Edgy MD

A town of peaceful farmers is tormented by a gang of outlaws, and recruits seven gunman to protect them.

The soundtrack was... it was an excuse for a soundtrack. "Let's name a character Eleanor so we can play the Turtles song!" They do everything they can to pretend the Beatles don't exist, even though they represent the vanguard of the revolution these guys are living. They aren't referred to either by the protagonists or their enemies. They work in two Stones songs, but their heavy hitters are typically the Kinks. When they use the Who, they play an anachronistic "Won't Get Fooled Again" which would still be five years away. Even as a rock 'n' roll film, it felt terribly anachronistic. Rock 'n' roll wasn't about hairy mushy guys resisting middle age and looking for ever deeper album cuts from the Grateful Dead until the seventies. Carl is the nerd on the boat, but --- handsome, thin, young, and mod --- he should have been the hero. Emporer Rosko, the real guy on whom Hoffman's character was based, would have been 24 or 25 at that time.

How did these two films get mashed?

This was a real tragedy. They had a great chance for a revitalization here --- an appealling new star, a new setting, a retreat to a Buddhist temple, and an appearance by real-life Nisei 442nd Regimental hero Senator Daniel Inouye --- but went for a script dumber than a pile of dirt. The villian was a thin re-write of Kreese, and sidekicks in this bizzarro gang seem to be pale shadows of their counterparts in Cobra Kai. About thirty minutes in, somebody misses the memo on a re-write, and Julie's dialog moves from the lines of a hardrockin' rebel chick to those of a spoiled mallrat girly-girl. It's set in Boston, but not a single Boston accent appears. The oafs Mr. Miyage and Julie encounter tend to either be of the rural Georgian crushed baseball hat variety of redneck or the Brooklyn greaseball variety of mook. Ms. Edgy said it was worse than Karate Kid Part 3, and I said KK3 was worse. The disagreement has been a real strain on our marriage, but can probably be attributable to gender preferences. Teenagers rock out throughout the film to unrecogonzeably horrid budget corporate rock, and then suddenly in the temple, Julie does a workout to the Cranberries' "Dreams." (Was this the debut of the song?) Why didn't they turn to me? I could have scripted this sucker in four days. Anyhow, the Partridge Family episode we watched as a pre-feature attraction was OK.

Centerfield wrote: None of the sequels to The Karate Kid actually happened. You can't make me believe otherwise. I disagree with your plan to annihilate KK2 from existence. There's some real good stuff there.

While the rest of youse losers were watching the Jets, I decided to see, 14+ years after the fact, if producer Jerry Weintraub and director Christopher Cain succeeded in any small part in reviving the franchise which Weintraub and John Avildsen cranekicked in the nuts with The Karate Kid, Part III. The plot features Mr. Miyagi, in a convenient house swap with the widow of his former commanding officer, inheriting troubled teen and Met-lovin' big shot Hillary Swank. In one of those plot turns that show just how closely Hollywood scriptwriters keep their fingers on the pulse of American life, Ms Swank --- a friendless self-loathing tomboy despite her tops bearing abs-bearing tops --- is terrorized by a gang of quasi-fascist hall monitors led by a dean of discipline (bargain-basement Jack Nicholson actor Michael Ironside) that makes Kreese seem like a cupcake. That sort of thing was so totally typical of my high high school! So, with a future-two-time Oscar winner in camp, it can't be hard to improve on KK3, right? Right?

That ballad was comically ubiquitous.

This almost seems to be the film from which sprung all the elements of the classic John Wayne imitation: his gestures hitting different beats than his words, referring to his buddy as "Pilgrim," turning on the charm as if he believes he's 25 years younger and 40 pounds slimmer.

An aging Senator of a Western State returns from Washington for the funeral of a friend, a forgotten cowboy of the old school, and looks back on the confrontation that made his career --- a showdown from when he was a young idealistic lawyer facing down a ruthless gunfighter. John Ford directing at the end of his career, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, and Lee Marvin, who's always drunk and violent.

Am I right about the bedtime story scene, though? Comic joy with every pageturn.

Yabbut, the refs always give unfair leeway to the guys with the razzle-dazzle. I thought that was one of the themes. It was to me, anyhow.

Number 55 was Pee-Wee Herman's nemesis and fellow manchild Francis, right?

It was bad worth celebrating, though. The coach was the most worthwhile part to me. I thnk all free throws should be taken with the guy who just fouled you staring at you threateningly from under the hoop. You know that guy was Mike Piazza, right?

And the exact type of scions you'd expect to find around campus.

Not great, but hit some good notes and you know, you get more here of what you buy Christopher Walken for. Misdirection, stumbling vocal cadences, wierd hair... whole package. One of those strange movies where you see a ton of dubious brand placement. It's like it underwrote the whole film but with two characters going cross country on the grift, none of the brands were placed in a very favorable light.

Christopher Walken is a con man driving across country with his bitter estranged adult son. Cover me. I'm going in.

An old west marshall gets married and turns in his badge on the same day, only to realize the ruthless outlaw who once terrorized the town before being put away by said marshall has been released and appaears to be heading to town on the noon train to make good on a promise of revenge. His friends --- Uncle Billy, Colonel Potter, and Izzy Mandelbaum among them --- tell him his job is done and he better just get on out of town, but his conscience makes him turn around. Despite the serious misgivings of his new Quaker bride, he seeks to round up a posse to confront the outlaw and his two sidekicks, and spends the late morning finding out who his friends really are. Tick, tick, tick...

His foot has apparently never felt so good. Just ask Yogi Lutz.

Thole as 12th best guy is pretty stunning.

Greg Harris! When we started this, we didn't even have 500 guys in the money. Now we're over 600.

It didn't get going for me until he reads the bedtime story.

As Dingle is about as far from Wales as any part of mainland Ireland (I guess they could have ended up in Donegal), I think there must've been a lot of gombeans involved.

Is there an airport in or near Dingle that can handle a trans-Atlantic commercial flight? I'm figuring that if they can't land in Dublin, they land in Shannor or somewheres in England. (I got waylaid to Heathrow on my first flight into Dublin.) And in two days, nobody can get a connecting flight? Contrived just a bit. Sounds like an Irish conspiracy to increase tourism among marriage-hungry Irish-American women.

Yeah, I don't like that either, and neither would bb-r or fangraphs' versions of win shares. What we can perhaps do is --- once we have win share data going back to 1962 --- switch to that.

I hadn't realized I had thrown Cora overboard.