Last night, I was flipping through the channels and stopped on a movie called In the Electric Mist. Tommy Lee Jones plays a Louisiana detective who is trying to catch a serial killer. Along the way, he runs into some great actors.
John Goodman
Mary Steenburgen
Ned Beatty
It was surprising to see such performers in what I would consider a B Movie. I kept thinking that it was an excuse for a bunch of friends to get together and have fun in New Orleans.
It was also surprising to see a couple of famous musicians in the movie. Namely, Buddy Guy and Levon Helm, who played a ghostly character.
As I watched the movie, I thought about a post that I wrote about Levon Helm. It would be great if you read it. That post is about his music, but it is also about his movies. In the Electric Mist was the last one in which he appeared.
It has been a long time since I wrote a Movie Wisdom post. Now, it is a good time to discover the words of wisdom that can be found in the movies of Levon Helm.
From Coal Miner’s Daughter
I thought “horny” meant cuttin’ up and acting silly!
What we got to do next is figure out what to do next.
From The Right Stuff
No bucks, no Buck Rodgers.
From Shooter
Sometimes to catch a wolf you need to tie the bait to a tree.
From In the Electric Mist
Venal and evil men are destroying the world you were born in.
Don’t compromise your principles or abandon your cause.
There’s two ways of looking at the idea of understanding. One is if you don’t look you never will see. And the other is, if you look a little less you’ll understand a hell of a lot more.
A Blue Jay don’t sit on a Mocking Bird’s nest. The Mocking Bird will whoop the Blue Jay’s ass every time.
SBI: A Thinning Crowd 
In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke is the book upon which the movie was supposedly based. I was corresponding with JLB before they finalized that movie deal. I sensed it would not work out well. Bad director. JLB wasn’t involved in the script. He’s a great writer who’s books have yet to be successful as movies. Ironic because they are perfect for Hollywood. He’s probably my favorite living American author. It wasn’t a bad movie by lack of good intentions. Just a lot of unfortunate choices and an awful script with an incompetent director.
A whole lot of components need to come together to make a good movie. But if you have a lousy Director it’s like a football team with a bad QB. Hardly matters how good everybody is.
That’s true. Needs to be someone good at the helm – no pun intended.
It looked like it could have been a good movie. Something about the production was off. Sounds like I need to read the book.