Lonesome Dove … Then and Now …

Theme from Lonesome Dove / Basil Poledouris


“I always figure from the cradle to the grave, we all have our individual journeys… There’s got to be something hereafter”.
– Robert Duvall

amen.

Robert Duvall / Golden Boot and Bronze Wrangler Awards

Tumbling Tumbleweeds / Bob Wills

“Spending two years on my uncle’s ranch in Montana as a young man gave me the wisdom and the thrust to do westerns.”
– Robert Duvall

Robert Duvall - Wikipedia

Ride on Robert !

The Odyssey | Movie Trailer 2

THE ODYSSEY Trailer Release Date, IMAX Prologue & Footage Predictions

Hoping this will be good. 
?

Robert Duvall / Part 3 / Filmography Cont. …

To this day, I still think Lonesome Dove is my best part.
Robert Duvall

Coming:
DUVALL Filmography: 

Open Range 2003
Gods and Generals is a 2003
Broken Trail 2006

Robert Duvall / Cowboy / Part 2 …

How popular was Duvall?

Really Popular.

Lonesome Dove?

                                                           DUVALL AND TOMMY LEE JONES

I can’t think it was planned, 
but Duvall eventually almost pushed
Tommy Lee Jones right out the frame.

Not easy to do.

Coming … More Duvall Filmography

Robert Duvall / Cowboy / Part 1…

“When I knew nothing, I thought I could do anything.”
– Robert Duvall

TRUE GRIT / 1969

Might as well start with a Classic:
as the Badguy “Lucky Ned Pepper” in a John Wayne Movie!
Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne) called it:
“Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!”

Luck had nothing to do with it.

LAWMAN / 1971

Next Duvall saddled up against
another Great Western Movie Star , Burt Lancaster.

Robert had to step down a notch behind Robert Ryan and Lee J. Cobb,
but he still got in his shots:

THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID
/
1972
Duvall moved closer to Stardom,
sharing the Bill pretty well equally with Robertson.

Superb Reviews:

“For my money, “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid was one of the best films of 1972, and a lot of other critics liked it, too…”(Top Ten of the Year)- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid is easily the best western of the year…Kaufman directs its events with a rousing energy…”—Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune

“The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid…is a wonderfully lucid and vivid film about the time. The action is set in 1876…The film also has a contagious sense of amazement…Kaufman has made a beautiful, simple film about gaudiness and hope…The film is not really a Western: more than that.” –Penelope Gilliatt, The New Yorker

“Moments of pure farce…Curious, contradictory tenderness…Ambitious and inventive…”—Charles Champlin, LA Times

Coming: Robert Duvall / Cowboy / Part 2:
Lonesome Dove
Geronimo
Open Range
Broken Trail
Joe Kidd

It’s So Canadian …

Yeah … that IS snow.
(But that coward is wearing a wetsuit)

Then I Dreamed: Indigenous Past Lives

Wind Prayer

“Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one.”
― Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks:
Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux


It’s not that I didn’t believe in Past Lives,

I just saw no reason to place my attention upon such.

Then … I started to Dream.

Awakening

In one dream, I saw I was Native in the Southwestern US.
Before the time of the Whiteman.
I dressed in white buckskin and I loved my beautiful wife.

This may contain: an old native american man and woman smiling
Image borrowed from Pinterest

It was an idyllic lifetime.

Later …
In 1988 I went at exposition of Native History and Culture
at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary.
It was called:

The Spirit Sings

As I wandered through the exhibits of Arts and images
I found myself overwhelmed and I became very tired.
I decided to lay down on a nearby bench.
Suddenly I was lying on the ground in a Teepee.
And as I looked up through the canopy
where intertwined the support polls
I could see the stars.

I had been a plains Native.

Spirit Renewed

In a third dream:
I was a Mayan woman standing in my small hut.
I was pregnant …
And when I gazed into the fire,
I saw the face of a Master.
Looking back at me.

What can the mind know?
Where only Spirit can go.

The Beauty of a Chinook Arch

The Wayward Wind / Gogi Grant 1956

In Alberta and elsewhere – like Montana and Colorado – we get this weather phenomenon we call Chinooks and Chinook Arches.

Chinook Arch Definition:

A Chinook arch is a striking weather phenomenon often seen along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains—especially around Calgary. It appears as a long, curved band of cloud stretching parallel to the mountains, usually with a sharp, clear boundary. This arch forms when warm, dry Chinook winds descend the mountains and create a high crest of air that shapes the cloud layer into that distinctive arc.

At sunset these Arches often spectacular:

WOW!
We don’t mind them at all.


Origins of the “Chinook”

The word Chinook originally comes from the name of a Native American people of the Pacific Northwest—specifically a community in the Columbia River region of what is now Washington and Oregon. The term traces back to the Salishan language, where it referred to a particular village site.

Wishham young woman, circa 1910. Chinookan Indians: Tlakluit; Washington. Head-and-shoulders portrait of young Wishham Indian woman, facing right,...

