That’s not a bad opening scene! These shootingest guys are so eveeel that they kill a cow… and… THE LITTLE DOG!!! IS THERE NO LIMIT!

But seriously, it’s kinda wonky? Like all the stunt guys weren’t quite told where to be, so there was a lot of hesitancy? But it was pretty good anyway.

Poor cow.

Hey! This is a lot of fun! I mean, it’s funny! I don’t think Clintwood going for humour exactly, but this is “whoo! yeah!” in the most basic way.

It’s so silly! They’re just hitting that boulder? What about driving a steel pole into it or something to split it instead? I know, I’m not a master rock hitter or anything, but … that just seems like the … bare minimum… you should do.

Now they’re all hitting the boulder!!! I love it!

Is this a made-for-tv movie?

No!

The film, which took in nearly $41 million at the box office, became the highest grossing Western of the 1980s.

It’s just so… gauche — you wouldn’t think a seasoned film cinematographer would sign off on some of these shots. But it’s a veteran, so…

This is such a fun movie — no subtext, just a super-hero that rides in to save the day, killing a whole bunch of assholes.

But it’s kinda… lacking… in any other qualities. But whatevs.

Pale Rider. Clint Eastwood. 1985. ⚄

Oh, that’s a name I haven’t seen in a while… was that a 70s thing? Yes it was. This must be the final First Artists movie, perhaps? It was set up as a thing for the hot actors who wanted to make movies slightly outside the system, but not really, like Barbra Streisand, Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen (quoting Wikipedia).

William Wiard is a name I can’t recall seeing before, but he made a buttload of TV… and this is his only film?

I was a bit distracted while watching this, but… I kinda wasn’t feeling it? There were good bits, though.

Tom Horn. William Wiard. 1980. ⚂

This short was included on the Swing Time DVD… it’s really funny so far.

This is super corny and very amusing. The production values seem to be a lot higher than usual for this kind of thing.

This is (as usual) just an excuse to string some musical numbers together… and the cinematography is a bit… wonky? But man, these number are poppin! I can’t take my eyes off of the screen.

Mack has done a gazillion of things, and it pretty much looks like all of them are shorts? So this was his thing.

Now, OK, this isn’t a cinematic masterpiece, but for its genre (“stringing together vaudeville acts into a b movie”), it’s absolutely perfect — I’ve never seen anything as good as this in that genre. There’s not a millisecond of time wasted: It’s all zingers (some of them good) and singing and dancing (some of it excellent).

It’s some kind of genius, so:

Hotel a la Swing. Roy Mack. 1937. ⚅