Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  6 Underground 2019

  ★ Watched 16 Dec 2019

  I know they say you can't polish a turd, but this movie tries really hard.

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  A Time for Dying 1969

  ★★★ Watched 14 Nov 2019

  I finally got round to watching Budd Boetticher's last movie, and it's a weird one, about a sharp-shooting kid who arrives in a small town and meets a girl.

  In Boetticher's '50s classics, there were often a few minutes of slapstick humour before we got down to the serious business; in this one the comedy lasts for about an hour, before the last few minutes kick us in the backside. Along the way there are a few inspired supporting acts,…

Popular reviews

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  Cheyenne Autumn 1964

  ★★½ Watched 05 Oct 2018

  Richard Widmark plays a cavalry officer tasked with returning a Cheyenne march back to their reservation, who gradually comes to realise he's on their side.

  Ford's final western, and it's usually seen as an apologia for depicting Native Americans negatively in his earlier work. It's fairly effective in that regard, if you overlook the overly talky lectures on the issue and the casting of Hispanic actors. It's also visually stunning (courtesy of Ford's usual D.P. William Clothier) as you would…

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  The Tall T 1957

  ★★★★ Watched 07 May 2019

  Budd Boetticher's second movie made with Randolph Scott is an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard story 'The Captives'. Scott plays an out-of-luck cowboy who ends up on a stagecoach with a recently married couple, including an unconvincingly dowdy Maureen O'Sullivan. Things take a nasty turn when the stage is held up at a remote way station by Richard Boone, Henry Silva and Skip Homeier.

  So that sounds like the sort of movie your dad would watch on a Sunday afternoon…