WESTERN SUNDAY #7: Jumping the shark with Angelica Huston...

SERAPHIM FALLS

(2006)

Hershal brings a stark and Spartan western drama that goes apeshit with weird supernatural cameos at the end!

In the 1860s, five men have been tracking a sixth across Nevada for more than two weeks. They shoot and wound him, but he gets away. They pursue, led by the dour Carver, who will pay them each $1 a day once he's captured. The hunted is Gideon, resourceful, skilled with a knife. Gideon's flight and Carver's hunt require horses, water, and bullets. The course takes them past lone settlers, a wagon train, a rail crew, settlements, and an Indian philosopher.

WESTERN SUNDAY #6: Mr. Ugly Comes To Town!

THE BIG GUNDOWN

(1966)

Kurt initiates Lee Van Cleef into the Western Sunday tradition with The Big Gundown!

Jonathan Corbett is a gunman thought to have eliminated all the bandits of Texas. For this he is proposed for the candidacy to the Senate of the United States. In exchange he has only to support the construction of one railway line. Only after he accepts does he comes to know that the Mexican Cuchillo has raped and killed a 12 year old girl. Corbett leaves on a long manhunt. During this hunt Jonathan gets to know its adversary better and discovers a variation on the crime of which the accused Cuchillo may not be as guilty as he first thought.

WESTERN SUNDAY #5: There are some things a man just can't run away from.

STAGECOACH

(1939)

Josh kicks it old school with the first great collaboration between Duke Wayne and Pappy Ford!

Varied group of characters with nothing in common are stuck together inside a coach besieged by bandits and Indians. Considered structurally perfect, with excellent direction by John Ford, it's the film that made Wayne a star as the Ringo Kid, an outlaw looking to avenge the murder of his brother and father. The first pairing of Ford and John Wayne changed the course of the modern western. Stunning photography by Bert Glennon and Ray Binger captured the mythical air of Monument Valley, a site that Ford was often to revisit. Based on the story "Stage to Lordsburg" by Ernest Haycox.

WESTERN SUNDAY # 4: Say my name, Laura San Gianomo!

QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER

(1990)

Hershal brings on some Sellecky goodness as Magnum himself rocks the Outback with his trusty 1874 Sharps Buffalo Rifle!

Sharpshooter Matthew Quigley is hired from America by an Australian rancher so he can shoot aborigines at a distance. Quigley takes exception to this and leaves. The rancher tries to kill him for refusing, and Quigley escapes into the brush with a woman he rescued from some of the rancher's men, and are helped by aborigines. Quigley returns the help, before going on to destroy all his enemies.

WESTERN SUNDAY #3: Django, have you always been alone?

DJANGO

(1966)

Kurt presents the Sergio Corbucci Spaghetti Western masterpiece that begs the question: what the hell is in that coffin, Django?

A coffin-dragging gunslinger enters a town caught between two feuding factions, the KKK and a gang of Mexican Bandits, and is caught up in a struggle against them.

WESTERN SUNDAY #2: 80s All-Star Awesomeness

SILVERADO

(1985)

Josh brings the Costner for Lawrence Kasdan's 1985 mega-western!

Kasdan clearly set out to make an old-fashioned Western, but he couldn't help bringing a hip, self-conscious attitude to the proceedings. Silverado thus finds its own funky tone--sometimes rousing, sometimes winking. Four cowpokes converge on a little Western burg called Silverado; they're played by Kevin Kline (a distinctly modern kind of Western hero), Scott Glenn, Danny Glover, and the rowdy young Kevin Costner. Kasdan peppers the somewhat generic action with smart dialogue and a parade of quirky supporting players, including John Cleese as a sheriff who seems to have stepped straight from a Monty Python sketch into an Old West saloon. Bruce Broughton supplies the music, a real throwback to the glory days of thundering Western themes.

WESTERN SUNDAY #1: Jimmy Stewart does Badass

THE NAKED SPUR

(1953)

Megan kicks off Western Sundays with an Anthony Mann classic!

A bitter Howard Kemp heads westward to the Rockies from Abilene, Kansas on the trail of murderer Ben Vandergroat and the $5000 reward on Vandergroat's head, money after which Kemp lusts in order to re-purchase the ranch that his absconding fiancée had sold during his stint in the army. Kemp unexpectedly crosses paths with an old, star-crossed gold miner, Jesse Tate, and with a recently-discharged soldier of questionable repute, Roy Anderson. Teaming up, they nab Vandergroat and his girl, Lina Patch, but Vandergroat tries to turn his three distrustful, avaricious captors against each other during the return trip.