Latest news with #bullriding
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From bronc ridin' to bootscootin': the 2025 Mullewa muster and rodeo
Thousands gather at the Mullewa recreation grounds in Western Australia's mid west region for the town's annual muster and rodeo. The event showcases traditional rodeo contests including bull riding, saddle bronc and barrel racing alongside live country music Australia's best photos of the month – May 2025
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Inside Nashville's first Music City Rodeo as cowboys and concerts take over downtown
Friends Kayti Hall and Jade Parker represented the two types of fans piling into Bridgestone Arena for Nashville's inaugural Music City Rodeo: the one who grew up in the competitive sport and the one along for the ride. "My cousin's a pro bull rider," Parker said. "My other cousin has her pro card in barrel racing. I did barrel racing and flag racing when I was a kid." Parker, 23, moved to Nashville from Kansas City. She saw the Music City Rodeo advertised on TikTok and bought two tickets. "I love the rodeo," she said, explaining that she basically grew up in a hoof-printed arena. The bull buckin', cowboy stompin', horse lassoin' and mutton bustin' events course through her veins. "I'm used to the rodeo being outside," she said, "but honestly, Nashville made the most of it. They did a good job." Parker's friend Hall laughs. "I just came for Reba," she said of the May 29 concert headliner. It wasn't Hall's first rodeo, but it felt like it. Twenty years ago, the nail technician went to one in South Carolina. "I don't remember anything about it," she admitted and then pointed to Parker. "She's been explaining everything to me. I definitely missed my calling as a ... what was the the 8-year-old girl hanging upside down event called?" "Trick rider," Parker answered. "Yes, a trick rider," Hall said. "Maybe I'll quit my job and become a trick rider." The rodeo is scheduled for May 29-31. Doors open each night at 5:30 p.m. An hour later, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) events begin. Those include bareback riding, steer wrestling, bull riding, saddle bronc riding, team roping, tie-down roping, barrel racing and mutton busting, where children aged 3-8 wear a helmet and hold on to sheep bucking across the dirt palace. "It's fun," Maverick Czech said after his first-ever event. When asked how he thought it went, the 5-year-old in a brown cowboy hat and red Wrangler long-sleeve kept the reply simple: "I fell off." Maverick held a golden sheep participation trophy and his back number "5" as he walked next to his mother, Melissa Czech, outside the arena. "It was a very exciting lead-up," Melissa said. "We watched a lot of videos and talked to a lot of friends who gave some good tips on what to do." Maverick gripped the golden trophy and admitted the event wasn't hard. He hopes to be a rodeo-competing cowboy when he's older. Win Mardis won his bulldogging round, an event where competitors leap from a horse to wrestle a steer to the ground. The Natchez, Mississippi, athlete finished the task in 5.4 seconds. "I went out there and made a pretty good run," Mardis said. "You get on the horse and you ride, ride, ride until you slide off, grab [the steer] and twist his neck. It's wild horses chasing wild animals, you just never know what's going to happen." If the adrenaline pumping bull riding isn't enough entertainment, ticket holders cap off the night with a 90-minute concert. McEntire headlined May 29. Jelly Roll was set to be the May 30 entertainer, and Tim McGraw will close out the three-day event on May 31. Before taking the stage, the country icon dressed in turquoise and black was honored with a horse belt buckle and back number in memory of her father, Clark McEntire. She teared up at the gesture telling rodeo president Patrick Humes and co-founder Bryan Kaplan: "My whole life has been music and rodeo." Before jumping into a punchline, "Thank God I got into the music business." Edited to update headlines. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Inside opening night of inaugural Music City Rodeo at Bridgestone Arena
Washington Post
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
‘The Last Rodeo': Serviceable melodrama saved by the bull riding
Full disclosure: 'The Last Rodeo,' a contemporary family drama set in the world of Professional Bull Riders, earned at least half a star from this reviewer for name-checking Bodacious, a legendary 1,900-pound competitor that challenged (and severely injured) the best riders on the circuit in the 1990s. As a character says in this homage to a thrilling, occasionally bone-crushing sport, 'What a bull.'
