Literary Illusions is proud to be giving away three copies of High Noon: 2-Disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition on DVD. To enter all you need to do is leave us a comment. Please be sure to only leave one. Comments are moderated to avoid spam, so it will not show up right away. People who leave multiple comments will be deleted from the contest altogether. If you do not see your comment within a day then by all means leave another one. Otherwise, do not worry as we accept comments several times a day.

To enter you need to be 18 years of age and a resident of the US. If you have won a contest within the last 30 days you are not eligible. Winners will be announced here. If we do not hear from you within 3 weeks from the date the winners are announced you forfeit your prize and we will select another winner. Prizes will be shipped within 45 days from the day you win.

We will begin choosing winners for this the week of July 8, 2008, which means you have until July 7, 2008 at 11:59 to enter.

From the Press Release:

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Writer: Andrew Dominik, Ron Hansen
Director: Andrew Dominik
Cast: Brad Pitt, Mary Louise Parker, Sam Rockwell, Casey Affleck
Rating: R
Studio: Warner Bros
Release Date: February 5, 2008

Brad Pitt movies tend to gain a lot of press and interest long before they hit the DVD shelves. The days of Cutting Class are over for Brad. It’s obvious that he has become an invaluable asset to the Hollywood community. One of the best things about Brad, the movie star, is that he does not seem to compromise his talent for the Hollywood hype films. He manages to work on intelligent films that people truly want to see. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is one of those films.

People that are interested in Jesse James will love this movie. People that know nothing about him should find this equally as interesting. Going into this review, I knew little about Jesse, other than the standard outlaw information that everyone else seems to know. This made watching this movie somewhat of an eye opener. I was expecting more of a Western outlaw shoot ‘em up type of film, but what I received was something far more thought provoking and intelligent than that.

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Writer: Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, Elmore Leonard (based on his short story)
Director: James Mangold
Cast: Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Peter Fonda, Logan Lerman, Dallas Roberts, Ben Foster, Vinessa Shaw, Alan Tudyk, Kevin Durand, Luc Rains, Gretchen Mol, Luke Wilson
Rating: R
Studio: Lionsgate
Release Date: January 8, 2008

Whenever I hear the name Mangold in any capacity, I think of my elementary school principal, Mr. Mangold. He was a terrifying man who, when I was a Kindergartener, towered over me, Slimfast can in hand and a sour expression on his face. I had to go to his office with my best friend once to report that Greg, a hyperactive, out of control classmate, broke all my crayons in half. I can only hope the cast of 3:10 to Yuma dealt with a much happier, friendlier, director in James Mangold, because if these two Mangolds happen to resemble one another, I feel sorry for them.

Luckily, James Mangold has more skills than my principal ever had, especially when it comes to directing a good movie. He did it with the freakishly entertaining Girl Interrupted and the cinematic, award-winning Walk the Line. So, why couldn’t he do the same thing with a Western?

I don’t know what it is about this year, but a slew of Westerns came out all around the same time; from The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford to No Country for Old Men. I guess you could say 2007 was the year of the Westerns, again. Well…sort of. The way I see it, the Western really hasn’t made a comeback since the height of its popularity back in the 1960s, but there have been many valiant efforts to revive the genre and these last three films have definitely given it a new wind, albeit briefly.

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