Stagecoach; Frybread

Stagecoach (1939)

Director: John Ford

Had I seen this before: Maybe a long time ago but I'm not certain

The description of this film on HBO Max is as follows: "A group of disparate passengers battle personal demons and each other" good yes please give that to me "while racing through Indian country." Ah. Right. Impossible to talk about this 83-year-old movie without dealing with its 83-year-old view of Native Americans, which is about what you would expect: a nameless, faceless horde of savages that serve as a threat more in the vein of a natural disaster or a rampaging monster than another group of humans with their own personalities and conflicts and motivations. It's a tough element of an otherwise effective and entertaining movie. I personally would have had a better time if I could have substituted every mention of "Geronimo" with "Sharknado" or something, but we live in this imperfect world with these imperfect things and we all just do the best we can.

Aside from bracing myself for whatever elements of the film may be especially of their time, I am not a movie-watcher who approaches older movies with any particular skepticism. I have seen too many wildly entertaining black and white pictures to assume that they can't deliver on that front. I am still, however, occasionally surprised when I am reminded of just how good people had gotten at making movies by the 1930s. The first talking picture came out a mere twelve years before this thing, but it plays like any fun, compelling disaster movie of the modern era.

The personalities and their aforementioned demons are introduced efficiently as they clamber on to the titular stagecoach: Dallas (Claire Trevor) is a sex worker being run out of town by the imperious ladies of the Law and Order League; Doc Boone (top-tier character actor Thomas Mitchell, mostly familiar to me as Uncle Billy from It's a Wonderful Life) is a dedicated drunk who is similarly in the process of being ejected from town (although he is significantly less glum about it); Mrs. Mallory (Louise Platt), a delicate-seeming woman on her way to meet her cavalry captain husband, is being fretted over by her friends about some unnamed condition (hint: later she will faint, someone will be asked to fetch a lot of hot water, and the number of stagecoach passengers will increase slightly); Samuel Peacock (Donald Meek) is a diminutive whiskey salesman whose wares are mercilessly sampled by Doc Boone and who just wants to get back to his wife and five children in Kansas City; Hatfield (John Carradine) is a gentleman gambler and Lost Causer who is unctuously attentive to Mrs. Mallory; Ellsworth Gatewood (Berton Churchill) is a banker with a bag full of embezzled money who jumps on at the last minute in an effort to skip town. There is also Andy Devine as the coach driver (who caused me to spend the entire movie thinking what is that voice where do I know him from only to discover that he is Friar Tuck from the Disney animated  Robin Hood) and George Bancroft as the Marshal looking to prevent an impending shootout in the destination city.

As you can imagine, there is already a fine, fizzy group dynamic happening by the time we encounter John Wayne as the Ringo Kid, in one of 20th century cinema's true movie-star-birthing shots. The whole John Wayne, Masculine Cowboy thing isn't really to my taste for the most part, but this young, slightly vulnerable version is undeniably compelling here. (There is also an amusingly clown-car vibe to all 6'4" of him sizing up the very full stagecoach and being like "hey I'm just gonna squeeze in here with y'all.") This movie's take on class is actually one of the more interesting things about it, as the two highest-status men (the banker and the southern gentleman) are both given the get a load of this fuckin' guy treatment, including a moment that underlines how dark and scary a "chivalrous" man's idea of protecting a lady can be, while the disreputable characters are proven heroic by the end. Some classic, satisfying underdog stuff.

This is, above all, an adventure story. When the, uh, Sharknado inevitably strikes, the stunt work is genuinely incredible and reminds you of how much effort and skill Golden Age filmmaking entailed. The acting and directing in those scenes is also sort of fascinating, as none of the passengers are depicted as hysterical, but rather as grimly, silently terrified, which I found struck a more realistic and moving note than over-the-top theatricality would have. And all the while, Monument Valley towers majestically in the background, making a case for itself as the true star of the film.

Line I repeated quietly to myself: "I ain't gonna put a lady in danger without she votes for it."

Is it under two hours:  Yes, an efficient 96 minutes

In conclusion: This film seems to have either invented or popularized about two dozen movie tropes, which may, if you watch it with your 12-year-old who is less familiar with the genre, cause her to think that you are slightly psychic when you predict what every set-up is leading to. A fun game!

Authentic Indian Fry Bread from The Stay at Home Chef

There is one scene in this movie in which the characters share a meal, but it is more notable for the social dynamics at play than the food itself, which as far as I could make out involved...beans. And some kind of bread? Probably white people bread, but having just been to Arizona the thing I recently ate my weight (and everyone else in my family's weight) in was frybread. And somehow I still wanted more? (Frybread being, somewhat like this film, extremely delicious but extremely complicated.) Just trying to keep everything equally fraught, here.

