A Few Good Movies

I watched a few movies on Netflix over the last few days, and although they are genre-wise about as far apart as you can get, they all had a few things in common.

And of course, they were all good stories, competently told.

Sunday a week we watched Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. Yeah, I know what your thinking. But why do we classify some movies as 'Kids Movies', even though they tell a good, watchable story? Just because they fail to include bare breasts and profanity? Two things that very seldom add anything to the scene or the story.

Of course there are occasions when profanity adds to the story. Yesterday we sat down and watched Planes Trains and Automobiles. Again, a good story, competently- and hilariously- told. There is one scene that, as described by Wikipedia, Steve Martin drops the 'F'- bomb 18 times in one minute. The plot of the movie and the preceding action absolutely required the profanity. In real life, in a similar situation I think the Pope himself would have dropped an 'F'-bomb or two. And the Rental Car Agent's response; simply classic. One of the best scenes of the movie. And, it was the ONLY profanity in the movie, adding to its effect.

Saturday night I sat down and watched McLintock!, an old John Wayne Western. Maybe not as politically correct as some might require- the various scenes of men spanking their women come to mind immediately, along with the frequent drunkenness- a very funny story results. Along with a little commentary on the worth of the political class. A fist fight or two, including a long brawl at the mud pit of a mine, a few minutes of rodeo action, and it all culminates in a 10 minutes chase scene through the entire town.

And last night I was searching Netflix for some thing to watch and saw Force Ten from Navarone. Another good story. How can you beat Harrison Ford fighting Nazis?

Perfect relaxation movies. No demanding plots to follow; no twists and turns to keep track of; no hidden agendas to be mindful of. Just a good story, competently told. And, except for the prior noted exception, no nudity or profanity. you can gather the whole family together for a couple of hours, and the plot and dialogue don't preclude some conversation while your at it.

Like a little action? Check. Comedy? Check. A little suspense? Check. Why is it most modern movies seem to think they can't do several things at once? A suspense drama can't have a few comedy bits; a comedy can 't have a suspenseful section or a action flick has to be all action, all the time. Maybe the directors today aren't as competent as their predecessors, who could move from directing a comedy this year to an action movie the next.

Maybe that's why Hollywood is going into the tank. First they can't find a good story, and then they can't find anyone who can competently tell it.

Friday Night at the Movies XIII

Technically it was Saturday Night at the Movies, but why mess with tradition?

Surfing around on Netflix I found an Agatha Christie/ Hercule Poirot movie on, Evil Under the Sun. I love a good mystery story, and Agatha Christie did some of the best.

You can tell a GOOD mystery, because all of the clues are there, and at the end you can look back and say "yep; I missed it".  Where as with some you look back and call bull manure on the solution that was pulled out of thin air. Or someplace darker that creates the same euphemism.

Agatha Christie created two very memorable detectives who appear in multiple novels; Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. Poirot relies on finding the hard facts, and making sense of them; Miss Marple takes the facts and through a deep understanding of human nature, figures out where the clues lead. Poirot relies on an encyclopedic knowledge of everything; Miss Marple on an encyclopedic knowledge of everyone. Solutions with both tend to ring true, as far as motivations and responses to stimuli, at least to me.

Evil Under the Sun was a made for English theatrical release, and follows the book well in some parts and deviates wildly in others. Peter Ustinov plays the title detective, and in 1982 I might have accepted it. But not now.

I am a huge Christie fan. If she wrote something that I haven't read  it would surprise me. And like any fan, I have developed my own vision of the characters she has so exquisitely drawn. Peter Ustinov is not Hercule Poirot; he plays a caricature of the little man with the egg-shaped head.

His voice was even wrong; instead of speaking in French (yes; I know he is actually from Belgium) accented English, he sounds like what he is; an Englishman trying to fake a French accent. He also exaggerates, probably for comic effect, some of Poirot's characteristics.

I don't know if it is because who ever did the casting for the Poirot Series on A&E (at least in the States; British and Australian TV also had a hand in the production) had the same vision of Poirot as I do, or if the character is so well drawn that everyone has the same vision, but David Suchet is perfect as Poirot. Eccentric, but not comical; vain, but not to the detriment of the man. Even the accent is perfect; just what I would hear in my head while reading one of her mysteries.

But it probably isn't fair to compare a theatrical release movie with a TV series from 10 years later. Although in this case the series wins.

But; I digress.

The movie was very watchable. It was English; the acting was superb. The sets; the dialogue and the photography were all top-notch.

