Kirjahaku

It's 1853. The notorious bandit Joaquin Murieta and his gang of desperadoes have ravaged infant state of California for the last three years. Now, Murieta has had enough and wants to return to his wife in Mexico. Skirting the small adobe town of Los Angeles, he has no idea that a small band of California Rangers led by Ambrose Quick, a politically ambitious man of strong conscience and moral fiber, are after a suspect who murdered a deputy sheriff. They have good reason to believe that murderer is Murieta. After an exhausting chase through the Santa Susanna Mountains, the Rangers grievously wound Murieta that hot August evening, but he refuses to tell them his name or answer their questions-until the brandy they give him for the pain loosens his tongue and he tells them he didn't kill any deputy but that he is Joaquin Murieta. But, not all of the Rangers believe him Reward-hungry Ned Needle is convinced they have the real Murieta. Addie Moody, a prostitute with vengeance in her heart who demanded to come with the Rangers, desperately wants to believe for her troubled soul's sake. But Quick must decide. And all he has is Murieta's word -- his "confession" -- which Murieta has given him to take to a priest because the bandit knows he's dying. In an ironic twist, Quick's decision costs him dearly. This fast-paced historical Western re-imagines the legend of Murieta, California's first infamous outlaw.

Territory of New Mexico, 1875. Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy needs money to complete the new cathedral he's building in Santa Fe. He comes to see Father Clement Grantaire, pastor of a small parish near the Texas border, for help. Father Grantaire has a checkered past, but he also has an idea: he can use his less-than-priestly skills to obtain money for the cathedral. After a night of gambling, Grantaire wins over a thousand dollars from a group of soldiers. However, Sergeant Amos Tully is certain he was cheated. Riding back to his parish, Grantaire encounters a masked robber and breaks the robber's nose in a fight. But Grantaire is left for dead on the prairie. When he comes to that night, he finds himself nursed by Rachel, who lives near the town of Cimarron in Colfax County. He doesn't tell her he's a priest, but helps her shoot it out with two men trying to burn down her barn. She tells him there's a war in Colfax between the squatters and the new owners of the Maxwell Land Grant. Grantaire, however, must return to Lamy with the bad news about the lost money. Then he sees the man who robbed him with his broken nose in town-and he's wearing a deputy sheriff's badge. Grantaire needs that money. But how to get it?

Academy Award-winning director William Friedkin, long recognized for his dark, aberrant, visceral films, had a career that spanned more than 60 years, marked by some of the most contentious and compelling successes and failures in American cinema. Among his successes are two very popular and highly regarded films, The French Connection, Oscar winner for best picture, and The Exorcist, both considered classics of their respective genres.Friedkin, who worked his way up in a Chicago television station from mailroom employee to director of local live broadcasts while still in his teens, was determined to make films. This updated, expanded, and final study of Friedkin's work (he died on August 7, 2023) examines his films, from his 1962 documentary, The People Versus Paul Crump, which saved a man from the electric chair, to feature films including The Night They Raided Minsky's, screen adaptations of Harold Pinter's play The Birthday Party and the off-Broadway play The Boys in the Band, Sorcerer, The Brink's Job, Cruising, Deal of the Century, To Live and Die in L.A., The Guardian, Rampage, Blue Chips, Jade, Rules of Engagement, and the much-publicized The Exorcist The Version You've Never Seen. New to this third edition are chapters covering The Hunted, screen versions of Tracy Letts's black comedy plays Bug and Killer Joe, the documentary The Devil and Father Amorth, and Friedkin's last film, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.This insightful and engaging study of Friedkin's films, which is based on nearly 100 interviews with the director and his colleagues, pays particular attention to the evolution of his cinematic style, his choice of subject material, and his unique vison-fatalistic, violent, realistic-as well as examining each film aesthetically, dramatically, and thematically.