January 20, 2008

Gratuitous Llama Movie Observations

Cowboys.jpg

Two things came to mind as I was recently watching The Cowboys for the umpteenth time:

1. Can you imagine what a ride that film must have been for the boys who starred in it? Not only were they in the saddle, riding & roping & yippie-kay-yaying all over New Mexico and Oregon (I believe), but they were doing so with The Dook! For a nine, ten, eleven year old kid, how could it possibly get any sweeter than that?

2. One of my many beefs with the movie Master & Commander, indeed probably my chief beef, was the casting of Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey. All wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. Crowe's shtick is dour broodiness. Aubrey, on the other hand, is a big, sanguine, leonine man. Know who would have suited him well, the accent issues aside? John Wayne, that's who.

Posted by Robert at January 20, 2008 04:00 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Two of the boys went on to (arguably) greater fame and fortune -- one starred in Revenge of the Nerds (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001019/) and another went on to be a soap opera hearththrob (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0553436/).

I'm sure in both cases, having a movie credit with the Duke on their resume didn't hurt.

The guy whose resume it did hurt, I think, was Bruce Dern -- he was forever typecast as a psycopath after gunning down John Wayne.

Posted by: The Abbot at January 20, 2008 06:36 PM

Ah yes....A Martinez...yummy!

But, I've gotta say to you Robert, I respect a man who appreciates John Wayne so much.

The man is my hero, ya know.

Posted by: GroovyVic at January 20, 2008 09:32 PM

Yes, I almost mentioned "Slim" eventually appearing in the Nerds movie, but thought better of it.

The interesting thing about Dern is the almost exquisite contempt with which the Dook treats his murder at Dern's hands. P'raps that, along with Dern's savage treatment of the kids, doomed him.

On a completel side note, I should mention that every time I seen Laura Dern in the first Jurassic Park movie, I'm tempted to say, "Not bad." Anything else she's in? That temptation goes away pretty durn fast.

Posted by: Robbo the LB at January 20, 2008 10:36 PM

Probably my 3rd or 4th favorite Duke movie. I really love the camp you get in El Dorado/Rio Bravo. (The fact that they are basically same movie doesn't hurt, and one of them - can't remember which - has the soundtrack from the old Batman TV show in the background while they are sneaking around.) And casting Ricky Nelson and Dean Martin together was genius (of the comic variety.)

I know most people don't like it, but I really like The Shootist.

Posted by: Zendo Deb at January 21, 2008 09:25 AM