>Westerns? There have been only a few great ones made during the last fifty >years. Only Shane comes to mind as the "standard" by which all others might Thirty years might be more accurate: the 50s were probably the genre's high water mark and there were still quite a few "great ones" during the 60s from the likes of Ford, Peckinpah, Hawks, etc (& if you want to go beyond Hollywood, the spaghetti Westerns were a major contribution and extension). You might argue that many of the elements that attracted audiences (not the least of which would be young males) is what drives action films: good vs. evil, with manly men settling their differences via guns and quick wits. (Which means the next big genre will be the singing action hero: Bruce Willis and John Travolta have both had hit records after all. You heard it on Screen-L first.) Something much harder to evaluate would be a declining sense of "the frontier" but which certainly can't be dismissed. And as for current Westerns, TNT has had a fair amount of success with its string of Westerns. LT ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu