Archive | September, 2014

The Midnight Hour is Close at Hand

7 Sep

It is late. The house is quiet. As I look out the window, a streetlights illuminate the street, and leaves stir in the breeze. Beside my computer lies a magazine about the scariest movies ever made. All of these combine to bring to my mind a verse of dread and despair. It is a poem that I once knew by heart, but one that I have not thought about in many years. It was known by millions, but those who made it popular are now gone.

The Merchant of MenaceVincent

The King of PopMichael

The words are as follows.

Darkness falls across the land.
The midnight hour is close at hand.
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize your neighborhood.
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse’s shell.
The foulest stench is in the air,
The funk of forty thousand years.
And grisly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom.
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver.
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller.

Yep, that is what I am thinking about as the midnight hour nears.

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Movie Wisdom – Barry Corbin Edition

6 Sep

Tonight, we watched Monte Walsh, a western starring Tom Selleck as a cowboy during the final days of cowboys. As the world changes around him, Monte has a hard time adjusting. It was a good movie, but, as often happens, I noticed a bunch of popular character actors.

I have seen Barry Corbin in a ton of movies. People might think that he plays the same character all of the time, but I have seen him in roles of great wisdom and in roles where his character did not have a lick of sense. Seeing him in Monte Walsh inspired me to look for words to live by in the movies of Barry Corbin.images-4

From Any Which Way You Can

Sometimes we can’t always do what we want to do.

A hand out is what you get from the government, a hand up is what you get from a friend.

From The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

Well, I always just thought if you see somebody without a smile, give ’em yours!

From WarGames

The only winning move is not to play.

People sometimes make mistakes.

From My Science Project

When you’re cool, the sun shine on you 24 hours a day.

From Lonesome Dove

A man who wouldn’t cheat for a poke don’t want one bad enough.

A man that does like to rent pigs is… he’s hard to stop.

The only healthy way to live life is to learn to like all the little everyday things.

Yesterday’s gone, we can’t get it back.

A man ought not to leave his land and his people.

A man that will talk to a pig ain’t no better than a farmer.

From Monte Walsh

As time goes by, we all have to take the best we can get.

From No Country for Old Men

You can’t stop what’s coming, it ain’t all waiting on you.

Age will flatten a man.

Once you quit hearing “sir” and “ma’am,” the rest is soon to foller.

Even in the contest between man and steer the issue is not certain.

All the time ya spend trying to get back what’s been took from ya, more is going out the door.

Yep, those are truly some words to live by. Thanks Barry.

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Deep Thinking in the Thunderdome

4 Sep

I have no idea why dystopian movies have been on my mind. My last post was about a recent dystopian movie. A few days ago, I thought about the dystopian phase of Charlton Heston’s career. Heck, I thought about it to the point that I almost did a “Movie Wisdom” post based on Heston’s movies. As I got into it, I realized that I have seen a bunch of his movies, and the task became daunting.

That is when I thought about a movie that does not rank among the dystopian classics, but it has enough cool features that I think it should. Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome came out in 1985, which was in the middle of my formative high school years, and it was awesome. The end of a trilogy, I think it is better than the first one but not as good as the second one. That does not matter. If it is on television, then I am going to watch it. Of course, I do the same thing with Flash Gordon.

What makes Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome cool? There are many reasons.

It is about Mad Max, the former cop who is the baddest man in a nuclear waste world full of bad men.images

That nuclear waste world also has bad women, and Aunty Entity is the baddest of those. Tina Turner, at the height of her powers, plays the villain. However, are there really any villains in a destroyed world?images-2

That would be a destroyed world full of filth and grime, but, in the middle of all that, Aunty Entity has a sleek penthouse with clean water and her own private horn player.

That horn player puts out some good tunes, but nothing compares to the theme sung by Tina Turner. Do we need another hero? I have no idea.

However, I think we need more creepy announcers to introduce the fighters in the ultimate cage match. How would it feel to be waiting in the wings and hear Dr. Dealgood say, “Dyin’ time’s here.”?images-3

By the way – two men enter, one man leaves.

