UPDATED 7-14-2015 -- SEE 'ARDOR' STORY!
HELL ON WHEELS Season Five – A TV Review
HELL ON WHEELS Season Five – A TV Review
Looks like a cold day in Hell!
On Saturday, July 18th, AMC’s HELL ON
WHEELS returns for its fifth, and sadly final, season. There will be seven episodes this summer, and
then the final seven will air sometime in 2016.
The first episode of the new season, CHINATOWN, written by Jami O’Brien
and directed by David Straiton, welcomes back Cullen Bohannan (Anson Mount), who
has switched his allegiance from the Union Pacific Railroad to the Central
Pacific, in the race to complete the Transcontinental Railroad. The episode begins with a dream, and then
takes off with a bang – literally – when Cullen, leading a crew blasting their
way through the Sierra Nevada Mountains, gets more of a charge than he
bargained for.
When the series first began, Cullen’s motivation was
revenge for the killing of his wife and child.
He has a new wife and child now, and what drives him is the need to find them. He has a new obstacle to his work, in that
much of the crew is Chinese, and communication is difficult. Moreover, while he’d had no problems working
with his largely Irish and freed slave crews, they had leaders – Psalms, Elam
Ferguson – who, while sometimes adversarial, were often helpful, and looked out
for their people. Cullen now faces a sinister
new menace in the suave Chang (Byron Mann), the Chinese-American jobber who
provides the Chinese labor for the railroad, and is in a struggle for power
with Cullen.
While season four had a high mortality rate among
favorite characters, Cullen’s previous antagonists are back, from Southern Pacific Railroad chief Doc
Durant (Colm Meany) to the Scandinavian you love to hate, Swede (Christopher
Heyerdahl). If the opener seems a bit
choppy, it’s because so many story-lines need to be re-started, and new ones
introduced. With CHINATOWN (“Forget it,
Jake”), HELL ON WHEELS season five is off to a promising and exciting
start. And for anyone who doesn’t
remember just where last season ended, on Saturday AMC will be showing all of
season four as a lead-in to HELL ON WHEELS season five.
GUNSLINGERS Season Two – A TV Review
The docudrama series GUNSLINGERS returns to AHC – The American Heroes Channel – on Sunday,
July 19th, for a second season outlining the lives of famous badmen
and good. As with most post-Ken Burns
documentaries, the format is predictable: a mix of narration, historic photos,
expert commentary, and reenactments.
While this setup has becoming overly familiar, GUNSLINGERS added two
variations which make it considerably more enjoyable and involving than most of
the genre. First, the leads in the cast
of the reenactments are actors as well as reenactors. In addition to knowing how to ride and shoot
convincingly, overall they give credible movie-quality performances, often
working with a higher level of script, direction, and production values.
Second, each story is narrated by the central
character. Although the telling does not
include an awareness that they are telling the story of their own demise, there
is an amusingly arrogant, “Here’s the nonsense they said about me, and here’s
the truth,” attitude to the proceedings.
It’s hard to know how factual and how fanciful the self-awareness is. Some legends, like Tom Horn and Bat
Masterson, wrote extensively (and often self-servingly) about their lives, but
most did not. But even if what went on
in the heads of these men is largely guesswork, it’s based on fairly solid
history, as opposed to the recent Bill O’Reilly fiasco, LEGENDS AND LIES, which
interviewed some of the same experts, but then used discredited history and
made embarrassing errors.
The second season opens with BUTCH CASSIDY – THE
PERFECT CRIMINAL, revealing a man much more akin to the Paul Newman/BUTCH
CASSIDAY AND THE SUNDANCE KID version than the William Holden/WILD BUNCH
take. The telling is entertaining, the
action is extensive, and the cinematic approach underscores both the
similarities and differences between the movie version and the admittedly cloudy
historical record. Ample time is spent
on the different theories of Butch’s demise – whether he and Sundance died in
South America or made it back home – and family interviews and scientific
details give it a satisfying legitimacy.
The other five episodes of the season will be SETH
BULLOCK – SHERIFF OF DEADWOOD (Timothy Olyphant’s character from the DEADWOOD
series), BAT MASTERSON – DEFENDER OF DODGE, BASS REEVES – THE REAL LONE RANGER,
BILL DOOLIN & THE OKLAHOMBRES, and DEACON JIM MILLIER – THE PIOUS ASSASSIN. DEADWOOD fans will want to catch THE SETH
BULLOCK episode in particular, as Robin Weigert, who played Calamity Jane in
the series, and DEADWOOD creator David Milch are among the commentators.
If you’d like a preview of GUNSLINGERS, three
episodes from season one, Tom Horn, Wild Bill Hickok, and Billy the Kid, will
be shown earlier in the day.
