A celebration of iconic female singers and a passel of Westerns on Netflix are among this week’s highlights.
With so many options available now on cable, streaming platforms, digital networks, and broadcast television, you might spend more time searching for something to watch than actually watching anything. So we’re offering a weekly guide to some programming of special interest to C&I readers. Here are a few highlights for Nov. 13-19. Happy viewing.
Pick of the Week: CMT SMASHING GLASS: A Celebration of the Groundbreaking Women of Music
CMT’s inaugural celebration of barrier-breaking icons honors Patti LaBelle and Tanya Tucker with one-of-a-kind performances and presentations by such notables as Billie Jean King, Chris Janson, Clint Black, Fancy Hagood, Ledisi and The War & Treaty. Both honorees will also partake in a special roundtable conversation with Sheryl Crow before each superstar takes the stage for her own show-stopping performance. But wait, there’s more: Amber Riley, Lucie Silvas and Mickey Guyton will honor the late women of music with “Moments of Respect” and tribute medleys to Aretha Franklin, Sinead O’Connor and Tina Turner.
Nov. 15 at 8 pm ET on CMT.
Streaming
There are plenty of Westerns to watch on Netflix, ranging from limited-run series to contemporary neo-Westerns to genre-expanding shoot-‘em-ups. Among the recent titles:
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) — After earning their spurs with their well-received 2010 True Grit remake, filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen collaborated on this offbeat anthology of Wild West tales that range from tongue-in-cheeky comical (featuring Tim Blake Nelson as a singing cowboy) to darkly supernatural.
The Ballad of Lefty Brown (2017) — What if John Wayne were killed early in a Western, and Walter Brennan had to avenge his buddy’s death? That’s more or less the premise of writer-director Jared Moshé’s solidly entertaining period drama, which can be enjoyed as both a straight-shooting homage to crotchety sidekicks and shoot-’em-up conventions, and a well-crafted drama about loyalty, betrayal, and redemption. Bill Pullman is terrific in the title role.
Godless (2017) — Jeff Daniels received a well-deserved Emmy Award for his performance in writer-director Scott Frank’s acclaimed miniseries as Frank Griffin, a notorious outlaw who tracks a former partner in crime to a frontier town where women are in charge — and they don’t aim to please.
The Harder They Fall (2021) — Delroy Lindo steals every scene that isn’t bolted to the floor in director Jeymes Samuel’s audaciously stylized and brazenly entertaining western as legendary slave-turned lawman Bass Reeves, who proves to be an invaluable ally to semi-reformed outlaw Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) when the latter and his crew go gunning for Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) — the varmint who, years earlier, murdered Nat’s family and left him physically and emotionally scarred.
The Hateful Eight (2015) — Writer-director Quentin Tarantino assembled an all-star cast — including Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Dern, Walton Goggins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, and Demián Bichir — to tell a twisty tale of deception and death in an isolated stagecoach way station, where a motley crew of characters is stranded by a blizzard, and left to bring out the worst in each other. If you’d like to see more of these colorful characters, take note: Netflix also offers an expanded miniseries version of the movie.
Montford: The Chickasaw Rancher (2021) — C&I reader favorite Martin Sensmeier gives a strong lead performance in Nathan Frankowski ‘s fact-based drama as Montford T. Johnson, an ambitious and resolute Chickasaw man who overcomes obstacles posed by capricious nature and duplicitous whites to become a land and cattle baron in the Oklahoma Indian Territories during the post-Civil War era.
Wind River (2017) — Taylor Sheridan wrote and directed this grippingly suspenseful drama, winner of five C&I Movie Awards, starring Jeremy Renner as Cory Lambert, a game tracker living near a Native American reservation who joins forces with a rookie FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) and the local tribal police chief (Graham Greene) to apprehend anyone responsible for the death of a young woman whose body Lambert discovered in a remote area. Gil Birmingham has a couple of heart-wrenching scenes as the girl’s father, Lambert’s long-time friend.
Movies
Wichita (1955) — Joel McCrea stakes an authoritative claim on the role of Wyatt Earp in this Golden Globe-winning drama directed by cult-favorite filmmaker Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, Out of the Past), which has Earp keeping the peace in the titular Kansas cattle down during the years before his fateful gunfight in Tombstone.
1:44 pm ET Nov. 18 on INSP
The Professionals (1966) — Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan and Woody Strode play for keeps in writer-director Richard Brooks’ enduringly popular Western as uniquely talented mercenaries who are hired to retrieve the kidnapped wife (Claudia Cardinale) of a wealthy rancher — then discover that maybe she wasn’t really kidnapped after all.
9 pm ET Nov. 19 on INSP
Star Watch
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters — Wyatt Earp vs. Godzilla? Not quite. But Tombstone star and past C&I cover guy Kurt Russell will be tangling with Big G and other heavy-hitters from the Monsterverse in this time-tripping limited run series, which kicks off Nov. 17 on Apple TV+
Lawmen: Bass Reeves — Look for a brief but impactful appearance by Mo Brings Plenty as Minco Dodge, a member of the Choctaw Community who guides Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves (David Oyelowo) in the right direction as the lawman pursues an outlaw during the Part IV episode premiering Nov. 19 on Paramount+. Not incidentally: You can join Mo for the premiere episode of C&I’s new podcast, Spirit of the West.
Switching Channels: MeTV
Each week, we showcase a different free-to-watch digital channel available through streaming and/or cable. This week: MeTV, which presents reruns of classic television series throughout the week, including such Westerns as The Big Valley, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Have Gun — Will Travel, Rawhide, The Rifleman, Wagon Train, Wanted Dead or Alive and The Wild Wild West. For up-to-date schedules and access information, check out the MeTV website.
