THE MAN FROM LARAMIE (1955)

The final Mann/Stewart western pairing has Stewart as a man searching for answering about the murder of his brother by Indians, in particular who supplied the killers with repeating rifles.  His search leads him to the small isolated town of Coronado.  It seems Coronado is run by a cattle baron and his psychotic son. There's also an ambitious ranch foreman (Arthur Kennedy) to deal with.

THE MAN FROM LARAMIE is a satisfactory western, but I can't really see any reason to get excited about it.  Nice photography and good acting, but the story was just kinda blah.  Worth a watch for western fans, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it.

Mann - Stewart westerns:

WINCHESTER '73 (1950)
BEND OF THE RIVER (1952)
THE NAKED SPUR (1953)
THE FAR COUNTRY (1954)

TABLOID (2010)

What a insane story.  Okay, so what I can decipher from this fascinating documentary by Errol Morris is back in 1977 you have this mildly attractive young woman with mental issues, Joyce McKinney, and she becomes obsessed with a local guy, Kirk Anderson, who's a Mormon so he's clearly off his rocker as well.  Anyway they become a couple(?), but then he goes to England on a missionary trip without telling her.  She then starts hooking in order to pay a detective to find Kirk.  Once she locates Kirk she hires some dudes to go with her to England to free him.  Two of them back out, but one stays and they get Kirk (the story gets foggy here) and take him to a remote cottage where Joyce attempts to un-brainwash him with three days of nonstop sex.  Eventually Kirk calls his family, they pick him up and press charges against Joyce for kidnapping and rape.  That's when the tabloid newspapers get a hold of the story and it explodes.

Filmmaker Morris never challenges McKinney in any of her claims so all we have to base our opinions on are Mckinney's interview, which was probably a wise decision cause I don't think she's the type to take kindly anybody questioning her.  Early on she claimed to have an I.Q. of 168!!!  There's also interviews with a few around the edges of the story characters two newspaper reporters and one of the guys who backed out early on.  Unfortunately Kirk Anderson refused to take part in the film.  Even so Joyce is one hell of a character an carries the entire film.  Words explode out of her mouth nonstop and it's pretty apparent that she's unhinged, but that just makes for great entertainment.

TABLOID is a fun lightweight documentary and definitely worth checking out.

JESSE STONE: THIN ICE (2009)

Thin ice, huh?  Once again we get to see Selleck carrying groceries over that bridge and once again talk about parking tickets and whimper about his ex-wife.  Boo-hoo.  Oh yeah, his psychic deputybot 2.0 is back and annoying as ever.  Anyway, Selleck gets shot in the arm while hanging out with his buddy in Boston.  Stuff happens and there's also the case of a missing baby.  It's just the same stuff we've already seen from the first four movies: trouble with the city council, taking the law into his own hands, Selleck is positive of the suspects guilt after only seeing the suspect for 10 seconds, drinks like a fish, women throwing themselves at him, horrible dialogue, he takes his dog everywhere but never pets the motherfucker, blah, blah, blah.

 

Not a horrible movie, definitely watchable, but just stale.  I feel like I'm revisiting the same rerun over and over.  And I never did understand his sudden hatred of that one deputy in the last film.  That was completely out of nowhere.  The reasoning behind that must have been edited out or something. 

Part 1 - Stone Cold (2005)
Part 2 - Jesse Stone: Night Passage (2006)
Part 3 - Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise (2006)
Part 4 - Jesse Stone: Sea Change (2007)
Part 6 - Jesse Stone: No Remorse (2010)
Part 7 - Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost (2011)
Part 8 - Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt (2012)
Part 9 - Jesse Stone: Lost in Paradise (2015)