Lewis and Clark

Life's Cycle at the Dalles - Discover Lewis & Clark

Chinook | Native Americans, Pacific Northwest, Salmon | Britannica

Cathlapotle Plankhouse - Lewis and Clark Trail Experience

 

Winter 2026

Wind Is Bound To Change
Larry Gatlin & The Gatlin Brothers


I am an expert show shoveler.
A a kid we needed to get that snow off the pond or rink as fast as possible.
So we could play hockey.

So we hated those warm Chinook Winds.
They melted the ice.

Definition:
A Chinook wind is a warm dry wind that comes over the Rocky Mountains
from the West and sweeps Eastward, raising temperatures.
These winds cause rapid temperatures increases.

Yesterday it was 16 degrees Celsius (60.8 Fahrenheit) here.
That’s right, while people are being murdered by Winter Storm Fern
we are walking around in light jackets and T-shirts.
And it’s been this way for 2 weeks now!!!
With a Weather forecast of at least another week.
Today’s Forcast: 11 degrees Celsius (51.8 Fahrenheit).
Incredible.

Right now we are getting what they call
a False Spring.
The Farmers are really worried …

Hope you will be well.

 

The Count of Monte Cristo on YouTube

the-river-dont-lie
alana jordan

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

Abbe Faria (Richard Harris) :
God said, “Vengeance is mine.”
Edmond Dantes (Jim Caviezel):
“I don’t believe in God.”
Abbe Faria:
“It doesn’t matter. He believes in you.”

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - Book Outlet

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do
when that storm comes. 

― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Extreme Weather Events Everywhere

Here in Alberta we surely know about extreme Weather events.
We are not immune.

We get snow storms; blizzards; occasional tornados; hail storms;
rain storms; forest fires; floods; … and more ???
So when we see what so many are dealing with right now across this continent, we have great sympathy and compassion for those suffering
under such things. And in this age of climate change,
things seem to be become more extreme and last longer.
Our hearts and best wishes go to you who are being affected.
And we just hope this isn’t the New Normal … ?
We hope you will be well.

Storms Never Last / Allison Moorer

Ground Hog !!!

Six more weeks of winter says Phil …
Grrrrr … and  Brrrrr …

Maybe tomorrow …


Jeremiah Johnson Movie available on YouTube

The Ballad of Jeremiah Johnson – Tim McIntire

Eastern Western Official Movie Trailer

Eastern Western / Dec 2025

Eastern Western (2025) - IMDb

You can’t stream Eastern Western yet — it’s currently only available in theaters and has no digital, rental, or streaming release listed as of
January 2026. But that will likely change fairly soon.

Trailer Link to YouTube:

https://youtu.be/JottbH8gkas?si=EzIOE-MQMseSFfx_

I think it’s hard for any Movie to succeed without notable Star Power.
But this one looks different.
And the Reviews like it too.

In watching the Trailer, the images hit me hard because it
reminded me of a tragic Past Life event where I too
was a pioneer in the Old West:
I was travelling with my wife by covered wagon.
We had made it all the way to Oregon.
We were now looking for a place to settle when our wagon broke down.
I had to go for help and leave my wife with the wagon.
While I was gone she was killed by a grizzly bear.
I can still feel the terrible heartache from that tragic event.

When such things happen to me, I always wonder what GOD has in mind?
Ultimately, I realize that I am to learn Empathy / Compassion.
How can I understand or help anyone else if I too haven’t
walked in their shoes at some time?

We go on …

The Outlaw Trail with Robert Redford

Bad Company / by Bad Company / 1974
Co-written by Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke

I thought this was a 3 part documentary!? Guess not.
Don’t know where I got that notion?
Maybe I was hoping that was the case.
The most interesting thing I gleaned from Redford’s research on these “Badguys” is that this was a ‘Way of Life’ and a culture that surrounded these guys and what they did. I always figured they were just a bunch of directionless thugs who couldn’t do anything useful. Not saying this excused what they did, but there was a whole support system
surrounding what they were doing.

Robert Redford rides the Outlaw Trail | National Geographic

Western Legends Arise 2 …

1949-HITS-ARCHIVE_-Riders-In-The-Sky-Vaughn-Monroe

 

Western Legends Arisen …

I figure that’s a pretty generous depiction of the Kid … ?
Still interesting …

Those who Hunted Bison / Native Art

“And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell
and I understood more than I saw;
for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit,
and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.”

John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition

Nicholas Gunn Brittany Egbert – Desert Sky 

This may contain: a native american man standing on top of a cliff

This may contain: a painting of native american indians with an eagle above them and the sky in the background

This may contain: a group of native american men sitting around a campfire

https://pin.it/24BB23jEm

 

The Magnificent Seven … Behind the Scenes …1960

The Magnificent Seven theme / Elmer Bernstein / 1960

Kurosawa Akira | Biography & Films | Britannica

Akira Kurosawa / Japanese Filmmaker
John Sturges
The Music (Bernstein) … the Star Power … the Director (Sturges)
Everything!
Off the charts.

Don’t know how many times I’ve watched this.