Except Ustinov was not, to me, believable. even the final wrap up seemed contrived, something I never feel in a Christie novel.

Maybe I'm just hyper critical because I have seen what can be done, and won't accept a lesser product. Or maybe this would seem to be a lesser product in any case.

Maybe I need to find somebody not familiar with Christie's work to watch it with me and see what they think.

I also need to re-watch the other Ustinov/Christie movie, Death on the Nile and see how it compares.

Looks like I have some homework to do.

Stirring Up Some Old Memories

According to BING, today is the 50th birthday of the Petrified Forest National Park. Well; Happy Birthday.

Somewhere I have a picture of me, my sister and our Dad in the Petrified Forest. We're sitting on a log about 8 feet long and maybe 30 inches in diameter. I'm about 4; Sis is 3 or so. Dad is wearing a cowboy hat. That hat is still in the family. It is a white Stetson, and I don't think Dad ever wore after we left Texas a few days later. But he kept it for the next 40 years, hanging off of a basketball trophy on his chest of drawers.

Back in the 60's real Stetson cowboy hats were kinda rare in our part of Kentucky. So, when a local theater group did a production of Oklahoma!, Dad's hat did a star turn on the head of Curly. We got free tickets to the show.

But, I digress.

The visit to the petrified forest was on the return leg of our California trip. A real Vacation trip that took us through Denver to Los Angeles and Disneyland, then up the coast to Knott's Berry Farm and San Francisco, then home the southern route through Arizona, for the Grand Canyon, and Texas. One Day I am going to do a series of posts on that trip. I just have to figure out who has the movies.

My Mom's Dad was on the trip with us, and took hundreds of feet of film from Cincinnati to LA and back, some of it with the hood ornament of our '55 Oldsmobile figuring prominently. Dad had the super 8 footage converted to video tape years ago, and I think my brother had it converted to DVD a few years later. As soon as I figure out who has the movies, I'll rip 'em to my computer and post pieces in the blog.

Our trip wasn't as exciting as the trip the Griswolds took 20 years later, and Disneyland was open when we got there, but I can still remember bits and pieces almost 50 years later.

I have to confess; the primary memory I have of that trip is the smell of hotel rooms. A combination of cleaning fluids and air conditioning, that smell remains with me today for some reason. I associated that smell with air conditioning for years; that trip was the first time I remember spending a considerable amount of time in cooled air.

Amazing what will impress itself on the mind of a 4 year old, isn't it?

Friday Night at the Movies XII

Did you ever watch something and when you were done kinda thought....

What the Hell was that?

I was looking for something to watch last night and was doing an extensive scan of Netflix. I was down to perusing the Independent stuff. There I found a show called Confederate States of America. The basic premise is alternative history; what if the South had won the Civil War?

Then what you have is a BBC produced 'documentary' on the current- circa 2004- CSA, which now encompasses all 50 states, and the history of the world to this point. Interspersed in the show are the commercials broadcast on the CSA network.

Some parts are real history, some parts are almost history (like the 1960 Presidential race between Democrat Richard Nixon and Republican John F. Kennedy which includes original debate footage redubbed) and some parts are pure fiction. But without knowing the real events it would be easy to become confused on what is real and what is not.

Presented as satire, the commercials are..... indescribable. There is one for the Home Shopping Channel- for slaves. Another advertises a sort of invisible fence for your servants. Yet another advertises get insurance for your property- All of your property.

Interestingly enough some of the ads are for products that really existed and were commercially sold in the world in the past. The racism in the ads is apparent and, hopefully, transparent.

The show itself is at times funny. The phrase "Sexual Relations with that woman" comes up, and the situation causes a few quick laughs. If you know the history as it happened, then there are also some 'events' that will cause a more than a few quick grins.

Just shy of an hour and a half long, some parts show the film was done independently, but for the most part it is a very watchable 90 minutes. You can't let go of the premise, and I really think that is the purpose of the commercials. Without them, because of the PBS style and quality of the mockumentary you could very easily believe this is a factual presentation.

One inspired and presented by the KKK most likely.

The historic timelines are credible and the use of redubbed historic footage lends a certain authenticity. The Canadian exiled Abraham Lincoln even makes and appearance in some "recently discovered" old film footage.

But the commercials bring home that what you are watching is a fiction; and the film is meant to ridicule a possible Southern Christian based society, not admire it. In later years the country bans all non- Christian religions and homo-sexuality, again driving home the general intolerance of folks who would tolerate slavery.