EXCLUSIVE TO THE ROUND-UP! FIRST LOOK AT ‘ARDOR’: ARGENTINEAN WESTERN OPENS
IN THEATRES & VOD FRIDAY JULY 17TH!
Pablo Fendrik wrote and directed this tale of mercenaries
who kill farmers and claim their land, until a mysterious man emerges from the
Rainforest to save the kidnapped daughter of a farmer! The film stars Alice
Braga (ELYSIUM) as the daughter, and Gael Garcia Bernal (Che Guevara in THE
MOTORCYCLE DIARIES) as the avenger. Read
my review in next week’s Round-up!
WEDNESDAY’S ‘WORD ON WESTERNS’ HONORS WORTHY WOMEN
OF THE WEST!
At noon on Wednesday, July 15th, The
Autry’s Crossroads West Café is the
place to be for Rob Word’s A Word on
Westerns, where a delicious lunch is followed by an engaging discussion of
a Western movie topic led by filmmaker and historian Rob Word, with guests who
know the industry first-hand. I’m not
going to post a tentative guest list until I get the okay from Rob – already
some expected guests had to drop out because of schedule conflicts or health
concerns. But Rob always gets an
excellent panel built around an interesting topic, in this case, Women of the West. Incidentally, the program is free, but the
lunch is not, unless you can trick someone into picking up your tab. By the way, as these events have gotten more
and more popular, attendees have begun to arrive earlier and earlier to assure
having a seat. As a result, the rumor is
that the doors will close at noon – so get there early!
As a teaser, here is a great woman of the West,
Jacqueline Scott, at a previous Word on Westerns luncheon, talking about
working with Henry Fonda and James Stewart.
JOHN BERGSTROM ON ‘WRITER’S BLOCK’ THURSDAY
Hosts Jim Christina and Bobbi Bell will be joined by
Western singer/songwriter John Bergstrom Thursday night at 8. A native Angelino, John, whose 4th
album is entitled BUTTERFIELD STAGE, performs a mix of traditional and original
songs, with such intriguing titles as Throw
Down The Box, Latchkey Cowboy, Red Rocks of Sedona, and St. Francis Dam, the last referring to
the dam that collapsed and killed about 500 (again I say, “Forget it Jake. It’s Chinatown!). You can learn more about John (to help think
up call-in questions) HERE. You can listen to the show live (at ‘Listen Live 2’) HERE, And listen to this or any previous programs on
podcast HERE.
REDBIRD’S CHILDREN OF MANY COLORS INTERTRIBAL POWWOW
JULY 17-19!
Next weekend, Moorpark College will play host to an
annual intertribal powwow that brings together many tribes, including native
people from Alaska, Hawaii, the First Nations People of Canada, and Central and
South America. All are welcome to the powwow, which is part ceremony and part social, and is both a meeting
place and a market place. Most
importantly, it’s a place where youngsters can learn from the wisdom and
experience of their elders. Among the
many activities offered are singing, dancing, honoring ceremonies, arts, crafts
and food booths, other nonprofit associations, tipis, story tellers, flint
knapping, traditional craft demonstrations, and many opportunities throughout
the weekend for people to experience the intertribal circle.
Friday night features an open flute contest, and Saturday is the Powwow Princess Contest. It’s an outdoor, family friendly event, and a $2 per vehicle contribution is suggested. You can learn much more HERE. Moorpark College is at 7075 Campus Road, Moorpark, CA 93021, in Ventura County.
ENNIO MORRICONE TO SCORE TARANTINO’S ‘HATEFUL 8’!
According to DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD, HATEFUL 8 director
Quentin Tarantino revealed at COMICON today that Ennio Morricone, five-time
Oscar-nominated composer, and winner of an Honorary Career Oscar, will score
the new Western, his first original Western score in four decades! Follow this link to a DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD interview
at Comicon with Tarantino HERE. :
FIRST PEEK AT ‘WESTWORLD’!
The subject of the Comicon panel was the series
PERSON OF INTEREST, but HBO producer surprised the assembled with a trailer
from the upcoming miniseries WESTWORLD, based on the Michael Crichton/Saul
David 1973 film about vacationers who indulge their fantasies with human-like
robots in ‘safe’ environments. That man
in the black hat is Ed Harris, taking on the role Yul Brynner played, of a
robot who develops a mind of his own.
WESTWORLD should start airing sometime in 2016.
AND THAT’S A WRAP!
The August TRUE WEST should be on the newsstands soon. My column this month, A Quarter-Century Tribute, celebrates the 25th
anniversary of DANCES WITH WOLVES! I also review the movie YELLOW ROCK.
Have a great week, and I’ll see you next weekend!
Happy Trails,
Henry,
All Original Contents Copyright July 2015 by Henry
C. Parke – All Rights Reserved
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