Haunts on horseback

Film critic Sean Axmaker has selected The Ten Best Horror Westerns of all time, a list that includes Curse of the Undead (a 1959 vampire yarn with Rawhide star Eric Fleming) and Clint Eastwood's supernatural-themed High Plains Drifter (1973). Curiously enough, however, neither Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula nor Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter made the final cut.

Nashville Film Festival: Another audience embraces That Evening Sun

First, That Evening Sun picked up the Audience Award for Best Feature at the SXSW Film Festival. Then, the exceptional indie drama (starring Hal Holbrook, pictured here with some shameless stargazer) received the Audience Award for Best Feature at the Sarasota Film Festival. And now, it's three-for-three, with yet another Audience Award for Evening Sun at the Nashville Film Festival. Do I spot a trend here?

Nashville Film Festival salutes "adopted" Tennessean Hal Holbrook

For veteran actor Hal Holbrook, visiting the Nashville Film Festival this past weekend marked something of a homecoming: He actually maintains a home in McLemoreseville, Tennesee, with his actress wife, McLemoreseville native Dixie Carter. It’s a small town – “Two gas pumps and a cannon,” as he affectionately describes it – but “it’s a place far away from Los Angeles” that “gives us a whole different view of life when we’re able to come here and enjoy the wonderful, wonderful kind of people that live here.”

Unfortunately, his wife couldn’t be with him Saturday night when he was honored with a NaFF Lifetime Achievement award before a festival screening of That Evening Sun, the filmed-in-Tennessee drama in which Holbrook gives a career-highlight performance as an aging farmer who won’t give up his pride or his property.

“Dixie’s off filming a TV pilot, which we both hope will work out,” Holbrook explained. Still, she clearly was there in spirit as Holbrook delivered a brief but heartfelt acceptance speech: “I’m so happy that we were able to make this film in Tennessee – a home that I have adopted, where I have been adopted into a family, a real family, the best family I’ve ever known in my life, the Carter family out of McLemoreseville.”

As for the film itself, “Hopefully, That Evening Sun gives us a picture of people that you might be familiar with here in Nashville, but maybe someone in New York City won’t have any prior experience with. So it’ll give people a chance, maybe, to sort of broaden their brains a little bit about the big country we’re living in, with all the different kinds of people living in it.”

Nolan Ryan rides tall

It's official: Strike-out king Nolan Ryan now is a member of cowboy royalty. The MLB Hall-of-Famer -- now president of the Texas Rangers baseball team -- was honored Saturday for his "experience with and passion for” the Beefmaster cattle industry at the Western Heritage Awards banquet of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Ryan -- who has raised Beefeater cattle on his Texas ranches since 1972 -- was given the Chester A. Reynolds Memorial Award, signifying that museum board members feel the legendary Major Leaguer embodies the finest traits of the American West. The ceremony also included Ryan's induction into three halls of fame at the museum. Info on the evening's other honorees is available here.

Lee Ann Womack gets real for Noble Things

The lovely and talented Country music star Lee Ann Womack is almost unrecognizable as a dowdy and dutiful deputy sheriff in Noble Things, the moody filmed-in-Texas drama presented Saturday at the Nashville Film Festival. “Yes, it was quite a change for me,” Lee Ann joked during a pre-screening chat. “Usually, I’m a girl who likes to go around in five-inch heels.” But she knew she needed a deglamorized look to be convincing in the indie feature, the tale of a career-stalled Country singer (Brett Moses) who returns to his home town to deal with a dying father and an imprisoned brother. Producer Ruben Neubauer was impressed by her professionalism: “Lee Ann really did an amazing job. And we’ve gotten some terrific feedback on her performance.”

Noble Things marks Lee Ann’s movie debut – she previously did a guest spot on the TV series The District – and in her view, portraying a character before a camera isn’t all that different from conveying an emotion in a song. “Actually,” Lee Ann said, “it was Willie Nelson who taught me that. I was talking with him about acting when I was out on tour with him. And he said, ‘When you act, you memorize the lines in a script, and you play the part as believably as you can. When you sing, you memorize the lyrics to a song, and you get up there and you try your best to convey that message in a believable way to your audience.’

“The only way I feel you really can do that as a singer is if you are really able to get inside that lyric. In other words, you really can’t sing about pain if you haven’t ever really felt it. And I think it’s the same way about acting. Mind you, I never studied acting, and I don't know everything about it — except just drawing on my own experiences, and trying to convey that emotion."

Meanwhile, back at Val Kilmer's ranch...

