It was Kirk Ellis’s choice for our February film and he chose last year’s NEWS OF THE WORLD.
Based on the novel of the same name by Paulette Jiles, a National Book Award finalist (which I have not read), the story is set five years after the end of the Civil War in Reconstruction Texas still occupied by Union army soldiers.
A contemporary Western and one of the best films about the changing West, HUD (1963) was my selection for our January meeting. It tells the story of a Texas cattle ranching family in bitter conflict over its past and future. Hud Bannon (Paul Newman) is a charming but womanizing scoundrel. His father, Homer (Melvyn Douglas), an honorable old Westerner, can’t abide his son’s reckless, selfish ways. Between them is Hud’s teenaged nephew Lon (Brandon de Wilde) who loves his grandfather but also wants to be like his uncle. And there’s Alma (Patricia Neal), the Bannon’s housekeeper. Vivacious and earthy, she brings some stability, though fragile, to the Bannon home.