Cinema Station

Western Impressions: The Good Old Boys

As a precursor to our film project, 12 Western Feature-Length Films in 12 Months, which Running Wild Films and 5J Media will start producing in 2016, director Travis Mills shares his thoughts on films from the genre as he studies Westerns in preparation for our own. Follow the project here on Facebook

This series of short blogs is titled “Western Impressions”.

The Good Old Boys (1995)

Tommy Lee Jones’s first Western as a director is just as good as his second, though they couldn’t be more different from each other. This is so low key and wonderful. It shows that westerns don’t need to be driven by action. This one just follows these beautifully drawn characters from event to event and by the end of the picture I feel like I know them as friends. And damn, is it romantic.

Lasting impression: The scene where Spacek tells Jones about her love that died and he says “He didn’t look like me, did he?” before he kisses her for the first time.