Category: Movies

  • Trucker Movies: A Personal Journey

    Have you ever seen the movie Convoy? I have seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but never watched it all the way through.

    That changed last night, and the first thing I learned was that the Convoy was directed by Sam Peckinpah. I should have put that together, especially after the climax on the bridge, where everyone has a gun and was shooting it. I found the movie entertaining, but it wasn’t good.

    Convoy was one of the many movies, tv shows and songs about truckers and trucking in America. I’m talking about White Line Fever, Smokey and the Bandit, Handle with Care, Breaker! Breaker!, High-Ballin’, B.J. and the Bear, and Any Which Way but Loose to name a few. As cultural trends go, the trucker/CB movement of the late 70’s is so fascinatingly unique. And I do hold that it was a movement, with the movies, tv shows, songs, and clothing. That’s a lot of trucker shit in its very brief life from 1975 to, I would say, about 1980. What I also find odd about the trucker/CB stuff is that it never had a resurgence. Sure, trucker hats were cool a couple of years ago, but Ashton Kutcher never made a trucker movie.

    But why did all this trucker stuff become so popular in the late 70’s?

    Most of these movies revolve around the idea of the free or independent hero who is harassed or chased by law enforcement, ether justified or not. These heroes aren’t free-spirited hippies; they are blue collar workers. They have a job to do, hauling goods across America, which is vital to the economy, but each trucker has their own rig, which makes them their own boss, which makes them free.

    Basically, all these movies are Easy Rider, just trucks instead of bikes. And not as many drugs.

    I saw most of these movies growing up in the late 80’s and early 90’s, thanks to basic cable. And when I think back on all of these movies, I guess they all behave like westerns. Most of them take place in the West or South, away from “cities” and “normal” people. Law enforcement is corrupt and unrestrained. Individualism is respected, expected, and the hero lives outside of society, except for the community of truckers. Almost like late 60’s anti-hero movies.

    Having said that, maybe these movies were of a specific time, and as such, cannot exist outside of that context. Maybe the late 70’s were a time when the idea of the rough individual American was going away, foretelling the coming of the corporate, conforming yuppie 80’s.

    I will add this; it would be nice if they did make more movies with monkeys as sidekicks.

    (Say! If you read something you like, don’t be a stranger. A like, comment or share would go a long way to save your soul.)

  • ODDS and ENDS: Dancing Bears on the Supreme Court, Well…, and Obi-Wan Kenobi

    (Guns have more Rights than Women)

    Yup, I’m pretty sick to my stomach and also really pissed off. Roe was overturned, and I know that no one is surprised by this. Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett only got on the Supreme Court to do exactly this. They were all groomed, and supported by Conservative think tanks and non-profits to reach this decision. They all lied and were coy about the idea of “weighing the case on its merits” when in reality we all knew the fix was in. This was a rigged outcome. And they know it as well. There was only one way each of them was going to get on the Court, and that was promising to deliver this when the time came. The time came, the music started, and these six dancing circus bears did their jig. Just like they had been trained to do.

    Fuck

    I watched Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I have mixed feeling about it. I liked it. I mean, it was better than The Book of Boba Fett which started strong and then just went flaccid. Obi-Wan did have one donkey of an episode, Part IV, that almost derailed me from the series. What kept pulling me back was nostalgia and Ewan McGregor. I say nostalgia because I have been thinking about this situation, Obi-Wan sitting in the desert of Tatooine looking out for Luke, since I was a kid. I had all kinds of ideas of the adventures that Obi-Wan had, protecting Luke while trying to stay in hiding, helping the Rebellion, etc.… I am old enough now to know that nothing will beat my imagination and excitement I had when I was 10 years old playing with my STAR WARS toys. But, I still like to see if someone else can come up with something new, that might inspire some wonder in me. Then there is Ewan McGregor, who has been one of my favorite actors since I first saw him in Trainspotting. I like the fact that, as an actor, he has had a career of playing so many different types of characters, moving easily between big budget movies and small independent films. When he is on screen, I want to see what his characters do. Ewan’s Obi-Wan was compelling, and I enjoyed watching the character regain his confidence and faith in himself through the story. I thought the series started strong and ended strong, but as I said before, the middle was a bit of a slog as it all felt too easy for the characters to succeed. That having been said, if they make a second season, yes, I will watch it. Cause I can’t say no to Ewan.

  • The Slap

    I will say this; We are all united in having an opinion over “The Slap.”

    Even if that opinion is “I’m still processing what just happened.”

    But whatever happens next with Chris Rock or Will Smith, the video of that incident will also be attached to them, forever. When the day comes and both of these men pass away, the clip will be played. They cannot escape it. It is done and now a part of our collective culture.

    And that does make me feel rather sad for both of them.

    I do think Chris Rock is one of the greatest comedians of all time. I see him as an artist. One who keeps testing himself and trying new things.

    Will Smith is one of the last great Hollywood actors. Not unlike Tom Hanks, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, and Cary Grant. That leading man that everyone likes, and has the acting talent to back it up.

    But now, does this change the perception of them? Is one the good guy, and the other the bad guy? Are they both bad guys?

    A friend of mine, who is much more perceptive than I, has called the incident a cultural Rorschach test; Everyone will read into it what they want.

  • Not Enough Time

    I am stealing a moment to type this out. I didn’t do my homework last night. My homework being to make a meal plan for the week, a grocery list, and writing a blog to be posted this morning. What I did was binge three episodes of Ted Lasso with my wife, and then fell asleep on the couch.

    So, now I am running behind. I still have to do the aforementioned tasks, but I also have to take the kid to her dentist appointment later today. As this is titled, I don’t have enough time to get everything done.

    And I had two really great ideas for a blog. One was about showing how over the past 30 years homage, parody, and ripping-off in media have become blurred. The other was how I was completely judgmental toward guys who work out all the time at the gym. Both I thought were great ideas.

    But now I have to go.

    Maybe I’ll get to it later in the week.

  • Good Old Kurt Vonnegut

    It was a slightly strange weekend. First of all, I was a horrible father, and showed my child a movie, which I thought she would find entertaining, but actually just gave her nightmares. I speak of 1999’s The Mummy, which I thought she’d find fun, and not scary. I mean, this is the same kid that had no issues with any of the Indiana Jones movies’ and their face melting, heart removing, and weird aging/dusting thing. Nope, total miscalculation – Mummies are very scary to seven-year olds.

    So, I’m a shitty dad, or at least that’s how I felt Friday/Saturday night.

    The kid couldn’t sleep in her room alone, so I stayed up with her on the pullout sofa. I was looking for something to watch that would put the kid asleep, but still keep me engaged, and I found a documentary about Kurt Vonnegut on HULU (This is not a movie review) that fit the bill. Though Vonnegut is one of my favorite writers, I really didn’t know anything about his life other that he sold cars at one point, and got divorced.

    After watching the documentary, I had two questions I wished were answered; first, why did Vonnegut choose to move to Barnstable, MA from Schenectady, NY? I get that living on Cape Cod is cool, but did he know someone there, did he vacation in the Cape first, did he read an article about the place? I mean, what was it? Second, how did Vonnegut, who by his own admission was just getting by selling short stories at this time, afford a home on Cape Cod? I am assuming that Cape Cod has always been Cape Cod, which means it has always been in demand, but back in the 50’s, were homes really that big AND inexpensive that an infrequently published, and modestly monetarily successful writer could afford a home? Was his wife supporting him?

    I really feel these questions need to be answered, as I think this is the failure of most biographies; they never explain how an artist paid their bills when they had no money, and still found a way to create.