The Cowboy Festival is almost here and lately, I find myself smitten with western movies again. So many western films have been shot in the SCV that the genre practically grew up with our town which gives us license and credibility to critique the genre.
So what are you favorite western films? I absolutely loved the Coen Brother’s True Grit, with the grizzled Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn and the nervous Matt Damon as Mr. LeBouef. I realize the soundtrack was just a new take on the old film, but I’ve found myself listening to it again and again. I think True Grit was probably the best western film of the last 15-20 years, at least since Tombstone and Unforgiven, which I like as well.
But I think the spaghetti westerns are still tops in my book. Most of the Eastwood epics were filmed in Spain, a place that feels similar to our western landscape and is just as visually striking. Ennio Morricone’s music, though, stands above everything in the genre. I think soundtracks play a much bigger part in western films than in other movies, though I can’t quite figure out why.
It seems like every conceivable western movie that could have been made has been made. We’ve had western comedies, dark westerns, Native American westerns, spaghetti westerns and now, the Coen Brothers have tried their hand at it. But I can think of one subject that deserves fresh treatment: California’s last Mexican bandito, Tiburcio Vasquez, who was hunted up and down the state by a posse for allegedly murdering a man. He once hid out at the rocks in Agua Dulce that now bear his name. The handsome lady’s man and bandit met his end when he was hung by the neck until he was dead in San Jose a little over 135 years ago.
If you ask me, that’d be the ultimate western film because it is exclusively Californian and would have a huge SCV component. So step up Hollywood!
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