Rio Bravo

Last night I was watching the 1959 movie Rio Bravo, directed by Howard Hawks, on TV. The movie is set in a small Texan border town during the Old West and involved a murderer who is locked up in the town jail by the local sheriff (played by John Wayne), who has to keep the killer locked up and out of trouble for at least a week until a US Marshall can show up and take him, away. Meanwhile the killer's wealthy brother has employed a large gang of ruthless hired killers to bust him out of jail, while all the sheriff has to help him is the town drunk (played by Dean Martin), a garrolous trigger-happy old jailer (Walter Brennan) and a young gunslinger (Ricky Nelson). It's a really good Western, which was very influential on future action movies. It's got some good, witty dialogue and some great action scenes. Also, if you're a fan, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson sing a couple of songs. It's reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

Watching it I really thought about my Gran, who died about four years ago, and I don't know if she ever saw it, although I assume she did because she loved movies and watched a lot of them, but this would probably have been one of her favourite movies, due to it being a Western and having John Wayne and Dean Martin in it. I remember watching a lot of the old Westerns when I was down at her place or when she came up here.

Today I had another day off work and went up to the comic book store, where I did get a lot of stuff: Batman: Conspiracy (which was basically a one-off compendium of a three part story from the '90s in which Batman investigates a series of bizarre ritual murders which leads him into a sinister and pervasive conspiracy), Detective Comics Classics (which had three bizarre Batman stories from the '60s and '70s, including one in which Robin and Batgirl had to fight the ghost of Benedict Arnold who had teamed up with the Devil), X23 issues 4 to 6 (which I've never read before and I kind of got on impulse), American Vampire issue 12, Dracula: The Company of Monsters issue 7, X-Men: Legacy issue 245 (which seems to be starting a big new storyline), Scalped issue 46, Detective Comics issue 874, Spawn issue 203, Ultimate Spider-Man issue 154, Morning Glories issue 7 (which I got because I'd heard a lot of really good stuff about it on the internet) and The New York Five issue 2 (which has had an interesting story so far and is by the author and artist responsible for one of my favourite graphic novels, Local). I also got a graphic novel called John Constantine, Hellblazer: The Fear Machine written by Jamie Delano, with art by Mark Buckingham, Richard Piers Rayner, Mike Hoffman and Alfredo Alcala. On my way home I stopped off and had a quick drink. I just figured that I'm having a few days off, it's like a short holiday so I might as well treat myself by splurging money on comics! Besides I'm very happy with what I got. When I got back home I had some microwaved chicken chow mein for my dinner which was really nice.

Tomorrow I'm off work as well and I think I might go along to the movies.