Bottom line; I'm not sure what to think. Interesting concept, and presented well. Some fiction; some reality, blended together rather nicely.

Grab a few beers, and watch a few minutes.

If nothing else there will be food for thought.

Friday Night at The Movies IX

Skimming through Netflixs Friday night I ran across a movie I saw a couple of times a few years ago and kind of liked, Beer For My Horses. so I watched it again.

This is my kind of movie. Good music- all Country- some great action sequences, laugh out loud funny in parts, and some weird characters showing up from time to time. Cameo appearances by some old-timers, like Willie Nelson, Mel Tillis, David Alan Coe and Mac Davis also add a little something. Co-written by, and starring Toby Keith, it is exactly what a Friday night movie should be; FUN.

Needless to say, it fulfills my prime directive; a good story, competently told.

Toby Kieth plays an Oklahoma Sheriff's Deputy who busts a Mexican drug lord's little brother stealing fertilizer to make crystal meth. The drug lord kidnaps Toby's girlfriend to trade for his little brother. Toby and two of his deputy friends (Ted Nugent and Rodney Carrington, who also co-wrote the film) kidnap the brother from jail and take him south to make the trade.

Like any good road trip, they run into some crazy characters along the way. The scene with Rodney Carrington in the rest area men's room is an instant classic. Rodney does provide most of the films comic relief. Trying to train his dog to be a drug dog by having him sniff out aspirin is another example or his activities at the initial drug bust; classic humor.

Ted Nugent does a good job too, as Deputy Skunk Travers. He says two words in the entire film, and those are at the end. Skunk tends to let his weapons do the talking for him. From the pair of machine guns he lights up at one point to a sling and stone he uses with great effectiveness at another, Skunk is never at a loss for a weapon or the skill to use it.

The gunfight at the end in a Mexican saloon provides some twists and turns to the plot that I'm not going to reveal, but everything wraps up well. The drug dealers go to jail; the girl gets rescued and everybody enjoys a cold beer.

What better way to spend Friday night?

Say What?!?!?!

Sometimes the news is just too unbelievable. I ran into this at Althouse today, and I just had to comment.

Hanoi Jane as Nancy Reagan?!?!?

But is that better or worse than Severus Snape as Ronald Reagan?

How Do You Define Macho?

One of the items I read on Instapundit this morning was this piece: Ten Macho Movies Every Man Should See.

Wow; what a list. First; its from Popular Mechanics.

Say What? Why is an article like this in Popular Mechanics? I mean, the same magazine that at one time brought us plans for a do-it-yourself mini-submarine is now doing macho man movie reviews?

I don't know who developed this list, but my guess he is about 23, and has no idea what macho is all about. He is probably also a metro-sexual, who pulled some old movie names off of IMBD just so the crap he wanted to watch would at least look like it had some balance.

The comments section is just loaded with better movies that the junk in the current list.

For the record, I have seen the first five movies on the list, and not (Thankfully) any of the last 5. Of the five I have seen, Wrath of the Khan is the only one I have seen more than twice.

Maybe I just don't understand his version of macho (I keep saying HE, but it doesn't say who wrote the article; it is equally possible it was written by a she, or a they I suppose), or is his version just blood and violence?

To me, macho isn't so much about violence as manliness. The ability to defend yourself is of course a component of macho, but not the basis for it. I checked Wikipedia for their definition, an didn't like any I liked. They seemed to be rather down on the concept.

I also checked the Urban Dictionary; Home run! Definition #9:

Macho: Description of someone manly, specifically someone who ignores or endures discomfort to maintain the appearance of manliness.

The height of macho is jogging home after your own vasectomy.

That I think sums it up. Except... I'm not sure that a definition of Macho should include the word vasectomy?

UPDATE- I was asked today what is my opinion of the epitome of the Macho in a movie?

That's easy; John Wayne in The Shootist, his last film. The King of Macho.

Friday Night At The Movies V

After some family discussion, it was determined we would break out an old family favorite last night for movie night.

Somehow the line: "Well, there was that one traveling salesman" came up in conversation, and we all recognized the movie, and we all realized it had to long since we had seen Second Hand Lions.

If you have never seen the movie, it is all about growing up, growing old and what exactly constitutes a family. And it has some great cars in the supporting cast.