According to the Associated Press, Tombstone star actor Val Kilmer -- who's reportedly considering a run for governor of New Mexico -- is selling his nearly 6,000-acre ranch near Santa Fe. The AP reports: "A buyer would get almost six miles of Pecos River frontage, a fishery and wildlife habitat including bears and bobcats. The ranch has a Southwest-style main house of nearly 5,600 square feet and a smaller caretaker's home, as well as other guest homes, barns, garages and outbuildings." And it can be all yours for the (current) asking price of $33 million.

Star Trek talk at NaFF

To the surprise of absolutely no one -- including, judging by his expression when he received the query, William Shatner himself -- the very first question directed at the actor during a post-screening Q&A following the Nashville Film Festival's Friday evening world premiere of William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet had to do with.... Star Trek. Specifically: "What do you think of the new Star Trek movie?"

Boldly going where he's gone many, many times before, Shatner seriocomically replied: "I haven’t seen it. And I’m appalled that I’m not in it. I’ve had a fun time with the director, J.J. Abrams, cussing him out on the websites and in interviews. But we’re buddies. And I called him three or four weeks ago and told him about this charity horse show that I’m putting on in Los Angeles – the Priceline.com Hollywood Charity Horse Show. Hey, they’re the big sponsors, so we’ve got to get their name out there. And so I invited J.J. And he said, ‘Oh, I’ll take a whole table.’ And I said, ‘Great. But, you know, you should bring the cast, because there’ll be a lot of press there…’ And he said, ‘I’ll take two tables.’ So J.J. Abrams and the cast of the new Star Trek movie are coming, and we’ll make a big to-do.

"But deep down," Shatner added, struggling manfully to maintain his straight face, "I’m still appalled.

A musical Impact for William Shatner

What can you give a man who already has a couple of Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe, and even two Golden Raspberries? Well, if you're the clever folks at the Nashville Film Festival, and you want to honor William Shatner with a special Impact Award, you ask Gibson Guitar Corp. to construct, and artist Mandy Lawson to paint, a customized acoustic guitar to give the veteran actor. The prize certainly made an impact on Shatner when he received the one-of-a-kind instrument from Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz before Friday's NaFF world premiere screening of William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet. "When I was a young stage actor out on tour," Shatner recalled, "I used to bring along a printout with me, to try to learn the fingering so I could play the guitar. But I never mastered it. And even later on, I never had the time -- never took the time -- to learn how to play. But let me tell you -- now I make the time." Shatner looked so unabashedly pleased with his prize that I couldn't resist offering him a fist bump and two words of encouragement: "Rock on!" He exuberantly bumped back, smiled brightly and replied: "Yeah, I'll rock on."

Festive folks enjoy C&I

Movie blogger and William Shatner fan Mark Rabinowitz couldn't resist grabbing one of the hundreds of Cowboys & Indians posters given away Friday evening at the Nashville Film Festival's world premiere of William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet.

Due to circumstances beyond Brad Paisley's control....

Brad Paisley was a no-show Friday evening at the Nashville Film Festival world premiere of William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet, the musical documentary about the staging of a ballet based on Shatner's recorded-in-Nashville CD. (The Country superstar is one of several "guest performers" on the album.) Festivalgoers weren't surprised by Paisley's absence -- just a few hours before the screening, Paisley's wife, actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, gave birth to their second son at a Nashville area hospital. But apparently this good news didn't reach whoever assigned seats prior to the premiere.

Music in the air -- and on the screen -- at Nashville Film Festival

There were enough festive ticketholders to fill two auditoriums at the Regal Green Hills Cinema for Thursday’s opening-night screening of 500 Days of Summer at the Nashville Film Festival. It was something of a major coup for NaFF to land the much-buzzed-about kick-off film – the directorial debut of up-and-comer Marc Webb, who joined me for a post-screening Q&A with the warmly responsive fest audience – and NaFF board president Stacy Widelitz could not have been more pleased by the turnout.

But, truth to tell, Stacy -- a veteran songwriter bent on bringing musicians and moviemakers together at NaFF -- may have been pleased a mite more by a special pre-screening presentation.

Just before the lights dimmed for 500 Days of Summer – set for release this summer by Fox Searchlight Pictures, the same discerning distributor that brought us the Oscar-winning Juno and Slumdog Millionaire -- Stacy received formal notice from BMI, the organization that tracks public performances of songs and collects royalties for songwriters: “She’s Like the Wind,” the enduring popular pop-rock smash Stacy co-wrote with Patrick Swayze for Swayze’s classic Dirty Dancing, had officially charted its four millionth performance.

And, mind you, that’s not counting the three times it’s excerpted on the soundtrack of 500 Days of Summer.

“Actually, it’s just radio airplay,” Stacy explained when I caught up with him in the VIP Tent during opening night hearty-partying. “And I think it might include television, too.”

