http://www.okgazette.com/oklahoma/articles.sec-139-1-western.html Lee Van Cleef enjoyed a secondary career in Italy cranking out spaghetti Westerns, with little regard to quality. However, 1972’s Grand Duel — aka The Big Showdown — is deserving of its Grand label. No wonder Quentin Tarantino borrowed its sweeping theme song by Luis Bacalov for Kill Bill; you'll recognize it in two notes.]]> Perhaps to horn in on the expected Django Unchained action, Warner Archive has dug into its vaults to give a spaghetti Western a second helping of viewers. It found a unlikely offering in Dollar for the Dead, a 1988, made-for-cable effort starring Emilio Estevez. You could look at it like a Young Guns spin-off if you wish.]]> Before Django gets Unchanged this Christmas via Quentin Tarantino, get schooled on the spaghetti-Western bounty hunter through a pair of double-feature discs from Timeless Media Group. (Spoiler: He's neither a slave nor African-American.) That's four films total for those of you who can't do math, and all but one are hitting DVD officially for the first time. ]]> What a kick it is to see Robert Mitchum biting into a stogie and laying waste to a room with a machine gun. Because, really, how often does a man of the cloth do that? No wonder the 1972 quasi-Western is titled The Wrath of God. The film takes place in a South American town so brutal and dismal that, as one character reasons, "If God had wanted to give the world an enema, he'd've stuck the nozzle in here."]]> Before he became Itay’s master of horror, Dario Argento knocked out a few screenplays, including one of Sergio Leone's legendary Western epics, Once Upon a Time in the West. Lesser-known is 1969's The Five Man Army. That's too bad, because it brings an “international all-star team” approach to the spaghetti Western, and doesn’t forget the all-aces Ennio Morricone score! ]]> Anyone who believes public-domain DVD box sets don't contain any good movies, take note: You're dead wrong.]]> Two Westerns from the days when Hollywood relied on them pull into the DVD-R outpost from Warner Archive. Neither is essential, but its wide landscapes and reliable tropes make for comfortable-enough watching.]]> Is there a title more intriguing yet baffling than the punctuation-heavy Django, Kill! (If You Live Shoot!)? Don't answer that. The important thing is just that the 1967 Italian cult favorite now has been unleashed uncensored on Blu-ray from Blue Underground.]]> Mill Creek Entertainment offers another "Spaghetti Western Double Feature" by pairing 1972's Grand Duel and 1976's Keoma on one Blu-ray. Although both already are available on the company's Ten Thousand Ways to Die: The Spaghetti Western Collection on DVD — not to mention a dozen other labels' public-domain discs — the prints here are so clear that fans of the genre should consider the small investment.
]]> Set right smack in the Mexican Revolution, A Bullet for the General unloads roughly several thousand rounds of ammo for one explosive epic of a spaghetti Western starring two of the genre's faves, Gian Maria Volonté and Klaus Kinski, both graduates of Sergio Leone's classic For a Few Dollars More.
]]> Say “Western” in terms of movies, and one of three subgenres come to mind:]]> Not a fan of Westerns? Or are you just not sure? ]]> Sergio Leone's groundbreaking trilogy that made an international star of Clint Eastwood — 1964's "A Fistful of Dollars," 1965's "For a Few Dollars More" and 1966's true epic "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" — are the films by which all other spaghetti Westerns are measured, if not all Westerns in general. ]]> Two otherwise unrelated Westerns from 20th Century Fox bump spurs on a two-for-one entry in Shout! Factory’s new “Wild West Collection.”
]]> Spaghetti Western fans are bound to be disappointed by this double feature, no matter how appealing the packaging for the Mill Creek Entertainment Blu-ray is, which is a lot.
]]> David Lynch has made a few masterpieces, but "Eraserhead" isn't one of them.
]]>