PopMatters is moving to WordPress. We will publish a few essays daily while we develop the new site. We hope the beta will be up sometime late next week.

The Threat of Violence in George Marshall's Western Comedy, 'Destry Rides Again'

George Marshall's western spoof, Destry Rides Again, has a serious central premise; can society function without the threat of violence?

                                      
Music
    
        'The Lost Tapes' of Ian and Sylvia and the Great Speckled Bird
    
Steve Horowitz

        09 Oct 2019
    
Film
    
        FrightFest 2019: Emma Tammi's 'The Wind'
    
Paul Risker

        23 Aug 2019
    
Film
    
        Three Stylish British Silents: 'Shooting Stars', 'Underground' and 'The Informer'
    
Michael Barrett

        22 Apr 2019

Recent

Film

Wild Women, Forty Pricks, and Western Noir

Samuel Fuller's Forty Guns serves as a remarkable film that fuses the Western with film noir and provides ample space, at least during its first half, for Barbara Stanwyck to provide a commanding performance that hints at what a Western female heroine might look like.

Film

The Coen Brothers Tackle Short Story in Film Again with 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs '

Not their first foray into bringing the short story form to cinema, the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs affirms, sadly, that in this regard, cinema is the lesser storytelling form.

Film

The Improbability of Communication in 'The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez'

The inability to communicate truthfully and accurately runs like a red thread through the course of Robert M. Young's western, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

Film

The Coen Brothers' 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' Is American Myth in Vignette

In the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, there's something altogether new about having revisionist western ideas filtered through their rich sense of character, black comedy, and their penetrating awareness of humanity's fatal imperfections.

Film

'The Sisters Brothers' Blazes a Brilliant -- if Twisted -- Trail

Jacques Audiard's revisionist Western shines thanks to moral quandaries and John C. Reilly's performance.

Film

When Jim Jarmusch's 'Dead Man' Walks Into Your Mind, He Never Leaves

It's not enough to describe Dead Man as simply an anti-western; it's an iconoclastic deconstruction of late 19th Century American values and mores, many of which remain unabated more than a century later.

Books

'Coyote Doggirl' Reveals Unexpected Life Under Familiar Western Terrain

Lisa Hanawalt's work is proof that even a genre as seemingly played-out as the western can reveal a rich landscape if the right hands are holding the reins.

Film

Becoming Douglas Fairbanks: 'The Half-Breed'

Throughout his career, Fairbanks scrubbed his scripts of racist elements. The Half-Breed is a rare example when racism is foregrounded as a theme.

Books

Graphic Fiction 'The Smell of Starving Boys' Inverts Images and Expectations

Loo Hui Phang emphasizes the nature of image-making from the first panel: an upside landscape as viewed through the inverting lens of the protagonist's camera.

Film

Sundance 2018: ‘306 Hollywood’ + ‘Damsel’

Sibling directors Elan and Jonathan Bogarin deliver vastly different stories about the power of the past.

Film

All Growed Up: 'The Kentuckian' and the Myth of Freedom

In this tale of the formation of Texas, a roof over one's head is antithetical to freedom.

Reviews

The Characters in 'The Salvation' Are Easy to Care About but Terrifying to Watch

Mixing the classic themes of the American western with splashes of modernity makes for a attention-grabbing tale of salvation.

Music

The Gibson Brothers: Brotherhood

Eric and Leigh Gibson continue to innovate with a collection of bluegrass covers dedicated to fellow bands of brothers.

Film

Double Take: John Ford's 'The Searchers' (1956)

Double Take heads out West and into the disfigured psyche of John Wayne's Ethan Edwards. Do we figure him? That'll be the day.

Steve Leftridge and Steve Pick

Music

Erik Deutsch: Outlaw Jazz

The New York keyboard extraordinaire reasserts himself to the top of the heap with the uncanny fusion of country and jazz.

Film

'For a Few Dollars More' Is a Rare Sequel That Is Superior to the Classic It Follows

The archetype of the spaghetti western finds its truest expression in this essential film from Sergio Leone.

Reviews

B-Film as Theory: 'The Shooting/Ride in the Whirlwind'

Two blasts of existentialist disquiet and hallucination from the stable of Roger Corman, these two Westerns launched the career of a major alternative filmmaker in Monte Hellman.

Reviews

This Young 'Billy the Kid' Ain't Nothin' Like the Man He Would (Briefly) Become

In a new look at the legendary outlaw, Christopher Bowman plays a teenage Billy the Kid whose fate is shaped by violence in the small New Mexico town where he lives with his mother.

Reviews

Everybody Was Right About ‘Heaven’s Gate’

There is arguably no more true complexity of thought to Michael Cimino’s script than there is to Lawrence Kasdan’s for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Reviews

Patrick deWitt's 'The Sisters Brothers' Is a Rip-Roaring, Engrossing Read

If you’re looking for a crackling good yarn that elevates itself over simple genre trappings, you should look no further than The Sisters Brothers.

Music

Billy Joel: Piano Man (The Legacy Edition)

Columbia reissues the album that launched Billy Joel's career into the stratosphere 38 years ago, along with an intimate live radio set that fills in some of the blanks.

Film

Quentin Tarantino's Cinematic Reality

Quentin Tarantino is reliving his childhood cinema experiences, reinterpreting fractured moments of memory. Going to the movies is about an escape from our world, a mirror world at once familiar yet different.

Reviews

The Line Between Hero and Villain is Blurred in 'Justified: The Complete First Season'

Justified has the thrilling shootouts, but its success owes more to a rare attribute in action television: charm.

