The Western genre is a dying one. Gone are the days of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, et al., and the era of Westerns in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Once a staple in American cinema, those films are now few and far between. Years could pass before a good Western connects with critics and audiences alike. Unforgiven reset the standard in 1992, connecting with critics and audiences alike while earning nine Oscar nominations and taking home four, most notably for Best Picture. Others have followed. Appaloosa, Hostiles, True Grit, Tombstone, and Open Range were big-budget movies that hit the screen with reckless aggression. True Grit was the most successful with the critics (10 Oscar nominations, but no wins), but even the success of this film fails when compared to Unforgiven.
Category Archives: Peter Fonda
The Harvest (2015)
It’s never really a good thing when your movie is released on Video on Demand the same day it opens in the theater. This is slowly changing and becoming a more accepted practice because it helps some of these independent movies earn more money. However, it still means that regardless of how good a movie is (in any category), it is not eligible for Academy Awards nomination consideration. So if it is a movie that you think will be great, you wouldn’t allow it to be available on OnDemand until after he exits the theaters. With that said, I believe that all those involved with this movie (regardless if you loved it or hated it) knew that it would never be in contention for an Oscar award. This is a movie I would not have seen in the theater, and had it not been on OnDemand at the same time as its theater release date, it would have been a movie that I would have missed altogether. Their release plan was a good one. The film, on the other hand, was meh.
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