Articles written by Louis Williams

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About me - Louis Williams

Retired (three years) professor of English, South Dakota State University.

BirthplaceBaytown, Texas

BA/MA, English, University of Texas, Austin, 1960, 1965

Ph. D., American Studies, University of Minnesota, 1976

Publications: Tropical Murder, Tower Books,

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Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Ed Wood (1994): 1 of 6

ED WOOD At one point in Ed Wood, Ed, in drag, in a bar, looks over and sees Orson Welles alone at a table and joins him. I have no idea whether this meeting ever took place, but it is a wonderful moment: the creators of Citizen Kane and Plan 9 From Outer Space have a drink together. That is, one of the anointed geniuses of H...
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: True Grit (2010): 2 of 9

True Grit As pictured here, Charles Portis’s novel comes off like something written by Rider Haggard, particularly “King Solomon’s Mines,” where the principals literally go off the map into a region where the dress, food, ethics, and morality are all different from what they are in civilized places su...
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: The Town (2010): 1 of 4

The Town The town is Charlestown, Massachusetts, part of greater Boston, but not the part that houses Harvard, Radcliffe, MIT, and all the other silver spoon institutions. Charlestown is cramped and run down, low rent and hopeless, a place where dreams are strangled in their cradles and life is a long blur of drugs and booze...
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Unstoppable (2010): 1 of 4

Unstoppable The train in question turns out not to be unstoppable. It stops literally in its tracks, but not before a monstrous hulabaloo and whole half hours of phony emotions. Despite its starring Denzel Washington, this movie reeks of made-for-TV. That is, made-for-TV in the worst possible sense. “Rome,” after...
Entertainment > Movie Analysis Movie analysis: The Searchers: 1 of 4

THE SEARCHERS The moment when John Wayne, as Ethan Edwards, sick cookie supreme, rides his Comanche captive niece (Natalie Wood) down and then swings her high before cradling her in his arms - this when every indication has been that he, racist and psychotic, is going to kill her as he has been promising for most of the movi...
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Tropic Thunder: 4 of 15

Tropic Thunder First (historically speaking), there was the book, Tropic Thunder, written by a Viet Nam veteran, who is hired as a technical advisor for the film. He has artificial hands—hooks, in fact—becauses he was wounded....
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Snakes on a Plane: 4 of 12

Snakes on a Plane The title sounds like something one might find in Tender Buttons; here, however, the snakes are real. Surfer dude in Hawaii rides bike over back roads right into a mob killing. He is the only eye witness and is spotted by the Bads, who set out to kill him. By the time he gets back to Honolulu, he finds Bads...
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: My Darling Clementine: 1 of 3

JOHN FORD’S DARK LADY: MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946) It’s fitting that the last person you see in this movie is the school marm-nurse from the East, Clementine (Cathy Downs). The Clantons are all dead and half the Earps and Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), her former fiance, as well. The field has been pretty much cl...
Entertainment > Movie Genres Best western movies of all time: 4 of 11

FORT APACHE I saw it first when I was eleven or twelve and loved every minute; now, I have some reservations. In fact, I have almost nothing but. Not being in the mind of the director, of course, means that you may miss some things. Possibly Ford was trying to be Shakespearean - the Shakespeare of the history plays, at least...
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Inglourious Basterds: 8 of 21

The Boomerang War: Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds In this picture the entire leadership of the Third Reich is destroyed by burning movie film while seeing a movie. A lot of burning movie film, you understand. But, then, courtesy the work of Leni Riefenstahl, you could argue that the Third Reich –- at least its ...