But not performances by bar bands, wedding singers and karaoke crooners? “No.” Good thing, too: Probably even BMI can’t count that high.

“The funny thing is, I can still remember writing it,” Stacy said. “I remember being in my apartment in L.A. – me at the piano, and Patrick Swayze on my couch with his guitar -- and over the course of two nights writing this song. I can physically feel that still to this day.

“And then, all these many years later, and to be presented with a certificate that says, ‘OK, that thing you wrote over those two nights in your apartment on Orange Street in L.A. – it’s now been played four million times.’ That’s just amazing.”

Stacy has been friends with Patrick since 1983, and he gets regular updates on the condition his ailing-yet-active buddy -- who hasn’t let his widely reported battle with prostate cancer get in the way of sustaining a showbiz career.

“We still keep in touch,” Stacy said. “And he’s doing very well. Spoke to his wife two weeks ago. And they’re both very upbeat. Just doing great.

“They counted Patrick out very early on. But he’s still hanging on.”

Coming Friday: William Shatner, C&I’s April cover boy, will boldly go where no Star Trek alumnus has gone before – on the red carpet leading to Regal Green Hills Cinema, for the Nashville Film Festival’s world premiere of the musical documentary William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet.

TCM salutes two of The Duke's greatest

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of their cable network, the folks over at Turner Classic Movies have come up with a list of the 15 most influential classic movies of all time. These are the films, TCM states, that "shaped the cinema and the audiences that viewed them." Two Westerns made the final cut -- and, not surprisingly, each one is a John Ford classic starring John Wayne: Stagecoach (1939) and The Searchers (1956). Good choices, pilgrims.

Sun will rise, Johnny Cash will sing, at 40th Nashville Film Festival

The 40th annual Nashville Film Festival will kick off Thursday (April 16) in Music City, and continue screening dramatic features and documentaries through April 23. Among the attractions that may be of special interest to C&I readers:

That Evening Sun -- Academy Award nominee Hal Holbrook (above) makes another bid for Oscar glory with his excellent performance in Scott Teems' brooding drama as an aging Tennessee farmer who goes AWOL from the nursing home where he's been consigned by his son -- only to find that his land has been leased to his oldest enemy. (6 p.m. April 18, 12:15 p.m. April 19)

Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison -- On Jan. 13, 1968, Johnny Cash recorded his legendary live album at Folsom State Prison in California. Forty-one years later, the album hasn't lost a bit of its power. Cash's children, his former colleagues, and even some ex-prisoners and guards look back at that famous concert behind bars in Bestor Cram's acclaimed documentary. (5 p.m. April 19, 3:45 p.m. April 20)

Noble Things -- Dan McMellen's filmed-in-Texas drama focuses on a struggling country music artist who must return to his home town to confront his imprisoned brother, his dying father and the demons he left behind. Real-life country music star Lee Ann Womack makes her film acting debut as a police deputy who figures into the plot. (9 p.m. April 18, 2:45 p.m. April 19)

William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet -- Filmmakers Patrick Buckley and Kevin Layne document the transformation of William Shatner's surprise hit CD "Has Been" -- featuring songs co-written by Country music star Brad Paisley, pop-folk artist Aimee Mann and many others -- into a ballet by noted choreographer Margo Sappington. Shatner -- the cover boy for C&I's April issue -- is expected to attend the Nashville Festival premiere, along with Paisley, Sappington, musician/record producer Ben Folds and the film's directors. (7:15 p.m. April 17, 1:30 p.m. April 18)

Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes -- A free-form, intimate look at a private man in the public spotlight: Garrison Keillor, arguably America's foremost humorist and commentator, takes his skits and jokes, music and monologues across the country in his traveling radio show. (2:30 p.m. April 19, 1 p.m. April 21)

Tickets to these and all other Nashville Film Festival attractions can be ordered on the festival's website. And C&I will be reporting on the festivities right here on the C&I blog, starting this weekend.

21st century cattle rustling

As MSNBC.com reports, modern-day cattle rustlers are as likely to bounce checks as lasso steers. The money quote: "Thousands of head of cattle and millions of dollars’ worth of related equipment were stolen last year in the big cattle states of the Midwest and the Southwest, according to a report by the [Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association]. More than 6,400 cattle were snatched in Texas and Oklahoma alone, more than 2½ times the number in 2007."

Real cowboys in True West

Looks like AMC wants to get back in the saddle again. According to Variety, the cable network that enjoyed great success with the 2006 miniseries Broken Trail is preparing a Western reality series tentatively titled True West. The show, described as "a multi-generational family drama,"will follow "a group of modern cowboys as they pursue a trade that's quickly vanishing." Producer Brett Morgen currently is "scouting prospective subjects and shooting locations," Variety reports.