And you can't beat the actors either. How Micheal Caine, as Great Uncle Garth, manages to pull off a Texas twang I'll never know. Robert Duvall, as Great Uncle Hub, does a great job, and Haley Joel Osment as their nephew Walter form a great trio. One review I read this morning:

(P)rais(ed) the performances of Caine, Duvall and Osment but said "Almost all the film's peripheral characters, from Walter's mother and her boyfriend to a family of grasping relatives, are clichéd in an overly broad, unfunny way that is unpleasant in itself and a marked contrast to the more nuanced performances of the trio of leads.

I think this reviewer missed the point entirely. The three main characters were real, and the rest of the world was a flat caricature compared to them, especially the two uncles. It's hard to say much, without giving away the film, but then, this isn't a crime drama who-dunnit.

Walter goes to live with his two great uncles when his dippy mother wants to go Las Vegas. No mention is made of his father, but vague references are made to Mae, Walter's mother, being a floozy, so we can leave his parentage to our own devices. Mae lies to Walter about where she will be, another in a series of lies, so Walter decides to make the best of his situation with the Uncles. The Uncles themselves are rather mysterious, having disappeared in Europe 40 years earlier at the height of World War I, and suddenly returning home with rumors of vast wealth floating around them.

It is their rumored wealth, and not themselves that has attracted not only Mae's interest, but that of the rest of Garth and Hub's extended family. Which I see as another key point of the movie. Walter enjoyed his great uncles as people; everybody else saw them as wealthy eccentrics, and they wanted at least a piece of the pie.

The movie centers around the stories of what Garth and Hub did for 40 years, as Garth tells these stories to Walter. As always with family lore, the veracity of these stories is called into question. Walter asks Hub at one point if the stories are true. Hub replies that their truth isn't the point; it's whether Walter believes them or not. Whether the stories are true or not is decided in the final scene of the movie.

As I said, the movie is about growing up, as Walter decides that he needs to take a position with regards to his mother, and makes her accept his will. He is only 14, but based on his life with his mother, he needs to become an adult so that their relationship has an adult in it, as his mother is emotionally a flighty child.

It is also about growing older, as Hub and Garth are aging, Garth because he believes he is supposed to, and Hub being dragged kicking and screaming into a land he has no interest in. Hub at one point talks about how for 40 years he had a use, and his biggest fear is being useless. Garth is more prosaic; taking up gardening, "because that's what retired people do".

But Garth does understand what aging is all about, as he says to Walter at one point:

Well, a man's body may grow old, but inside his spirit can still be as young and as restless as ever.

I think that line sums aging up very well. Us oldsters don't see ourselves as as old; we still see ourselves as 18, or 25, or maybe even 30; whatever age it was we felt on top of the world. We make concessions to our rapidly failing bodies, but unwillingly. We may look 52- or as in Hub's case, 72- on the outside, but inside we are still as young and capable as we were at 25.

Of course, Second Hand Lions fulfills my criteria for a good movie- good story, convincingly told. If you haven't seen it, you should. The critics hated it. In my opinion that alone is enough reason to take a couple of hours on a Friday night and slip into a world where fantasy may be truth, and reality exactly what you have made of it.

The Tree and The Acorn

I know you've heard the old saw about the acorn not falling far from the tree.

Well, Saturday my second oldest officially became a redneck.

Jeff Foxworthy defines Redneck as 'a glorious lack of sophistication', a definition I agree with. But there is also a individualistic, self-sufficient bent that I think is a requirement in a good Redneck. Here is my son's story.

Apparently Saturday afternoon he wanted to watch a few movies on DVD. But His DVD player wouldn't work. So, unlike your hipster-dofus, who would grab a credit card and his password to Amazon. my son grabbed a screwdriver. And started dismantling his DVD player.  After a few screws, he discovers the problem. The drive belt between the motor and the spindle that drives the DVD unit is broke, and laying in the bottom of the player.

End of the day, right? Not by a long shot.

Our intrepid young Redneck does not let a broken part stop him. He goes On the Hunt for a replacement. But where do you find a replacement drive belt for a cheap DVD player on a Saturday afternoon?

Why in the basement of course!

Not that I have a stockpile of old DVD players in the basement; I don't. But what our Redneck Repairman is looking for is flexible piece of rubber, like a rubber band, but a whole lot smaller.

When ever I replace a burnt out headlight bulb, I replace them both, and put the one that still worked on the shelf as a spare. That way, if a blow another bulb I can put in the old one until I can get to the store for a new set.

Well, something even I didn't know is that the rubber ring that the bulb maker uses to seal the bulb into the headlight housing is exactly the same size as the drive belt in cheap DVD players.

A few seconds to slip the seal off of the bulb and Voila! a new drive belt.

