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Catching up

Posted in Movies, TV with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 25, 2009 by macmystery
Kahn's relly gone this time.

Kahn's really gone this time.

I haven’t made a post in quite some time, so in this one I’ll run down a few things I would have commented on.

The Golden Globes

This was a cool night for me.

First, Bruce Springsteen won the Golden Globe for best original song from a movie for his theme from “The Wrestler.”

Then, in his acceptance speech for best actor in a musical or comedy for “In Bruges,” Collin Farrell made the statement that, “Love is the nemesis of ignorance.”

I’ve never heard it said that way before, but I think that’s dead on and it’s beautiful, especially coming from someone many people consider one of the “bad boys.”

Finally, there was Mickey Rourke. The longshot underdog won for best actor for his role in “The Wrestler” (Watch the trailer here). I was so happy for him, he’s come a long way back.

I couldn’t help but be shook up when in his acceptance speech, he thanked his dogs. Sometimes, when a man is really alone, all he has are his dogs, he said.

If you needed proof he was probably pretty low, I think that fits the bill.

Khaaaaaaaaaan!

Ricardo Montalban died Jan. 15. (See obit here)

While he will always be remembered as the suave Mr. Rourke from Fantasy Island, to me he is Khan, the exile from an original episode of the show in 1967.

He lived and returned in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” to see revenge on his nemesis, Captain Kirk, of course.

He was also in a couple of Planet of the Apes movies as well — “Escape from …” and “Conquest of …” — meaning he obviously knew cinematic genius when he saw it.

God bless his soul.

R.I.P. Commissioner Gordon

Pat Hingle, the actor that played Commissioner Gordon in several of the Batman movies of the 1990s, as well as the judge in Clint Eastwood’s classic “Hang ’em High,” died.

I know it’s not the same incarnation of Batman, but we just lost Catwoman (Eartha Kitt) last month. Bad time to be tied to the Dark Knight.

Maybe Heath Ledger will change that with an Oscar next month.

Controlling the minds of women

Um, I really don’t know how to explain this link.

But basically, if you believe what you read, there’s a theory that just by having sex with a man, women increase the ability of men to control their minds, thanks to the mind-control properties of semen.

Ummm …  Check it out.

More?

I’ll probably reserve any comments on the inauguration, etc., and the plethora of Springsteen news for a few more days.

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Ode to Paul Newman … or a coincidence?

Posted in Movies, TV with tags , , on September 30, 2008 by macmystery

Working at night, I rarely become attached to anything on primetime TV because I simply would never see it. We don’t have Tivo and I refuse to tape stuff nonstop and try to squeeze in a time during the day with my little girl to try and watch it.

But since my off days are Sunday-Monday, one of the new shows I started watching last year was “Chuck” (Official site, unofficial site). It’s goofy, but I like it. And it has a ton of really cool, obscure pop culture references that almost no one picks up on.

So anyway, Monday night’s episode was the premiere for this season. It rocked as usual. But at the end, there was a strange coincidence, or at least I think it was.

After the plot resolution, in that brief segment just before the episode ends (I’m sure this has a name … on the Andy Griffith Show, there used to always be some sort of joke told by Andy in this spot), Chuck and his co-worker are discussing a bet that another co-worker couldn’t scarf down 90 twinkies in some brief time period.

In response, Chuck Bartowski responds, “Nobody can eat 90 Twinkies.”

It may not seem like much, but this is an obvious reference to the scene in “Cool Hand Luke” where Luke (Paul Newman) promises to eat 50 hard-boiled eggs in an hour, and George Kennedy’s character reponds, “Nobody can eat 50 eggs.”

I’ve been seeing previews of this episode for months, literally, so they obviously didn’t work this in as a response to Newman’s death on Saturday. But if it wasn’t on purpose, that makes it one hell of a coincidence, doesn’t it?

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Paul Newman, 1925-2008

Posted in Movies with tags , , , , on September 28, 2008 by macmystery
Cool Hand Luke

Cool Hand Luke

If I had to name the person who, to me, most embodied the term “movie star,” I think I would have to say Paul Newman.

He had the good looks, the talent and that intangible something that gets your attention and keeps it.

Newman died Saturday at the age of 83.

He was one of the best. I could watch “Cool Hand Luke” a million times and still not be tired of it.

My other favorites are “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The Hustler,” “Hombre,” “From the Terrace,” “The Long Hot Summer,” “The Sting,” “Slap Shot,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Hud.”

And he was a good guy. He has campaigned for civil rights, given close to $175 million he earned from sales of his Newman’s Own salad dressings and spaghetti sauces to charity and has been married to the same woman, actress Joanne Woodward, for 50 years, a feat almost unheard of in Hollywood.

According to Newman’s IMDB.com page, he made 56 movies, not counting TV appearances and voices for animated films. I’m making it my goal, starting now, to watch each and every one in the next year.

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R.I.P. Jerry Reed

Posted in Movies, Music with tags , , , , on September 3, 2008 by macmystery

Maybe if he had taken himself a little more seriously, more people would have know just how good Jerry Reed was with a guitar.  Of course, if he’d taken himself more seriously, he wouldn’t have been Jerry Reed.

Reed died Tuesday at the age of 71 after a long bout with emphysema. He was famous for being Burt Reynolds’ pal and for goofy country songs like “Amos Moses,” “She Got the Goldmine, I Got the Shaft,” “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot,” “The Bird” and, of course, the theme from his best-known movie, “East Bound and Down.”

Forget the rest. That movie is why I liked Jerry Reed. Not because he was going to win any Oscars. But you know how some songs, some movies, some TV shows just have a place in memories because of when you encountered them?

“Smokey and the Bandit” was that way for me.

It came out the last week of May in 1977. I was not quite 6, but this was the first non-kids movie I ever saw at a theater. That is, if by theater, you mean sitting in the back of a Dodge Dart at the drive-in with my parents.

(Coincidentally, another movie came out in that same week of May in 1977 that I would go on to see four times in the theaters as a 5/6-year-old before it’s run ended … “Star Wars.” I’ve seen it hundreds of times since, and now my son has already seen it dozens of times.)

Reed played the Snowman in “Smokey.” He drove the truck and had a basset hound with him. Only later would I realize how good a musician he was. A three-time Grammy winner, in fact.

Brad Paisley, a pretty good guitarist in his own right, as well as a singer of some Reed-like goofy songs, had nothing but nice things to say about Reed upon his passing:

“Anyone who picks a country guitar knows of his mastery of the instrument — one of the most inspirational stylists in the history of country music, a complete master. I’m in debt to him for paving the way for myself and the other guitarists of today.”

Reed was proudest of his musical abilities.

“I’m proud of the songs, I’m proud of things that I did with Chet (Atkins), I’m proud that I played guitar and was accepted by musicians and guitar players.”

I was going to include some clip of Reed playing my favorite of his, “Amos Moses,” but it seems all of his YouTube videos are suddenly “no longer available.”

So the best I could do was a short of him with fellow guitar legend Chet Atkins.

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Just like magic, Harry Potter is banished … until summer

Posted in Movies, Uncategorized with tags on August 15, 2008 by macmystery

So much for seeing the next Harry Potter movie this fall. It’s been bumped back until next summer.

Read all about it …

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