Johnny Mars Knows Jack About Chick Flicks

Why do I love westerns so much? I'm hardly their target audience. Women and black people are sideline characters at best in most westerns, often only serving as a visual respite from shot after shot of dirty, weatherbeaten, white skin. And yet, I can't get enough. Something about all the leather and horses and guns that have to be reloaded. Wooden barrels and bootcut jeans and every little thing meaning the difference between life and death.

I just got back from seeing 3:10 to Yuma and let me tell you, if you like westerns, you're going to love this movie. As one NPR reviewer put it, 3:10 to Yuma doesn't do anything you haven't seen a hundred times, and never once do you resent it. It's just one of those fantastic, good guy bad guy flicks, sweeping vistas and dramatic guitars galore.

Which makes me wonder what the hell J's friend Johnny Mars was thinking when he authoritatively claimed that 3:10 to Yuma is a chick flick. Sure Johnny, I'm a chick and I loved it, so maybe I'm just proving your point, but just because Russell Crowe palms a woman's neck and her clothes fall off doesn't mean that this film is a two-hour exploration of some pathetic Cinderella trying her best to find everlasting love in the most unexpected of places. Things explode in this movie. Blood sprays. And Christian Bale gets so badass on the bad guys that any red-blooded, heterosexual man won't even notice his wife swooning in the seat next to him.

Besides, it's a movie about a guy who's not nearly as pathetic as everyone thinks he is. What man can't relate to that?