The player was reassembled and has been working steadily and well ever since.

For those of us with a special bent, this is a proud moment.

Almost enough to bring a tear to an old man's eye.

Except he had to go and ruin one of my spare headlight bulbs.

Friday Night at The Movies III

Okay; I kinda lied. Its Friday and Saturday Night at The Movies. Why? Because its my blog and I'll do as I please.

Okay; that's not strictly true either. The real reason is I couldn't make a decision on which movie to blog about, so I'm going to do both. Plus; they were short movies.

Friday night was Bob Hope and Bing Crosby- Road to Bali. Have you ever seen one of their Road pictures? If you have then you have seen them all.

Plot? A plot would have gotten in the way of the music and the gags. There is a loose story, but they never let a good gag get ruined by a possible story. Sight gags, slapstick, word play, no matter what you laugh at you will laugh at something in this movie. Always beautifully photographed, you could spend most of the movie just looking at the scenery.

A good way to spend an hour and a half some nasty evening.

Saturday night's movie was another Dukes of Hazzard lead in; Eat My Dust. Again, no real plot. A 17 year old kid steals a stock car off of a race track (an ORANGE one) to impress a girl, and they spend the rest of the movie running from the cops, who seem a bit inept. Sound familiar? One interesting bit is Ron Howard plays the thieving kid.

Released in 1976, it's a movie you need to be in the mood for. In the mood for a lot of engine noise and some running amok on the dirt roads in California? Yep; here's your movie. Character development and touchy-feelly garbage? See if you can find a copy of Kramer versus Kramer somewhere.

I also think I have used more words in this review that they actually used in the movie. They weren't real big on conversation. I also think I counted 117 separate and distinct uses of the word (phrase?) Yee-Haw.

Just like Road to Bali, I can think of worse ways to spend an hour and a half. One at the top of the list would be to watch Kramer versus Kramer.

Friday Night at ther Movies II

I was surfing Netflixs early Friday evening and ran into a movie I hadn't seen in years. Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. It was a little different. Okay, saying this film was a little different is like calling PEEPS a health food.

The camera work looks like it was shot with an iPhone, and the acting could be considered wooden at best. But the reason to watch the film is the car chases. They are very real, and not cinematic in the least. Cars do what cars physically do. They get damaged when they collide with both movable and immovable objects, and require repair after said collisions. They also overheat and burn up when pressed to hard. And helicopters need fuel to run.

I like this so much better that the car chases that seem to go on for a thousand miles with nobody ever stopping for gas, and multiple collisions with no damage to the car. If the goal is realism.

Face it; I love Smokey and the Bandit, from the opening credits when the big rig fires up in the early morning light, to final scene with Sheriff Justice ready for another chase with less that half the car he left Texas with. I have to take an afternoon one weekend about every 6 months of so to sit down and watch The Bandit run that Trams Am all over Georgia. But in a lot of respects, Smokey and the Bandit is a live-action cartoon. That is part of what makes it FUN.

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry is, in some respects, not fun. You know my criteria for a movie, a good story, convincingly told. DM,CL fills that requirement. Parts are interesting, parts drag out way to long, and some parts you just think to your self; WHAT?

I also have to disagree with Wikipedia on at least one point; they call Peter Fonda's character 'likeable'. I never found him likeable. Had I played almost any other character in the movie I would have hit him hard in almost any scene. He was about as likeable a bad case of shingles. The opening seen he and his buddy steal $150,000 form a grocery store by kidnapping the manager's wife and daughter. Oh yeah; that's a likeable bunch.

But the cars... In my opinion the most likeable star was the 1969 Charger R/T. Maybe that was why I disliked Fonda's character so much. He was behind the wheel of this machine less than a minute when he used it to take the door off of a police cruiser. And then tore half of the front end off off later in the film when he t-boned a pickup truck at an intersection.

The movie ends rather abruptly. The helicopter runs out of gas; they escape from the cops and are home free.

Until they t-bone a train and die in a fiery crash. Ahhhh; the final comeuppance.

But it made money; over $28 million. it was released in 1974, and laid the blueprint for movies like Smokey, and TV shows like The Dukes of Hazzard.

All of the elements are there; the hot car; the hot girl, the inept police, the likeable outlaw who isn't really a crook, even though he has broken the law, maybe, depending on your point of view. And the chase.

