Wyatt Earp & Tombstone ... and others

Wyatt Earp:

AMC lists this as a classic.

But pit this against Tombstone, and which one comes out ahead?

Tombstone ... it was a more entertaining movie.

(Quick and the Dead was another one from this era, that was very entertaining.)

And Kurt Russell looks great, with that mustache and long black coat.

Bill Paxton is doing some of that Hudson freak-out eye-movement behavior ...


What was it about the studios in the 80's spying on each other and rushing ideas to market before the other one could? Leviathan - The Abyss - Deepstar Six ... it's like this was the kind of cutthroat competitiveness that existed before the tech industry came out ... I don't really see movies doing this anymore ... because movies are no longer the primary form of entertainment. (Long ago, movies were the *it* thing ... people would go to movies because they could experience things there that they could not anywhere else. Movies were the ultimate form of entertainment that blew away anything else out there.)

Now it's rare that a movie still captivates, gets people talking, gets people actually going to the theatre. Movies need something, continue to need something, that one can't get anywhere else. The combination of big screen, a big presence (or big cast), memorable scenes, the visceral experience ... again, something that can't be experienced anywhere else.

Nothing has really changed. It's just that there's this extra layer of noise on top of it (of movies), that vie and compete for your attention: tv, videogames, the Internet. But what made movies powerful continue to make movies powerful. I may be getting old, but I will continue to see a fun movie, or an entertaining movie, or a captivating movie, in the theater, for the simple reason, for starters, that it has a screen that cannot be rivaled anywhere else. Combine that with enough elements to make a great, entertaining experience, and I'll go.