Can aliens knock the dust off the Western? [Correction 8/10/11] - The Washington Post (original) (raw)

When the movie "Cowboys & Aliens," starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, opens in theaters Friday it will aim for more than just stellar grosses at the box office. It will attempt to merge two genres that are essentially strangers to each other, the Western and the sci-fi adventure. But the film's director, Jon Favreau, has another goal as well: He hopes his picture will boost the Western's once-thriving, more recently sagging, fortunes.

"Westerns have been considered box-office poison in recent years," Favreau said by telephone recently. "But alien-invasion movies have been very popular, so the hope is that fusing the two genres allows us to make something that has more of a commercial upside than a traditional Western, while also allowing us to embrace the traditional aspects of the Western. …

Arts & Activities

By Johnson, Ivan E; 298 words

KIDS EXPLORE THE HERITAGE OF WESTERN NATIVE AMERICANS (1997; 59.95), Westridge Young Writers Workshop. John Muir Publications, P.O. Box 613, Santa Fe, NM 87504. At Westridge Young Writers Workshop, 300 young Native American and non-native students have produced a book series called Kids Explore.…

The Washington Post

By Bill McAllister; 700+ words

Native Americans began pitching their tepees on the Mall and their stories to the news media yesterday, part of a lobbying campaign to overturn deep cuts the Senate has voted in Indian programs. Gaiashkbos, president of the National Congress of American Indians, told reporters that the hundreds of…

Cobblestone

By Schultz, Eric B.; 700+ words

It is true that the French and Indian War was part of a world struggle between two great European powers, France and Great Britain. But the areas where much of the fighting took place--western Pennsylvania and the Ohio River valley and northern and western New York along the Champlain River…

States News Service

700+ words

MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. -- The following information was released by the U.S. Air Force: Commentary by Retired Col. Gene Kamena Air War College Native Americans serving in the military have long been part of one of the largest per-capita ethnic groups in the profession of arms. Young Native…

Faces: People, Places, and Cultures

By AbiNader, Heidi; 642 words

Alcatraz. The name sounds mysterious and forbidding, and conjures images of criminals attempting escape from this desolate, fog-cloaked island. Yet Alcatraz is a symbol of hope and pride for Native Americans because of an event that began there in 1969. Long before Alcatraz was a federal prison,…