Chase scenes are as old as the movies. Name a Western without a chase scene. Name a Comedy without one. Name a Romantic Comedy without one. The difference is, this movie started The Chase Movie. So at some point, if that is your genre of preference, you need to watch Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry at least once. Preferably at the Drive-In, in the front seat of a 1966 Oldsmobile, with a tinny speaker hung on your door and a large popcorn in your lap.

If none of these items are available, a beer, Netflixs and your recliner are okay. and the surround sound will improve your viewing experience. When they uncork that 440 Charger for the first time, you might just turn the image off and listen to nothing but the noise, like I almost did.

Again- Guns Don't Kill People

I was reading Instapundit this morning and ran across this piece. I have been saying for a long time that movies have gotten too violent. Its nice to see Peter Bogdanovich agree with me.  

Personally, I haven't seen any of the Batman movies. They seemed, from their advertising, dark and violent, and I don't go to movies to see dark and violent. Hell, I still haven't seen Cars 2 for that reason.

So Batman would not be on my viewing list.

But, at any rate, back to the article. Peter talks about how he has been worried about violence in the movies for a long time:

Back in the '70s, I asked Orson Welles what he thought was happening to pictures, and he said, "We're brutalizing the audience. We're going to end up like the Roman circus, live at the Coliseum." The respect for human life seems to be eroding.

'Back in the 70's' he says. 30-40 years ago. And yet the violence has gotten worse. To the point where it has spilled from the screen to the theater itself.

They make a big point in the article about how he lost a girlfriend to murder back in 1980- 30 years ago.

And this was the point where Peter went off the rails.


Dorothy was murdered by a guy who was not even legally in the United States, and he bought a gun here. It's out of control. Anytime there's a massacre, which is almost yearly now, we say, "Well, it's not the guns. Guns don't kill people. People kill people" and all that bullshit from the NRA. Politicians are afraid to touch it because of the right wing. And nothing ever changes. We're living in the Wild West.

So, his only experience was with a gun sale 30 years ago, but believes things have not changed since then.

And, he doesn't realize that the fringe element when it comes to firearms is himself and his little echo chamber. The vast majority of people in this country are gun owners and very pro-gun.

Take for example the current administration. They forced through, by every barely legal trick in the book, the most unpopular and sweeping change in an industry in the history of the country. Because Obama felt it was the right thing to do.

But no one, not even when the Dems had both houses of Congress, did the touch a single gun law.

They read the polls; they know what would happen if they tried.

Friday Night at the Movies

I was searching through Netflix last night for something to watch and ran across Urban Cowboy. If I have ever watched the whole movie it has been 30 years. Parts of it I remembered, and parts of it were new, probably because I had never seen it before, except bits while channel surfing between commercial breaks.

One of the parts I didn't remember was the beginning, where a bearded Bud, Travolta's character, leaves the farm for the big city.  Something that is not really worked through the whole movie is that Bud is not an Urban Cowboy, but a Cowboy transplanted to the Urban. That puts a whole different spin on the way the movie plays out.

One scenes is still iconic- Debra Winger riding the mechanical bull for the second time really sticks with you. The interiors, shot at Gilley's, (once billed as the largest honky-tonk in the world)  treated the whole world to Texas Excess.

I've never been a real big fan of Travolta's. I have seen Grease a few times, but other than that I probably haven't seen a total of 30 minutes of his other movies, and probably couldn't name more than 2 or 3. But Urban Cowboy is special. For the soundtrack.

I have the 8-Track somewhere in the attic. I was stuck in the radio in my old T-bird for a month back in the day, and I must have heard it a thousand times that month. Mickey Gilley, of course; Johnny Lee, Charlie Daniels, Kenny Rogers and the Eagles, just to name a few. A veritable whos-who of late 70's music.

Even last night I was focused more on the music that I was the movie. the songs that formed the background for the movie were also the soundtrack of my life in 1980. Each was as familiar as an old friend, and brought back another memory.

Well, except one. A song I heard last night for the first time; it wasn't on my 8-Track. The 8-Track held about 10 songs, and there are 18 in the album. As soon as I heard the song I knew who the artist was, even though I had never heard the song before. I was only mildly surprised to hear him; 1980 was probably his biggest year, as far as establishment music goes. He had just had a hit song that was played everywhere- Pop, Country and Rock radio all had that one song in their playlists, and still do today.

Yes, in the movie the Urban Cowboy was that grand purveyor of drunk, Caribbean rock and rock and the Mayor of Margarita-ville himself, Jimmy Buffet.

Who knew?

Well, I guess I would have, if I would have sat through the Urban Cowboy 30 years ago.