Patrick Swayze
Won’t be down to breakfast. Star of Red Dawn and … some other films,* dead of cancer at 57.
One of the greatest films ever made … Wolverines! … Damn, you’d have to really hate America or be some kind of commie pinko or think no one could ever possibly actually really threaten America not to love that … Red Dawn was weirdly prescient in the notion that our enemies would use commercial airliners to disguise their attack, though being made in 1984, it set a version of the Soviet-Afghan war in the United States, on the premise of a conventional sneak attack by the Soviet Union and its Central American allies. John Milius reportedly based the actions of a ragtag bunch of high school kids facing the might of the Soviet Army on the contemporary mujahideen.
Some irony in that, given how things worked out. But not as farfetched as sneering critics have liked to imagine, given the reality of Soviet expansionism in Central Asia at the time and communist advances in Central American and Southeast Asia, not to mention the insidious domestic “malaise” of the immediately preceding Carter years. (His word, not mine. Malaise is as malaise does, to paraphrase the great Hollywood-American Forrest Gump.)
The film has the added distinction, according to Wikipedia, of being the first film rated PG-13 and also reportedly was once considered “the most violent film by the Guinness Book of Records and The National Coalition on Television Violence, with a rate of 134 acts of violence per hour, or 2.23 per minute.” Heck of a record. Have to watch it again. Didn’t strike me as that heavy on the old ultraviolence.
Convention-bound LA Times obit here. Some gushing about the ultimate romantic lead at MSNBC. Ditto on the swoon at TalkLeft, all warm and misty-eyed about the romantic leads, but apparently forgot all about the ultimate romance of engaging in mortal combat to wrest one’s nation back from a dire red menace!
Herschel Smith at Captain’s Journal goes deep with his appreciation of Red Dawn.
* Brat pack tours de force The Outsiders and Youngblood, which I never saw; or maybe caught parts of them late at night like, you know, Road House and Waking Up in Reno. Then there are various other films I click past ASAP like I’ve seen a Ghost. You’ve got your To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, in which Swayze plays a drag queen, and wins a Golden Globe doing it. Missed that one, too. Getting Red Dawn is notably an off-type brat pack special itself, BTW, with Swayze, Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Grey (who was in some other film with Swayze) and Lea Thompson. Added bonus of Harry Dean Stanton playing a hardscrabble American, plus some really unpleasant Bolshie Ivans.
Of course, what is for many Patrick Swayze’s finest performance is the one we should go out on.
(Care to comment? Registration is shut down, due to persistent spammers. Use the “contact” link to assure me you are a real human being interested in commenting on the topics at hand, include the screenname and temporary password of your choice, and I’ll create a logon for you. Lefty Kumbayah singers, moderate handwringers, meanspirited rightwingers all welcome. Just keep it clean and make an effort to be accurate.)
Topics: America, Hollywood, commies
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:04 am on Tuesday, September 15, 2009
3 Responses to “Patrick Swayze”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
September 15th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I’ve eaten at the McDs in the 2nd photo as recently as last summer.
Most folks don’t realize that the movie was shot in the city of Las Vegas NM. It’s built up a bit since then (and in fact since the 1st time I was there about 15 years ago), but the Drive-In is still there (now across the street from a Wal-Mart).
The “backwoods” that they escape to is up in Sapello NM, down “Las Dispensas (sp?) Gravel Road”. There used to be a wonderful Astronomy resort down that road which closed July1 of last year, which is how I came to be there.
The movie is/was a bit of a local Trivia item for the locals who lived there when it was shot. My host said that about 50% of the town was used as extras
September 15th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
RIP, Patrick. Sad, but not unexpected.
September 17th, 2009 at 2:26 am
Red Dawn was great. Lots of commies buy the farm in that flick.
Sorry to hear about Patrick Swayze’s death. 57 is way too young to go.