High Toon: Rango

Mariachi owls are cool. I don't care what anyone says: the mariachi owls in the 2011 movie Rango were far cooler than the usual token hip-hop singer in an otherwise all-white cartoon which we so often get as some wise guy's nod to diversity. At the very least, they were different.

I actually liked the movie Rango a lot better than I did Paul and the last two entries in director Gore Verbinski's original Pirates trilogy. Yes, it could have stretched things out further but I thought it did a good thing stretching things out as long as it did. It is not every Western that can successfully combine magic realism, surrealism, the Man with No Name movies and Chinatown and not look stupid. Besides, it's not like they tied things up with a corny line like "Relax, Jake. It's Chameleontown."