New York Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘The Last Rodeo' Review: One for the Money, Two for the Show
With jaw set and cowboy hat solidly secured, Neal McDonough strides through 'The Last Rodeo' as Joe Wainwright, a former champion bull rider who's believably broken in body and spirit. Ever since the death of his wife ten years earlier, Joe has retired to his Texas ranch to lick his wounds and nurse his regrets. And he has a lot of both, including the broken neck he sustained while riding drunk, an injury that derailed the life of his daughter (Sarah Jones) as well as his own. So when his young grandson develops a brain tumor, Joe needs a way to pay for the boy's treatment and make amends for his own indifferent parenting. And, wouldn't you know it, there's a bull-riding tournament this very weekend in Tulsa, Okla., with a million dollars in prize money. Can Joe hoist his aching knees and weary butt back in the competitive saddle? Oh you just know he can. Directed by Jon Avnet (who wrote the script with McDonough and Derek Presley), 'The Last Rodeo' — the latest Christian-themed film from Angel Studios — proceeds with easeful predictability. The story's conventional beats (the get-back-in-shape montage, the bad news delivered at a critical moment) cohere into a wholesome journey of long-delayed healing. The inclusion of the wonderful Mykelti Williamson, as Joe's longtime friend and rodeo partner, injects a buddy-movie vibe that anchors the action in riding bouts that are smoothly thrilling without being punishing. Keeping religious prodding to a minimum — a crucifix here, a mass prayer there — the movie concludes with McDonough's earnest plea to scan a QR code to purchase tickets for other viewers. The studio used the same gambit with its 'King of Kings' a couple of months ago and hey, if it gets more people into actual theaters, I'll be the last to complain.
Forbes
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Neal McDonough Saddles Up For Pro Bullriding In ‘The Last Rodeo'
It's the longest eight seconds in sports, a cowboy in bullet-proof vest, precariously perched atop nearly a ton of angry, bucking bovine, holding on with one hand, trying to win style points along the way. And the suddenly hot Professional Bull Riders circuit provides a naturally dramatic backdrop for The Last Rodeo, opening this weekend on more than 2,200 U.S. screens. Veteran actor Neal McDonough produced, co-wrote and stars in The Last Rodeo, its traditionally feel-good story line an outgrowth of his and producer-wife Ruve McDonough's growing love for PBR, which has a significant presence in the film. The couple are so enamored of the circuit that they even became part-owners of PBR's Austin Gamblers team franchise. Neal McDonough in 'The Last Rodeo' McDonough plays Joe Wainwright, a long-retired 50-something bull-riding world champ who gets back on the bucking beast to raise money to treat his mortally ill grandson, facing a brain tumor. McDonough co-wrote the story with Derek Presley and long-time director Jon Avnet (Fried Green Tomatoes, Justified). The bull-riding circuit is a long way from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where McDonough grew up (and where I, full disclosure, went to high school in Hyannis with one of his older brothers, though I didn't meet Neal until 25 years later, at the premiere party for his movie Walking Tall). McDonough has a long string of Hollywood credits, including roles in blockbuster movies such as Minority Report and Star Trek: First Contact, and lengthy runs in TV shows such as Band of Brothers, Arrow, Desperate Housewives, Boomtown, Justified, and Suits, and as voice talent in Call of Duty games and numerous Marvel animated series. More recently, McDonough has a substantive role throughout the second season of Taylor Sheridan's Tulsa King, an organized-crime series starring Sylvester Stallone. But McDonough and his wife have also gradually gotten more involved on entertainment's business side, progressively producing bigger and bigger projects leading up to The Last Rodeo, which he told me had a production budget of $8 million, his biggest yet. The film is being distributed by Angel Studios, which focuses on films that 'amplify light,' and are frequently faith-based. Angel's unusual business model – all films and series are approved by the Angel Guild, a million-strong group of subscribers who reliably turn out for the projects they embrace – takes a lot of risk, and pressure, off the makers of a small project, McDonough said. 