Who are these combatants? Of course, Mad Max is involved. However, the champion of Thunderdome is Master Blaster. That is what I call a lethal combination of brain and brawn.Master Blaster

Speaking of brain, I cannot make a Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome list without mentioning the resident philosopher, Pigkiller. I have already written a post about him. If you want to improve your IQ, then I suggest taking a look at it.

Anyone who has seen a Mad Max movie knows that it is filled with cool cars and strange characters. There is a lot of stuff there to like. However, this installment has one scene that stands out above all others. At the end, Max has helped a group of lost children make it to the safety of an abandoned city. Once there, they create a new society but do not want to forget their past. Every night, they gather, and Savannah Nix talks about what came before.

She says, “The years travel fast and, time after time, I’ve done the tell. But, this ain’t one body’s tell. It’s the tell of us all, and you got to listen it and member. Cause what you hears today you got to tell the newborn tomorrow. I’s lookin’ behind us now into history back…Time counts and keeps countin’, and we knows now finding the trick of what’s been and lost ain’t no easy ride. But that’s our trek, and we’ve got to travel it.”

It is hard to imagine that someone can find inspiration in a 1980s Mad Max movie, but I find it in that scene. It makes me think of my job as a historian. People in my profession find what has been, which is not an easy thing to do. Then, we give that information to others in classrooms, conference rooms and publications. We may be the chroniclers of history, but that does not mean that we own it. History belongs to everyone, and it is our job to study it and make sure that people learn about it and learn from it.

I would start a class with Savannah’s speech, but they would all look at me like I was crazy.

Anyway, that is what I get from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

Oh yeah, there is one other cool thing in the movie. As Savannah’s words fade away, we see Max walking alone through the desert, and everyone knows that heroes ending up riding into the sunset.

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They Should Have Listened to Jeff Bridges a Long Time Ago

2 Sep

This afternoon, my stepdaughter and I saw The Giver, a movie that portrays a bleak future of government control. As the scenes rolled by, a couple of things went through my mind.

First, I am a huge fan of dystopian movies, and, some time back, I wrote a post about some of my favorites. Certainly, there are essays that examine these movies and their popularity. I am sure someone has written about how they are born from the times in which they are made. Many of them are adapted from books, and those books have a message hidden between the lines. They are critiques of society placed in a future environment.

I am not going to write anything that deep about The Giver. Instead, I am going to write about the second thing I thought about as the scenes rolled by. Some of those scenes brought laughter from a few of the people in the theater, and, honestly, there were few scenes meant to be funny. They were laughing because the movie was made too late.The Giver

I felt that they were laughing for a couple of reasons. One was that they thought the movie was a copy of recent dystopian films. The Hungers Games, famously adapted from books, has ushered in a ton of copycats, and, on the surface, this looks like one of them. There is the semblance of a love triangle among a teenage girl and two teenage boys. There is a young person who takes on the role of savior for the beaten down society. The list can be lengthy.

However, there is a catch. The Giver was written 13 years before The Hunger Games. That is why this movie was filmed too late. For those who have not taken the time to read the book, The Giver looks like a copycat. In reality, it may be the other way around.

I read that Jeff Bridges has been working for 20 years to bring The Giver to the screen. It is funny that he was finally able to do it after the success of The Hunger Games. Apparently, Hollywood did not want to take a chance on this story without knowing if there was an audience for it. That decision did a disservice to a great story.

That brings me to the other reason that I felt people were laughing. They had never read the book. The Giver is a story about a boy who has the ability and the drive to break out of an oppressive society. To set the stage, the movie and the book show just how oppressive that society can be. The book and the movie take these elements seriously, but some in the audience saw the behavior on the screen as dumb. Either they did not understand, or they were comparing the movie to The Hunger Games.

My stepdaughter, who loves The Hunger Games, liked this movie, as well. She asked if they were going to make another one. Like The Hunger Games series, there are three books about the world of The Giver. Obviously, The Hunger Games empire is at full force, and the movies are being cranked out. Unfortunately, I do not think the same will happen with The Giver. This is unfortunate because I think the books are better.

I am glad that I read the book before seeing the movie and suggest to everyone that they do the same. Heck, the book should be read whether you see the movie or not.

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