace, and a wide variety of theories regarding the movie’s relationship with the supernatural world. You’ll get some Clint impersonations, sure, but there’s quite a bit of talk about Hell and God and the Vengeance. In short, one of my favorite kind of episodes. There’s also some construction work happening in the background, which has been a constant of life in my apartment for about a week and a half now! I’m sorry about that! Near the end, we spend a little bit of time discussing Barry Lyndon and The Dead Zone. Please visit us online at westernswithdad.com, where you can download episodes that have moved off the iTunes feed, and if you’d like to email us with ideas for movies or any questions or insights, you can do so at [email protected]. Additionally, why not leave us ratings and reviews on the aforementioned iTunes? It improves the profile of the show and makes us happy! On the next scary Halloween episode of Westerns With Dad, we’ll be talking about either the Kathryn Bigelow Southern-Fried vampire flick Near Dark, or the completely unknown collection of Western-themed Horror stories, Grimm Prairie Tales! If you’ve got a preference, let us know! Although it will probably come down to availability. High Plain Drifter stars Clint Eastwood and was directed by Clint Eastwood.

Arthur Penn’s rambling, whimsical approach to the Western, Little Big Man follows the long life of Dustin Hoffman’s Jack Crabb, a white man raised amongst the Cheyenne Indians, and observes the wave of Manifest Destiny rise, crest and recede in the American frontier! One of the early examples of the Revisionist Western, this film takes on the Native American genocide in America directly and yet still manages to be a sly, satirical comedy, while making its point crystal clear. We really liked this one, especially me, as I had never had the experience of seeing it before. A really smart, humanist adventure yarn, and of one the best discoveries I’ve had in the course of this podcast. Topics of conversation include Dustin Hoffman’s method acting proclivities, the popular cinematic portrayals of such larger than life characters as General Custer and Wild Bill Hickok, the gap between truth and story, White Privilege as employed by Jack Crabb, 70s melancholy and mythbusting, Superman’s nemesis Bizarro, and Arthur Penn’s emulation of the style of the picaresque novel in telling the story of the West. You get some impersonations of Hoffman’s old man voice, a few silly British characters, stuff like that. This movie’s great! Other films (and TV) discussed are an old Western Dad caught on TV called The Streets of Laredo and The Great British Baking Show. You can reach us online at westernswithdad.com, where you can find older episode of the show that have dropped off iTunes, and you can email us at [email protected], where you can suggest episodes and ask any questions you might have! And please leave ratings and reviews on iTunes, as they increase the visibility of the show, and make us feel good! On the next episode, we’ll be discussing the Clint Eastwood’s dark fable about retribution, High Plains Drifter. Little Big Man was directed by Arthur Penn and stars Dustin Hoffman, Chief Dan George, Faye Dunaway and Martin Balsam.