Lone Ranger (2013)

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The Original Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger.  “From out of the past come thundering hoof beats of the great horse Silver. The Lone Ranger Rides again!” The daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains was one of the greatest characters ever created for radio and quickly became a national icon.  Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear as the Lone Ranger (Brace Beemer) and Tonto (John Todd) lead the fight for law and order in six classic episodes of radio’s longest-running Western.”

Radio Shows of Yesteryear

Legends of Radio: Lost Treasures. “This collection offers seventeen digitally restored and re-mastered tales of danger, mystery, and wealth beyond your wildest dreams.  Be prepared for adventure as you come along on these epic escapades, including Robert Louis Stevenson classic Treasure Island and Humphrey Bogart’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Also includes The Lone Ranger and The Shadow.

Legacy of the Texas Rangers

The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey. Buck Duane is the son of a famous outlaw. Though an outlaw is not always a criminal, if the Rangers say he is an outlaw, it’s just as bad – he's a hunted man. After killing a man, Duane is forced to 'go on the dodge'. Duane turns up at an outlaw's hideout, still revolting at the idea of outlawry. Worse still, all the men he kills haunt him, for years. At the outlaw hideout, he meets a kidnapped, beautiful young woman and desires to see her free. (Wikipedia)

Lone Star Rising: the Texas Ranger Trilogy by Elmer Kelton.  This volume collects three of Elmer Kelton’s novels covering the formative years of the Texas Rangers.  In Buckskin Line, Kelton introduces Rusty, a red-haired boy captured by a Comanche war party after the massacre of his family and then is adopted by Mike Shannon, a member of the Texas “ranging company”. Badger Boy continues Rusty Shannon’s story as he contends with hate filled Confederate and Union soldiers infesting Texas and continuing Indian raids. Rusty rides with the Rangers against outlaws, disenfranchised Confederate veterans, nightriders, and marauding Comanche bands in the final novel, The Way of the Coyote.

Lone Star Justice: the first century of Texas Rangers by Robert Marshall Utley.  “From the Lone Ranger to Lonesome Dove, the Texas Rangers have been celebrated in fact and fiction for their daring exploits in bringing justice to the Old West.  In Lone Star Justice, Robert M. Utley, one of the premier historians of the American West, captures the first hundred years of Ranger history in a narrative packed with adventures worthy of Zane Grey or Larry McMurtry”.  (Inside Cover)

They rode for the Lone Star: the saga of the Texas Rangers by Thomas Knowles. “In the first and only fully illustrated history of the Texas Rangers, Thomas Knowles brings to life the early decades of the Lone Star’s defenders. Discover their origins as mounted volunteers and track their evolution into loose knit militia in the service of Texas, special U.S. forces during the Mexican War, and highly-respected cavalry units for the Confederacy”. (Inside Cover)

Native Americans

Reel Injun. (2014) A documentary about the evolution of the depiction of First Nations people in film, from the silent era to today. Featuring clips from hundreds of films, candid interviews with famous Native and non-Native directors, writers and actors, Reel Injun traces how the image of First Nations people in cinema have influenced the understanding and misunderstanding of their culture and history. (imdb.com)

Smoke Signals (Film) Young Indian man Thomas is a nerd in his reservation, wearing oversize glasses and telling everyone stories no-one wants to hear. His parents died in a fire in 1976, and Thomas was saved by Arnold. Arnold soon left his family (and his tough son Victor), and Victor hasn't seen his father for 10 years. When Victor hears Arnold has died, Thomas offers him funding for the trip to get Arnold's remains, but only if Thomas will also go with him. Thomas and Victor hit the road. (imdb.com)

American experience. America through native eyes / We shall remain (Film). They were charismatic and forward thinking, imaginative and courageous, compassionate and resolute, and, at times, arrogant, vengeful and reckless. For hundreds of years, Native American leaders from Massasoit, Tecumseh, and Tenskwatawa, to Major Ridge, Geronimo, and Fools Crow valiantly resisted expulsion from their lands and fought the extinction of their culture. Sometimes, their strategies were militaristic, but more often they were diplomatic, spiritual, legal and political ... These five documentaries spanning almost four hundred years tell the story of pivotal moments in U.S. history from the Native American perspective, upending two-dimensional stereotypes of American Indians as simply ferocious warriors or peaceable lovers of the land" -- Container.

Blasphemy by Sherman Alexi, combines fifteen of the author's classic short stories with fifteen new stories in an anthology that features tales involving donkey basketball leagues, lethal wind turbines, and marriage. In these comfort-zone-destroying tales, including the masterpiece, War Dances, characters grapple with racism, damaging stereotypes, poverty, alcoholism, diabetes, and the tragic loss of languages and customs. Includes the short story The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.

The Round House by Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves with The Round House, transporting readers to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. It is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family. (Amazon)

Ceremony by Leslie Silko.  Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power. (Amazon)

Characters of Johnny Depp

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) Charlie and five others draw golden tickets from Wonka chocolate bars and win a guided tour of the legendary candy factory that no outsider has seen in 15 years. Dazzled by one amazing sight after another, Charlie is drawn into Wonka's fantastic world.

Public Enemies (2009). No one could stop Dillinger and his gang. No jail could hold him. His charm and audacious jailbreaks endeared him to almost everyone, from his girlfriend Billie Frechette to an American public who had no sympathy for the banks that had plunged the country into the Depression. But while the adventures of Dillinger's gang thrilled many, Hoover made Dillinger America's first Public Enemy Number One.

Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. (2008) Reinventing himself as Sweeney Todd, a man unjustly sent to prison returns to exact revenge on those who ruined his life, especially the evil Judge Turpin who sent the man to prison. Not only does he seek revenge for the cruel punishment he suffered in prison, but also for what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to his home town, he reopens his barber shop, where Mr. Todd becomes the Demon of Fleet Street. Mrs. Lovett is Sweeney's amorous accomplice who creates diabolical meat pies out of the remains of Mr. Todd's victims.

Johnny Depp: A Kind of Illusion. (2004)  Over 20 years and 33 films, from Cry-Baby to The Libertine, Depp has turned from teen pin-up into cinematic icon, Along the way, he has fallen foul of the law, the paparazzi and public opinion. But with his turn as Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, he has finally arrived on the Hollywood A-List”.

Films by Gore Verbinski

Pirates of the Caribbean the curse of the Black Pearl (2003) The roguish yet charming Captain Jack Sparrow's idyllic pirate life capsizes after his nemesis, the wily Captain Barbossa, steals his ship, the Black Pearl, and later attacks the town of Port Royal. Captain Barbossa kidnaps the governor's beautiful daughter, Elizabeth. In a gallant attempt to rescue her and recapture the Black Pearl, Elizabeth's childhood friend Will Turner joins forces with Jack. What Will doesn't know is that a cursed treasure has doomed Barbossa and his crew to live forever as the undead.

Rango (2011). Rango, a kooky pet chameleon, accidentally winds up in the gritty, gun-slinging town of Dirt, a lawless outpost populated by the desert's most wily and whimsical creatures. Welcomed as the last hope the town has been waiting for, new Sheriff Rango is forced to play his new role to the hilt, until he starts to become the hero he once only pretended to be.