Either because of a conspiracy of release dates or the prioritizing of my own viewings, I'm finishing my 2015 viewing season with no fewer than four westerns in the final eight days.
All I'd have to do is schedule a viewing of The Ridiculous 6 on Netflix and I'd have a full house.
And without revealing exactly how much I've liked the two movies I've seen so far, let's just say we're off to a good start.
It was a double feature yesterday, as my wife being able to pick up the kids from daycare allowed me to watch Slow West on my laptop at a Starbucks, in anticipation of meeting up with a friend for an 8:40 showing of The Revenant. (The Revenant was playing only two blocks away from where I work, so it seemed silly to go home and get the kids only to return to that exact location two hours later, and fortunately, it worked out for my wife to help me avoid that.)
The second two will be a Kurt Russell double feature. I already know I'm committed to a Bone Tomahawk screening, since I've rented it from iTunes, and that viewing figures to transpire on Saturday night. Then the big news of the last few days: I've found a way to see The Hateful Eight in time for my ranking deadline. Only just. It doesn't open wide here until January 21st, but the road show version (the one I want to see anyway) opens a week earlier than that at exactly one cinema, and if I hadn't been driving exactly where I was driving with my kids on Tuesday, I wouldn't have seen the poster that informed me of that fact. I've already got tickets for a 10 a.m. screening next Thursday, which was scheduled as a day off for me anyway. That will be just 14 hours before the Oscar noms are announced, officially ending my ranking year.
Westerns are not my favorite genre, to say the least. That could explain me dragging my feet on getting to Slow West in particular. However, I'm starting to wonder if 2015 will make up some ground in changing my mind on that topic, and not even necessarily because of a film that came out in 2015. Early on in the year I saw (and was blown away by) Sergio Leone's 1968 film Once Upon a Time in the West, which immediately installed itself among my favorite westerns of all time. I've also got one western (Unforgiven) in my top 20 of all time. So maybe I just need the right kind of westerns, and maybe 2015 is finally introducing me to those.
How will Bone Tomahawk and The Hateful Eight stack up? And for that matter, how much do I like Slow West and The Revenant?
You have only a week more to wait to find out.
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