'The Angel Guild, when they vote for something, they'll support it 100 percent,' McDonough said. 'They'll even buy tickets for people who can't afford it.' Like many Angel projects, The Last Rodeo includes a bit of Bible reading alongside the bull riding. It's definitely aw-shucks safe for families. And of course, you can probably guess how it turns out: the good guys win, but the 'bad' guys also say they're sorry, and shake hands. 'Enough of all this darker stuff; Let's make something that talks to the heartland of America,' McDonough said. 'We get to touch on that in writing and producing these films. Give us the opportunity where we don't have to be the bad guy." The two-hour film takes a while to set up Wainwright's many challenges: a former alcohol problem, age, a battered body, a dead wife, and a semi-estranged daughter. The grandson's headache turns out to be a glioma, and insurance only covers a portion of the gargantuan cost of life-saving surgery. In keeping with the spirit of these kinds of projects, the film doesn't interrogate the cost of health care in America, or the limitations of insurance. But it tells a story that will surely resonate well with Angel's target audience, and with fans of bull riding, a niche sport that has boomed lately. The Professional Bull Riders circuit has become so popular, in fact, that it's now owned by TKO Group Holdings, the public company spun off earlier this year from Endeavor Group. TKO's other holdings include UFC, WWE and IMG. And PBR now stages dozens of events annually across the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Australia. For The Last Rodeo, PBR saddled up almost as much as McDonough. 'It feels like you're watching a PBR event,' McDonough said. 'We used their bulls and riders and arenas. It's a great setting to do a sports movie.' The film also conveys some of bull riding's unique aspects. Technically, though riders compete with each other, they're really competing against the clock, to stay on the specific bucking behemoth they've drawn for an endless eight seconds. And given the risks to the riders and support staff in the ring amid the bulls, everyone does a group prayer at the start of each event. 'In most sports, half the people watching hate the other half,' McDonough said. In PBR, 'Throughout the whole evening, everyone is rooting for the riders to get 8 seconds. You're watching the athletes. If you fall off, they're there to pick you up. That's a healthy, competitive spirit. It's a family(-oriented) culture, a family atmosphere.' McDonough, 58 and decades past his high school days playing football and hockey, did not essay riding an actual bull as part of the film. But it was him riding a mechanical bull for multiple takes, getting repeatedly tossed onto piles of surrounding dirt. 'That mechanical bull, when you ride it over and over and over again, you get the snot beaten out of you,' McDonough said. 'Landing on that hard dirt, I got busted up a lot," though not, thankfully for the production's sake, as much as his character does. McDonough, who lives in California, shot the film in Texas and Oklahoma. But he, like many in Hollywood, would love the state of California to do more to keep production in-state. 'It's awful for the industry,' McDonough said. 'I wish the governor was doing more to make it enticing. California has whatever you want for backdrops.' California Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to propose in the next few weeks more than doubling, to $750 million, the state's tax incentives to keep filming at home. Separately, actor Jon Voigt, one of President Donald Trump's three 'special ambassadors to Hollywood,' proposed several possible solutions in a recent letter, including a $7.5 billion national incentive package to keep jobs and filming in the United States. For his part, Trump has called for a 100% tariff on overseas films, though the White House quickly walked that back, and seemingly no one in the industry knows how such a proposal might work, given a lack of details. Regardless, making The Last Rodeo allowed McDonough a chance to reconnect with one of his favorite experiences growing up, riding horses with his father, and regular family trips to see the Kentucky Derby in Louisville. Now, he's taking advantage of breaks in the shooting schedule of Tulsa King to write and produce more projects of his own. 'Tulsa King has been great. That (filming hiatus) gives me time to write other scripts, or prepare for other films,' McDonough said. His next project 'depends on when the schedule ends. Two weeks later, I guarantee we will be working on another project.'
