- namely that "Lonesome Dove" made every other Western I've ever seen, even those I used to like, seem corny.
I loaned it out to a friend. "Six hours?" he said, "I haven't got six hours to waste watching a movie."
Two days later, I got a phone call. "Thanks a lot, buddy," my friend told me, "I watched it all the way through, then started from the beginning and watched it again. Twelve solid hours! And I had other things to do, too!"
It's that good!
How in the world did they do it? How did they fight off the "helpful" execs who must have told them things like: "NO NO NO!. Cowboys never wore hats like that, or carried guns like that. And why don't you shoot it in places with more spectacular scenery, like the National Parks? And why do you insist on taking all that time introducing the characters? And why isn't there more quick draws and fancy gunplay? And how come the good guys don't triumph in the end? And you can't just kill off sympathetic characters like that! Haven't you people ever seen a western movie? YOU JUST CAN'T DO IT THIS WAY!"
But by some miracle, they could, and did.
The fact that Gus and Call ride past the Alamo WITHOUT SAYING A SINGLE WORD ABOUT IT, just stunned me!
Top notch everything! Go anywhere in it, pause it, turn off the color and feast your eyes on the most convincing presentation of the West as it appeared in the 1870s you'll ever see outside a museum.
I am in awe of this masterpiece.
Don't rent it, BUY IT.