Film

New York Film Festival: Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff

Kelly Reichardt's Meek’s Cutoff is an outsider's Western. If we were looking for a female counterpart to Gus Van Sant, I think we may have found her.

Reviews

The Plots of Streets of Laredo and Dead Man's Walk Are Prone to Wandering Off Into the Frontier

If you are already a fan of Lonesome Dove, then you will probably enjoy Streets of Laredo and Dead Man’s Walk.

Reviews

'American Bandits' Ain't No 'Treasure of Sierra Madre'

Fred Olen Ray saw The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and was inspired to make his own James-based film. The aforementioned is a great movie, but alas, American Bandits is not.

Television

The Frontier Doctor's Fancy 'Queen of the Cimarron'

Frontier Doctor's church-prescribing gumdrop-toting hero comes face to face with the unthinkable: a tough-talkin' hard-done bad-girl with money on her mind (gulp).

Reviews

Western

Though not a “political film”, it’s tough to argue against some level of socio-political implication of two multi-ethnic foreigners traipsing around idyllic western France, looking for stability.

Reviews

Collapse Expand Reviews

BROWSE ALL ALBUM REVIEWS

Features

15 Classic Horror Films That Just Won't Die

How 'Watchmen' and 'The Boys' Deconstruct American Fascism

The Top 10 Definitive Breakup Albums

The 13 Greatest Horror Directors of All Time

While the Sun Shines: An Interview with Composer Joe Wong

Collapse Expand Features

PM Picks

Collapse Expand Pm Picks

PopMatters is moving to WordPress. We will publish a few essays daily while we develop the new site. We hope the beta will be up sometime late next week.

George Marshall's western spoof, Destry Rides Again, has a serious central premise; can society function without the threat of violence?

Samuel Fuller's Forty Guns serves as a remarkable film that fuses the Western with film noir and provides ample space, at least during its first half, for Barbara Stanwyck to provide a commanding performance that hints at what a Western female heroine might look like.

Not their first foray into bringing the short story form to cinema, the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs affirms, sadly, that in this regard, cinema is the lesser storytelling form.

The inability to communicate truthfully and accurately runs like a red thread through the course of Robert M. Young's western, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

In the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, there's something altogether new about having revisionist western ideas filtered through their rich sense of character, black comedy, and their penetrating awareness of humanity's fatal imperfections.

Jacques Audiard's revisionist Western shines thanks to moral quandaries and John C. Reilly's performance.

It's not enough to describe Dead Man as simply an anti-western; it's an iconoclastic deconstruction of late 19th Century American values and mores, many of which remain unabated more than a century later.

Lisa Hanawalt's work is proof that even a genre as seemingly played-out as the western can reveal a rich landscape if the right hands are holding the reins.

Throughout his career, Fairbanks scrubbed his scripts of racist elements. The Half-Breed is a rare example when racism is foregrounded as a theme.

Loo Hui Phang emphasizes the nature of image-making from the first panel: an upside landscape as viewed through the inverting lens of the protagonist's camera.

Sibling directors Elan and Jonathan Bogarin deliver vastly different stories about the power of the past.

In this tale of the formation of Texas, a roof over one's head is antithetical to freedom.

Mixing the classic themes of the American western with splashes of modernity makes for a attention-grabbing tale of salvation.

Eric and Leigh Gibson continue to innovate with a collection of bluegrass covers dedicated to fellow bands of brothers.

Double Take heads out West and into the disfigured psyche of John Wayne's Ethan Edwards. Do we figure him? That'll be the day.

The New York keyboard extraordinaire reasserts himself to the top of the heap with the uncanny fusion of country and jazz.

The archetype of the spaghetti western finds its truest expression in this essential film from Sergio Leone.

Two blasts of existentialist disquiet and hallucination from the stable of Roger Corman, these two Westerns launched the career of a major alternative filmmaker in Monte Hellman.

In a new look at the legendary outlaw, Christopher Bowman plays a teenage Billy the Kid whose fate is shaped by violence in the small New Mexico town where he lives with his mother.

There is arguably no more true complexity of thought to Michael Cimino’s script than there is to Lawrence Kasdan’s for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

If you’re looking for a crackling good yarn that elevates itself over simple genre trappings, you should look no further than The Sisters Brothers.

Columbia reissues the album that launched Billy Joel's career into the stratosphere 38 years ago, along with an intimate live radio set that fills in some of the blanks.

Quentin Tarantino is reliving his childhood cinema experiences, reinterpreting fractured moments of memory. Going to the movies is about an escape from our world, a mirror world at once familiar yet different.

Justified has the thrilling shootouts, but its success owes more to a rare attribute in action television: charm.

Kelly Reichardt's Meek’s Cutoff is an outsider's Western. If we were looking for a female counterpart to Gus Van Sant, I think we may have found her.

If you are already a fan of Lonesome Dove, then you will probably enjoy Streets of Laredo and Dead Man’s Walk.

Fred Olen Ray saw The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and was inspired to make his own James-based film. The aforementioned is a great movie, but alas, American Bandits is not.

Frontier Doctor's church-prescribing gumdrop-toting hero comes face to face with the unthinkable: a tough-talkin' hard-done bad-girl with money on her mind (gulp).

Though not a “political film”, it’s tough to argue against some level of socio-political implication of two multi-ethnic foreigners traipsing around idyllic western France, looking for stability.

Sergio Leone never met a portentous entrance he didn't like.