Forgotten actors you must love

Posted by on 12/10/2007 2 comments

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I just saw William Wellman’s “Lost Boys of the Road”[correction:”Wild Boys of the Road”, ed.], a 1933 film about Depression era kids leaving home and jumping freight trains. Frankie Darro stars and is GREAT. What a natural, I don’t know why he didn’t become a big star. He has an ability to convey honesty and decency in a way that isn’t as self-aware as Jimmy Stewart, and not as acidic as Henry Fonda. Interesting facts about Frankie: according to Wikipedia he played jockeys a lot because of his small stature, and played the voice of “Lampwick” the in one of my favorite animated films, 1940’s “Pinnochio”. Lampwick is the bad boy who is turned into a donkey.

pinnochio poster

Darro opened a bar in Hollywood called the “Try Again” [correction: “Try Later” ed.] (because that’s what he heard every time he would call Central Casting). He became an alcoholic and died of a heart attack at age 59, on Christmas Day in 1976.

Actors you must hate now.

Posted by on 11/25/2007 4 comments

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There is a whole crop of self-satisfied sell-out former genius baby-boomer actors, comedians and musicians who you must forcefully hate now because soon they will be too old to hate, it will be unseemly. Many are former comedians, which I attribute to the greater fall from grace by the “truth-teller”. The list includes:

  • Steve Martin – “Shittier by the Dozen”
  • Eddie Murphy – Fat suit fetish
  • Robin Williams – More interesting when on drugs
  • Robert DeNiro – The positive still outweighs the negative
  • Peter Coyote – A former guerilla street mime, now shilling SUV’s
  • Dennis Hopper – “It’s not where your dreams take you, it’s where you take your dreams” WTF does that even MEAN?
  • Iggy Pop – Fresh Air interview: “What does Iggy Pop mean to Jimmy Osterberg?” (his real name)   …”It means getting the best table at a restauarant, ahahaa”
  • Tim Allen – always a sellout, former cocaine dealer turned traditional values fascist
  • Dennis Miller – now appearing on the “Vs.” network with sports commentary

Many many others, too numerous to name. Soon they will be ancient, like Bette Davis in white pancake make-up on the Tonight show, and you will be lucky they can evoke a time when you were younger so you must leave them alone. In the meantime, as was said in “Ben” (or was it “Willard”) “Tear Him Apart!!!!”

Once upon a time in your living room.

Posted by on 11/21/2007 1 comment


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If I walk around with a t-shirt that says “main character” will I be protected from harm?

Clint Eastwood, as Pauline Kael said, only has one expression, but he does that expression really well.

Does no one else notice the similarity between Clint Eastwood and Hugh Jackman? Both gracile action stars who bulk up to keep their bodies from giving away the message of vulnerability.

70’s-era Westerns can be damn funny. There is always a dwarf named Mordecai, and a balding Franklin Pangborn meets Crispin Glover terrified shopkeeper.

These Westerns also function as horror movies, with eerie soundtracks and weird views of Mono lake desert moonscapes. Now I know where the sounds effects from Planet of the Apes orginated.

I’m trying to experience Nietszche’s idea of sickness being cleansing, energizing and necessary. It only works when I have a minor cold-induced hysteria, which is quickly over and I’m even less energetic for having had it.

Futureman

Posted by on 11/21/2007 1 comment

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Super-hero who subdues criminals by use of a tremendous cough.

Funerals in the future, the eulogy is simply a recitation of the deceased’s Google search term history.

New anti-depressant trade-named “Ethelmerman”.

Baby-showers attended by single women.

If I am at a bar or other singles-oriented gathering and people bring their baby, I suddenly I feel peer pressure to act charmed and avuncular. By that logic shouldn’t I be able to go to their house and they should have peer pressure to fuck me?

If you are glad when “Speaking of Faith” is over so that “The Joe Frank Show” will be on soon, that’s a good sign.

“Speaking of Faith” is the most irresponsible show on public radio: Krista Tippett talks about the “conversation” between faith and baseball, when she should be talking about how we are all going to die in possible agony.

How could Paleolithic man ever find enough food to eat? I’m not fat and I need to eat constantly, I need a conveyor belt. On the Discovery Channel survival shows those guys are lucky to get a moldy snail and some dandelion greens, which they have to boil twice. What if you were incredibly lucky caught a deer (ever see a deer run away)? Could you even eat a raw deer? And what if you broke your ankle or got a rotten tooth or got cancer? Hi, you’re fucked. That’s how it’s been for 100,000 years.

But what about the future? Futureman will recoil in horror that we had to endure having the roofs of our mouths scraped by Captain Crunch. Or that we had to go pee really bad.