Up next: The west gets a little more wiki- wiki- wild

U Turn; Pinto Beans

U Turn (1997)

Director: Oliver Stone

Had I seen this before: No

Because I spent much of 1998 working in a video store like the 90s stereotype that I was, there are many films that came out around that time that exist only as VHS covers for me (we did not have DVDs yet at my store, but we did have a couple of tanning beds). This is one of those covers. It looked very serious, possibly scary, definitely sweaty. And as it turns out it is...well, one of those things anyway.

I immediately got off on the wrong foot with U Turn because the Tristar logo always makes me think I'm about to watch Muppets Take Manhattan. Is this movie going to be as good as or better than Muppets Take Manhattan? Disappointment is inevitable from the outset. It is soon overtaken by...confusion? Mild intrigue? I wasn't really expecting the "poppy music over gritty violence" Reservoir-Dogs-ripoff of it all. The tunes are bouncy but hmm, what's this, some choppy cuts to a buzzard eating entrails? Quick cut closeups to a bead of forehead sweat, a skull in the desert? It's like if Baz Luhrmann just woke up really mean and unpleasantly American one day. So it's not a journey of subtlety that we're embarking on here, and it's definitely not the fully serious noir vibe I was expecting. When I had quickly glanced at the Letterboxd page for this movie, the word that jumped out at me from several reviews was "nasty," which is not an inaccurate description, but I think it's more specifically scuzzy in a deeply late-90s sort of way. Not least because Sean Penn, who is in every scene of this thing, has powerful anti-charisma imo. Scuzzy. 

That last bit is actually the very thing that got me through this movie, which is to say: it's fun to watch increasingly bad things happen to Sean Penn. As soon as Billy Bob Thornton appears as a ridiculous caricature of a rotten-toothed rural mechanic, acting absolute circles around Penn, I was basically on board. (Hot? Warm? Ice cold? take--Sean Penn is fine in some roles but I do not think he is generally a good actor. I think Billy Bob Thornton is a great actor.) Give this man a hard time! Hold his car hostage and shrug off what a dickhead he's being! He deserves unhappiness in all the forms it's coming to him! Movies don't have to be good to entertain me, but it does help a lot if they give me a rooting interest.

Billy Bob isn't the only overly quirky resident of Superior, AZ to get in Sean Penn's way--the boring noir love triangle (er, spoiler--square) is filled out by an underwritten Jennifer Lopez, whose only purpose is to have a tragic backstory and motivate the male characters, a growling, rodent-faced Nick Nolte, and a brooding Powers Booth. Hard pass on all of that. Give me Julie Hagerty as a diner waitress with a bouffant AND a rattail. Give me Claire Danes and Joaquin Phoenix as a badly-written couple with highly dubious accents. "Mister don't make me AXE you again." Joaquin...my guy...what are we even doing here. (My notes say "ugh poor Claire Danes these scenes are awful" and also "guess we're playing 'Ring of Fire' again" and "okay I like when Joaquin eats his bus ticket.") Give me Laurie Metcalf selling said bus ticket and Liv Tyler (???) silently standing in line to purchase one of her own (???). (Here my notes say "Sean Penn please leave this scene so Laurie Metcalf and Liv Tyler can talk in peace.") Do not give me whatever it is that Jon Voight is doing, you can keep that.

At one point Sean Penn kicks a cat really hard for no reason except that it was next to his leg, and then moments later this same cat foils his half-hearted robbery attempt. He then gives up on the robbery and tries to open a beer bottle with his bare hand, resulting in a gash in his hand and a broken bottle on the ground. This, to me, is entertaining. Please stop trying to make me care about J Lo and Nick Nolte and just let me watch this town work together to slowly crush this man like a bug.

The film is scored by the legendary Ennio Morricone, and if I had to pick one word to describe it, that word would be "noticeable." There's a sort of carnival feel to some of the music, and in a few scenes it threatens to drown out the dialogue entirely (not complaining). This is a movie with a lot of violence and, like, men crying and yelling about their cars getting scratched, so it's very funny to me every time something scuzzy happens and the score highlights it by going "BOI-OI-OING." Every time a man cries about his car in a movie going forward I would like it to be accompanied by "BOI-OI-OING."

Line I repeated quietly to myself puzzled over a little because I'm pretty sure this number is inaccurate by any measure and the screenwriter is just cribbing from Blue Oyster Cult: "Darrell, 40,000 people die every day. How come you're not one of them?"

