If you like Spaghetti Westerns...

Maybe you'll enjoy the first-ever "Kimchi Western" -- Kim Jee-woon's The Good, The Bad and The Weird, an epic South Korean production described by one critic as a wild and woolly mix "of Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns, George Miller’s apocalyptic road movies and a frantic brand of comedy that’s quintessentially Korean..." It won't open until 2009 in the USA, but it's a gala presentation at this year's prestigious Toronto International Film Festival. So I hope to give you a report after I catch a TIFF screening next week. In the meantime, here is what the original South Korean trailer looks like.

Live from Sam Houston State University: The Gillette Brothers!

Debby Carpenter reports on a lively performance by The Gillette Brothers, the very best cowboy poet-musicians ever to hail from Yonkers, N.Y.

Medicine men and medical miracles

From USA Today: At Banner Page Hospital in northern Arizona, traditional Navajo healing is merging with modern medicine.

He's still ready for some football

For an unprecedented 20th season, Hank Williams Jr. will be singing the opening theme for Monday Night Football., starting with ESPN's Sept. 8 double header of Minnesota at Green Bay (7 p.m. ET) and Denver at Oakland (10:15 p.m. ET). Williams first performed "All My Rowdy Friends Are Here on Monday Night" -- based on his hit song "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" -- in 1989 during the 20th anniversary season of MNF on ABC. Through the years, the MNF intro segment has featured Williams in a variety of settings -- cruising the highway in a convertible with Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, tapping with famed dancer Savion Glover, even flying through outer space. After performing alongside an all-star band the past two years on ESPN, Williams will be a solo act this fall, welcoming fans to the weekly MNF game with a house party theme.

Galloping soon to a theater near you

I viewed a rough cut of Appaloosa about a month ago, prior to interviewing Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris for our next issue (on sale -- hint, hint! - Sept. 2 at fine newsstands everywhere). The Warners publicists asked me not to comment on the film itself until closer to its world premiere next month at the Toronto Film Festival, so I can't tell you how good it is, and how terrific Mortensen and Harris (and Renee Zellweger and Jeremy Irons) are in the lead roles, and how it's an even better Western than last year's 3:10 to Yuma remake. But, hey, I can direct you to a trailer, right here.

Trisha Yearwood: Dairy queen

Our January cover gal is singing the praises of a healthy beverage.

Re-enacting the Wild West

Wild West Creations founder Frank Murcek and his gang of Western-clad gunmen aim to make history come to life for fun and profit.