I just watched the American Film Institutes’s list of top ten westerns and was absolutely appalled. Here they are in as near an order as I can remember:
Cat Ballou
Stagecoach
McCabe and Mrs Miller
Butch and Sundance
The Wild Bunch
Red River
Unforgiven
Shane
High Noon
The Searchers (#1)
While I am not as big a fan of The Searchers as others, I recognize that it’s viewed as a classic of film—not just of westerns—so I suppose it deserves it’s spot. I also don’t have a beef with Stagecoach, Red River, Shane and High Noon.
I’m less certain of The Wild Bunch and Unforgiven. But I can see why some would include them.
But how, I ask, are Cat Ballou, McCabe and Mrs Miller and even Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid even considered for the top ten? All of those were tongue-in-cheek westerns, made with a 1970s “we’re smarter than you”, mocking the westerns type of mentality.
I submit that any of the following would have been better choices than those three:
The Magnificent Seven
The Tall T
Ride The High Country
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Rio Bravo
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
My Darling Clementine
The Big Country
The Violent Men
Dances With Wolves
Open Range
Here, then is my top ten list, counting down to #1
Open Range
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Magnificent Seven
The Big Country
Stagecoach
High Noon
Shane
The Searchers
Ride the High Country (#1)
It seems that back in the 1930s, the son of Edgar Rice Burroughs set out to create a cartoon series based on his father’s John Carter of Mars series of novels. Unfortunately, the series never got off the ground. Some initial work on the series survived, however, and you can see it in the YouTube video below:
Ride with the Devil was released in 1999, and I frankly don’t know how I missed it. But I just finished watching it on the Starz movie channel and thought it one of the best Civil war movies I’ve seen
Directed by the celebrated Ang Lee, the movie is adapted from the Daniel Woodrell novel Woe to Live on. The story follows Daniel Rodell (Toby Maguire), a teen who joins a group of Kansas Irregulars in 1861. At its core, it’s a coming-of-age story, as Rodell fights his way through the war, losing family and friends until he finally ends the war on his own terms.
Sure, there’s a “love story” here, but it also offers a lot from a wargamers’ perspective. As it focuses on “irregular” cavalry operations, there are no set piece battles as in Glory or Gettysburg, but the skirmishes come across as quite authentic. And inspiring. I have this urge to go right out and buy some 28mm Civil war cavalry figures to do a skirmish game.
While I’m sure that the historical stickers among wargamers will (as usual) have a long laundry list of “errors” in the movie, there wasn’t anything that jumped out and ruined the movie for me (one critic I read pointed out that in that period, women didn’t’ have inseam pockets in their skirts—big deal). In particular, I loved the period language: formal and rather flowery by modern standards. While people may not have really spoken in that manner, it is right in keeping with the phrasing in period letters I have read.
If you haven’t seen it, I think you should seek this one out.
I have always been a big fan of Ray Harryhausen’s works. I saw a couple of the Sinbad movies in the theatres, and to this day can’t get enough of them. Even with all of the CGI effects, I don’t think there has ever been anything as amazing as his coreographed skeleton fights—whether in Jason and the Argonauts or in Sinbad.
If you’ve had it up to here with Ken Burns’ pretentious, self indulgent “history” films (and even more so of his less-talented imiatators), then you probably will enjoy The Old Negro Space Program. It’s got all of the trademark Burns trouches, including the overstuffed, unintentionally funny “experts.”
I just got done watching Beowulf and Grendel (2005) and thought that it was an excellent retelling of the poem. Notice that I said retelling. It is, of course, not a literal translation and has many modern sensibilities. But all, in all, I really liked it. The costumes were excellent, the acting first rate, and the scenery interesting.
Of course, while watching it, I began to think about doing a wargame based on the story. My idea is to do a variant of Steve Jackson’s Ogre game. In it, you’d have a single monstrous figure (Grendel, the Ogre, would thus be the Ogre) versus a horde of lesser, one-hit point warriors (the GEVs). The gamemaster would play Grendel—who could soak up lots of hits in various locations—and the players would command the human warriors.
I have the Saxons/Vikings ready to play ... but I’m going to need an appropriate figure for Grendel.
Miniature Wargaming is part of the "adventure games" hobby, which includes r ole p laying and board games. Wargamers recreate battles on the tabletop with toy soldiers, like a more complicated game of chess. Models range in height from 6mm to 28mm tall, with 15mm and 25mm being the most popular. There also is a growing interest in toy soldiers and military models, such as the 1/32 and 1/35 scale plastic soldiers from Conte, and Marx.
The most popular miniature wargames are fantasy and science fiction based, such as Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine and The Lord of the Rings. World War II games such as Flames of War and Axis and Allies are new favorites. Other favorite historical periods include Napoleonics, the American Civil War, and ancients, such as Romans or Greeks. Other gamers enjoy miniature naval wargames, recreating battles like Trafalgar, Jutland and the Coral Sea.
Hobbyists research historical periods and paint their tiny soldiers in accurate uniforms. Others develop "historically realistic" rules sets or build scale battlefield terrain using model railroad techniques.
For pictures, visit the gallery.
Some of the bigger hobby companies are Games Workshop, which produces Warhammer, Wargames Foundry and Old Glory Miniatures. Wizards of the Coast produces several lines of pre-painted miniatures games, such as the Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons miniatures games, and a historical game with pre-painted miniatures: The new Axis and Allies game. Wizkids produces a fantasy collectable miniatures game, such as the Mage Knight and Heroclick fantasy games, the science fiction games MechWarrior and Rocketmen, as well as the quasi-historical Pirates of the Spanish Main.
was released in 1999, and I frankly don’t know how I missed it. But I just finished watching it on the Starz movie channel and thought it one of the best Civil war movies I’ve seen
. The story follows Daniel Rodell (Toby Maguire), a teen who joins a group of Kansas Irregulars in 1861. At its core, it’s a coming-of-age story, as Rodell fights his way through the war, losing family and friends until he finally ends the war on his own terms.