Is it under two hours:  It is not

In conclusion: It did at least feel like it took place in the desert. Sweaty as expected. Excellent amount of saguaro cacti. Too much Sean Penn butt.

Pinto Beans from Love and Lemons

Too gritty for food, this one. Everyone is busy sweating and making unrealistic decisions. The only character who eats anything is Jon Voight's blind vet, digging into a can of beans with a spoon. Fortunately, I like beans, so here we go.

This was a good bean recipe. I again did not add enough salt, which is no one's fault but my own. The smell of a pot of beans simmering on the stove all afternoon is hugely comforting to me, like I have exactly one thing in the world under control, and that thing is legumes.

Up next: The first spark of romance between Hollywood and Monument Valley

Thelma & Louise; Diner Hashbrowns

Thelma & Louise (1991)

Director: Ridley Scott

Had I seen this before: Yes, a long time ago

Having just returned from a 17-day family road trip around the Southwest, I related strongly to many aspects of this film, as you can probably imagine. Louise carefully packing her white shoes into a plastic bag before putting them in her suitcase, for example. Thelma being frustrated that her travel companion is not in the mood to do the fun thing she has her heart set on. Bickering about whose fault is is that your plans have gone off-course. Having a mood-darkening setback (the dining options at the north rim of the Grand Canyon are abysmal/your companion just escalated your situation by adding an armed robbery charge) but still rallying and singing along with the radio the next day. Feeling like some locals in the more rural areas are giving you funny looks. Being excited to finally be done with all the driving.

All I remembered about this movie before rewatching was 1) the inciting incident (Louise shooting Thelma's attacker); 2) the ending, which is probably in the top ten (five? three?) most famous movie endings of all time; and 3) the fact that Brad Pitt steals their money. "Thelma, noooooo," I wanted to yell at the screen when he appeared, as though she were inadvisably climbing the stairs in a horror movie. "Don't go in there! He literally just explained to you that he is a robber!" But also, I mean. I get it. Come on. She's spent her whole adult life with Christopher McDonald in Danny McBride-blowhard mode. Who can remember the $6700 on the nightstand when a shirtless, cowboy-hat-wearing Brad Pitt is out here waving his little hair dryer around?

The "I get it" factor is actually the secret genius of this movie, along with the indelible scenery and the cool car cruising through it. Knowing from the jump (so to speak) that these two women are going to end up determinedly taking their fate into their own hands by way of an enticing abyss sets you up as a viewer to wonder: how on earth are they going to get there in two hours? And as a fan, generally, of the "series of bad decisions and unlucky breaks" genre, I thought the movie did a pretty good job of answering that question in a satisfying way with each tightening of the screw. 

At basically every turn, there is a man making their lives more difficult. The only man in this film who has my full support is the cyclist who calmly blows weed smoke into the cop car where T&L have trapped a state trooper in his own trunk. Everyone else falls somewhere on the scale from Harvey Keitel's sympathetic but paternalistic investigator (he constantly refers to them as "girls" even though Susan Sarandon is 45-dang-years-old in this movie) to the evil violent parking lot rapist to the full-on Looney Toons caricature trucker whose rig they blow up. (This scene feels off from the rest of the movie and I suspect that Ridley Scott just...wanted to blow something up.) Now, in real life, is every man who crosses a woman's path some kind of obstacle? No. Except...some days? Yes. String a few of those days together and here you are, thinking maybe the bottom of the canyon has more to offer than those dozens of men pointing guns at you.

On the heavy-to-fun scale, this tilted a little further toward heavy than I remembered, maybe just because of my age now or the current times or who knows what. But it's still very watchable, and it genuinely did evoke the feeling of the road trip we just took, give or take a handful of federal crimes.

Line I repeated quietly to myself: "Thelma, you know how I feel about Texas!"

Is it under two hours: No 

In conclusion: Will we manage to find a movie set in the Southwest that doesn't involve gun violence? Remains to be seen!

Diner Style Hashbrowns from Secret Copycat Recipes

There is not a lot of time for proper meals on this particular adventure, just a few scattered snacks (a candy bar, some Twizzlers, countless mini-bottles of Wild Turkey, a 20-something Brad Pitt). But in the very first scene, Louise is at her diner job, slinging some classic-looking hash browns.

Every recipe for hash browns I've ever tried has ended up with me cooking the potatoes for significantly longer than indicated. This particular streak remains unbroken. I also believe that all recipes for potatoes should include the phrase "more salt than you think," or maybe I'll just tattoo it on my wrist or something.

