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Legends of Western Cinema Week 2025 | My Tag Answers

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The last day of this year's Legends of Western Cinema Week is upon us!  Accordingly, I had to scramble to get my tag answers written up and posted this morning.  Here, then, they are. ⸻ 2025 Tag Share one or more stories for each prompt: Cliff — a tense cliffhanger I can't remember for sure, but I assume that virtually every episode of The English (2022) ended in a stomach-clenching cliffhanger.  There's a lot going on in that show.  A little too much, actually. Gulch — a cool ambush scene In Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969), McCullough manages to ride some of his would-be assassins out of town by booby-trapping the main drag instead of participating in shootouts with them, which could be considered an ambush and which I certainly consider very cool of him. Canyon — a big gunfight Following along in that lighthearted vein, the hostage situation/brief shootout at the bank in The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) is fun.  It always tickles me pink to see the townswomen...
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Legends of Western Cinema Week 2025 | Songs That Are Begging to Be Used in Modern-Day Westerns

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I don't have much for you by way of a preamble today, because the title is really as self-explanatory as I can make it.  I can, however, tell you that I got the idea for this post randomly earlier this year, and it's a little odd that I did, to be quite honest with you, since I don't tend to have much interest in Westerns set in the present day.  (I like a lot of Westerns that were made in the present day, but they're all set in the "Old West".)  But, there it is:  one day I was listening to some country songs and started thinking about how well they would fit into the soundtrack of a contemporary Western, and I realized that that could make a fun LoWCW post.  So, here we are. 😉 Read on, then, for a list of songs that I would include in a modern-day Western film, along with a brief blurb about how I envision each song fitting into a given story. ⸻ "Daddy's Mugshot"  by Laci Kaye Booth Paging Hailee Steinfeld, paging Hailee Steinfeld.  It'd b...
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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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