"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘Peter O’Toole’

Summer Movie Flashback: Stardust

Wednesday, September 4th, 2013

tn_stardustrundmcafterlabordayOkay, I know it’s after Labor Day, so it’s weird that I’m continuing with this retrospective on summer movies. But you know what, they also say to never wear white shoes after Labor Day. Did that ever stop Run DMC? Fuck no. So I’m gonna keep going until I get to 2012.

Also, consider global climate change. It’s still go-out-at-night-with-no-coat weather here even though it’s Seattle, so it doesn’t seem like summer’s over to me. Therefore I find myself watching STARDUST.

The nice thing for me about this series is seeing movies that I never had much (if any) interest in, never heard anything that great about, so I watch them with no expectations at all. It’s been kinda funny how easy I’ve been on some of these and then you guys jump in and stab them a thousand times and eat their skin off and pee on ’em (metaphor). Like, I was surprised how much most of you hated VAN HELSING and especially MR. & MRS. SMITH, which I didn’t think was good but didn’t say much bad about. I think that’s ’cause alot of you saw them on the big screen when they were new and there was still hope for them to be classics. And I’m watching them having already written them off years ago.

(read the rest of this shit…)

Supergirl

Thursday, June 20th, 2013

tn_supergirlSUPERGIRL is the story of Superman’s younger cousin Kara (Helen Slater), who lives in Argo, a small commune of (I guess) Krypton refugees encased in a glass sculpture under the water or in another dimension or in space or something, I don’t think it’s explained but maybe you gotta read the comics. The “city” is powered by two magic Faberge egg type deals, one of which Kara’s adult friend Peter O’Toole “borrows” for the day to use in an art project. It’s portrayed as eccentric envelope-pushing, like a teacher standing on a desk or a magic nanny taking the kids onto the roof to watch dancing, but in fact it’s incredible irresponsible behavior that very well could cause the death of the already endangered Kryptonian race. It’s even more inexcusable when he leaves this crucial component of the survival of his entire people with a kid, Kara, who uses it to play God and give life to a giant dragonfly. As kids do.

The dragonfly flies around and tears a hole in the roof and the magic ball gets sucked out into inner space, dooming the entire city to suffocate and die slowly.

Oopsie! Peter O’Toole, that rascal! Oh well, what are you gonna do? (read the rest of this shit…)

Lawrence of Arabia

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

tn_lawrenceofarabiaHave you guys heard of this one? Pretty good. Newcomer Peter O’Toole plays T.E. Lawrence, or just “Awrence” to his friends, a goofball English soldier stationed in Cairo on Doing Jack Shit duty during WWI. He annoys his superior officers with his Jar Jar style clumsiness and just plain oddness (“it looks insubordinate but it isn’t, really,” is how he explains his sloppy salute). So they send him with a guide out to the desert “to appreciate the situation.” And he really does appreciate it. Throughout the course of this nearly 4-hour epic the strength of his personality brings him from nobody grunt sent out on a G14 classified in the desert to unlikely leader of a massive Arab revolt against the Turks. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Stunt Man

Friday, May 15th, 2009

tn_railsback1My Steve Railsback double feature concludes with the odd 1980 movie-movie THE STUNT MAN.

I don’t know what I was expecting from THE STUNT MAN, but it wasn’t this. It opens with a shot of a dog licking his balls, which is appropriate because this is another movie about making a movie. Two cops are chasing Steve Railsback for crimes unknown. He gets away but, through a complicated series of events, winds up hiding out on the set of a WWII movie pretending to be a stuntman named Bert who is actually dead due to a stunt gone wrong. The identity-switch is arranged to cover the ass of the eccentric director (Peter O’Toole) and he quickly falls for the female lead (Barbara Hershey), who he considers famous because he recognizes her from a sexy dog food commercial.

The police keep hovering nearby and he continues to work on the movie as a stuntman, comparing his situation to a war buddy who stepped on a landmine and couldn’t step off because that’s how you get blown up. But strangely it never really goes back to the story of him being a fugitive. It’s just this really surreal, inventive story about his possessive love for Hershey, his friendship with O’Toole, and eventually his fear that it’s all a conspiracy to kill him in a re-try of the stunt that killed Bert. (read the rest of this shit…)