Up next: Always check your radiator belt before driving through Arizona, lest you stumble into a jarringly-edited neo-noir

Tombstone; Huckleberry Buckle

Tombstone (1993)

Directors: George P. Cosmotos and Kevin Jarre

Had I seen this before: No

Listen, Mr. Kansas Law Dog--I have returned from our family sojourn in the American Southwest with some weird tan lines and a summer blog theme, so grab a sarsaparilla because things are about to get hot and dusty.

To begin with, I'm not quite sure how I made it almost thirty years without seeing this movie, which seems to be a favorite of people my age and is certainly a favorite of the Tombstone, AZ tourism board. My best explanation is that my family, for reasons unknown, chose to see Wyatt Earp in the theater at the time rather than Tombstone, and I just quickly accepted that as my O.K. Corral-revisiting-fate. I was the one middle-schooler who had seen Wyatt Earp instead of Tombstone. My understanding for three decades has been that I had seen the long, plodding one and missed the good one.

Now, I doubt many movies could live up to thirty years of being considered the good one, but I was still pretty surprised by how silly and sometimes outright terrible this movie is! Y'all really had me going on this one! That is not to say that I was not entertained by it, because it is inarguably an entertaining movie, and I probably should have factored in that all the testimony to its stellar quality I remembered hearing was from a bunch of 13-year-olds thirty years ago. I should also add some context for my viewing experience, which was on Dan's phone, propped up on a motel room pillow, surrounded by Roy Rogers paraphernalia, the evening before our own visit to Tombstone, Arizona. Is that the ideal way to watch a film? I mean...this particular film? Maybe!

Allow me to recreate for you Dan's aural experience of watching this movie (not for the first time) sitting beside me: "Is that Powers Booth?" "Is that Michael Rooker?" "Is that..." (squints extra hard) "Billy Bob Thornton??" "Is that Val Kilmer's accent the whole time?" "Is that Billy Zane?" "Did you know Bill Paxton was my birthday twin?" "Is that John Corbett?" "Is that Thomas Haden Church?" "Is that Terry O'Quinn?" "Is that Paula Malcomson? Do you think David Milch saw her and Powers Booth in this and that's why he cast them in Deadwood?" "JASON PRIESTLY IS IN THIS MOVIE?" (Later, looking at IMDB) "That was Charlton Heston??" Let me also recreate for you you Dan's response, which was to silently ignore 100% of my questions, which, to be fair, were mostly rhetorical.

A lot of things in this movie are very effective, Kilmer obviously being the one that most people remember. Very strong "when Doc Holliday isn't on screen, all the other characters should be asking 'where's Doc Holliday?'" energy. One thing I was looking forward to in finally seeing this was getting some context for the "I'm your huckleberry" bit, which I have never understood, so I experienced some mild consternation when I watched him say it and still didn't understand what he meant. But I guess I'm not alone? (Literal trigger warning, that article ends with an entire paragraph eagerly promoting something called guns dot com, sigh.) Anyway, I liked all the Doc Holliday scenes and I liked to hate Johnny Ringo and I liked that Kurt Russell's version of Wyatt Earp felt more ambiguous than "upstanding law man." I liked that when a scene needed to be very dramatic they would just put in roaring thunder every 1.5 seconds. I liked how shiny Dana Delaney's silver outfit was. I like that I am able to clock a laudanum addiction from fifty paces.

I did not like any of the dialogue involving women and seriously doubt a single woman was within 100 miles of this script at any point. I did not like being put in the position of having to root for dudes who were like "guess what I'm a cop now" before hunting down and murdering people. Cops gunning people down with impunity is super duper not something I enjoy and I genuinely think the Earps won the battle of history in part because they had the superior outfits by far (and because Holliday's got jokes). Walking dramatically down the street in those dusters is the reason they are iconic, not their actual "cause" which was pretty iffy. I thought the ending of this movie was tonally insane, like I genuinely cannot remember the last time I was more flabbergasted by a screenwriting decision. I am neutral about the fact that the ladies all had thin 90s eyebrows, it is just a thing I always notice in period pieces of the time.

Line I repeated quietly to myself: "And so she walked out of our lives forever."

Is it under two hours: Not quite

In conclusion: I wish I had seen this in 1993 so that it could live amongst my many problematic faves, where it rightfully belongs.

Huckleberry Buckle from Saveur

Listen, this movie took some liberties with history and in that same spirit I took some liberties with this recipe, by which I mean I used blueberries because obtaining huckleberries where I live is prohibitively expensive. And, whatever, drawling "I'm your blueberry" makes just as much sense anyway.

Up next: Support for my belief that every road trip has the potential to become a cross-country crime spree