Descendants of the real Jesse James have posted a glowing review of Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford on the James family website. Someone in the outlaw’s family tree must be an SEO genius, because Brad Pitt’s name is all over this site. The actor’s publicist will surely be pleased will all the pullquotes; auteur theory loyalists will be up in arms. Here’s an excerpt:

Brad Pitt has stripped away the myth. He stripped away the legend and the lore. He stripped away the western and all the gratuitous violence…As T.J. Stiles’ book Jesse James, Last Rebel of the Civil War marked a turning point in the writing of Jesse James history, Pitt’s movie marks a turning point in movies about Jesse James.

It’s star worship for sure, but that seems to fit with the themes of the film, and elsewhere on the site the James family members prove themselves to be serious art film aficionados. Director Dominik gets his due on a separate page, on which the James family accuses Warner Brothers of “assassinating” Dominik’s “original, artistic vision” by insisting that his four-hour first cut be trimmed. And another page of the website carries the subheading, “Two of the performances in this film merit Academy Awards. But, are voting members of the Academy smart enough to know why?” The essay that follows is certainly more compelling and concise than any Oscar blogging I’ve seen recently.