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Legends of Western Cinema Week 2025 | The Harder They Fall {2021}

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{The Plot} As a child, Nat Love watched notorious outlaw Rufus Buck murder his parents at their breakfast table.  Rufus spared Nat's life but carved the shape of a cross into his forehead.  Years later, Rufus is imprisoned in Yuma and Nat, knowing that he can no longer exact vengeance on Rufus himself, roams the West as a vigilante, trying to content himself with killing as many members of Rufus' gang as he can.  But when Nat learns that Rufus has escaped, and that some of Nat's own partners have unwittingly robbed a coach carrying the fugitive's money, he must scramble to reunite his scattered crew and prepare for a final confrontation with Rufus. NOTE:  Several of the main characters in the film are based on historical figures — e.g., Bass Reeves — but the director has been clear that this is, and is intended to be, a fictionalization of history.  In real life, most of these people didn't know each other and led very different lives than their movie counterpar...
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Legends of Western Cinema Week 2025 | Giveaway

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Care to cozy up with a new Western show or a new Western book?  Then toss your hat into the ring to win one of the prizes below!  (Entry instructions are at the end of the post — United States only, I'm afraid.) Prize #1:  The Big Country (1958) — DVD, new One of my personal tip-top favorite Westerns!  Very worth the watching. 😉  As stated, this DVD copy is brand-new and in the original retail packaging. Prize #2:  Classic Westerns:  Zane Grey — book, new This gorgeous clothbound omnibus is part of the Cloud Classics line, which means both the front and the back cover feature a lot of fun quotes and other aesthetic details.  I purchased it quite a while ago and have flipped through it briefly, but it's never been read and has been only minimally handled. Prize #3:  Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958-1961) — DVD, used I've never watched this show, but I am reliably informed that it is a popular one among the Western-loving set. 😉  This DVD cop...
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Legends of Western Cinema Week 2025 | Kick-Off + Tag

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Welcome back to our annual celebration of the Western genre, friends!  Heidi and Rachel and I are stoked to see what you all contribute this year. 😉   Over the course of the next few days, you can expect to see reviews, giveaways, lists, games, and who knows what all?   One of the pillars of this event is the annual tag, a list of questions or prompts that we cohosts share in order to get participation rolling.  This year's tag is below — feel free to publish your answers in your own post, or share them in a comment! 2025 Tag Share one or more stories for each prompt: Cliff —  a tense cliffhanger Gulch  —  a cool ambush scene Canyon  —  a big gunfight Mountains  —  high stakes Valley  —  a beautiful romance Desert  —  a suspenseful plot Forest  —  themes about renewal River  —  traveling to a new home Plains  —  characters who are farmers Mesa  —  an animal centr...
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Announcing Legends of Western Cinema Week 2025

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Saddle up, buckos!  In case you were wondering, yes, Rachel and Heidi and I are indeed returning to your blogging spaces with another week of uproarious Western fun this year!   2025's event will take place from August 25-29, and we need your help to round out the event.  We can't wait to read all of your reviews, lists, character studies, thematic analyses, and so forth.  As per usual, you may also expect a tag to fill out, and most likely some games and/or giveaways to add spice to the proceedings. 😉  In the meantime, spread the word with one or two of these delightful buttons made by Rachel! See you there! 
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All of Virginia Woolf's novels, ranked.

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"April is upon us, pitiless and young and harsh," as Edna St. Vincent Millay so justly expressed it, and I can think of no better time to dive into the work of my beloved Virginia Woolf.  Woolf is probably my top favorite author at this point, so I wanted her to have at least one dedicated post on this blog.  And, since I've officially read all of her novels now, a ranking post naturally seemed the way to go. Here, then, are my thoughts — in a few nutshells — on Woolf's long-form fiction, from the worst of it to the best. 😍 (General content warning for all of these books:  As you might expect from literature of this time period, there are, unfortunately, throwaway racial slurs or instances of casual racism peppered throughout most of them.) # 10.   Night and Day   (1919) “When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?” Babe, no.  If Olivia Rishell is telling you that you're taking parlor politics too far, then...
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Best of 2024 Media | Year in Review

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Hey, as long as I get my yearly recap post published during the first quarter of the new year, it still counts, right?  (Even if I squeeze it in at the eleventh hour.  Ahem.) Present tardiness aside, I do usually try to post at least one "top ten" list at the beginning of each calendar year, reflecting on the best of the new-to-me media I consumed the last year.  In 2024, however, it would appear that most of said new-to-me media was . . . unfortunately mid.  Thus, where I would usually select ten favorites in each category, I'm limiting myself to five this time around and just compiling everything into the one post.  But we're also expanding the categories to include music, so I think we'll have plenty of material to cover. 😉 "The hour is late and bed beckons," so without further ado, let's get into it. ⸻ ❧  Best Books #5.   Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton "... details the story of a man who falls in love with his wife's cousin and the trage...
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We Love Musicals Week | A Handful (or Two) of My Favorite Musicals

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It feels like it's been ages since I've really discussed musical theatre on here, and what better time to remedy that than during my friend Rachel's We Love Musicals week ? As the title of this post suggests, this will be a look at some of my current favorite musicals.  Specifically, I wanted to focus on those musicals that I'll more frequently choose to listen to as I'm going about my day, rather than just the movie musicals that I'll more frequently sit down to watch, as the two groups seldom overlap.   For example, as we all know, the 1964 film version of My Fair Lady is tied for my top favorite film of all time, but will I regularly listen to the soundtrack?  No, because while I do like the music, my adoration of the movie is due more to its non-musical elements.  (Of course, there are exceptions to this rule — you'll find both  Evita and  Newsies in this post, but I probably watch screen versions of both of those almost as often as I listen to the...
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