House of Eratosthenes

All those imperial admirals getting killed. We talked about it all through that summer. It seems Lord Vader got some kind of a promotion. It made the movie.

The quintessential car chase, how could you leave that one out? Steve McQueen got you all honked off about something?

Jack Palance gunned that poor dude down and left him lying in the mud. Movie history.

Khaaaaaannnnn!!!!

Moral sermonizing against racism long before it was ever cool. Spencer Tracey does his acting with one hand tied behind his back, and turns in a classic. And yes, now you know it’s true that Ernest Borgnine looked like an old man when he was still young. Wonderful, wonderful overlooked gem. See this one if you have to pass up all the others.

If you can’t get hold of that one, set aside some time to look at Jimmy Stewart as a grumpy old southern farmer bastard. Yeah, he pulled it off and he pulled it off very well. It’ll make you think and it might even make you cry.

What we got here, is a failure ta communicate.

A one-eyed John Wayne.

Those are just off the top of my head…

True Grit. Classic. My favorite of his is “The Cowboys”.

Especially the cook’s “final” prayer, final words to his maker, granted by his captors — when he tells his maker he is sorry “for all the men I have killed … and for those I am about to kill.”

Right befor the rope around his neck gets shot loose by one of the kids in the woods and a planned chaos ensues.
- philmon | 08/26/2009 @ 06:47
Of course, we have that one. I went back & forth about whether to include it or not. I cannot explain why I ultimately chose to leave it out of this list; it’s just one of those rare decisions of mine that would’ve benefit from re-thinking.

Best line in TG has to be “You do and it’ll be the biggest mistake you ever made, you Texas brushpopper.” Can’t remember offhand if it was that one or the sequel Rooster Cogburn…I think it was the sequel…but I just gotta say that “Fill Your Hand You Sonofabitch!” is just a killer badass line. The value of both of these lay in the delivery. And he did it with one lung, too. There’ll never be another Duke.
- mkfreeberg | 08/26/2009 @ 07:24
Well you can’t include ’em all. I was just bringin’ it up because the Duke was mentioned and I can’t think of the Duke without thinking of that movie.

I always had a thing (since childhood) for stories about families that went west and in the process lost one or more parents and the kids kept going, pressed on, and survived to see it through. “The Thundering Prairie”. “Seven Alone”. “Tillicum”. Stuff like that. Oh, and a similar theme, “Call it Courage” and such. Yeah. “The Cowboys” sort of fits into that. Kids sucking it up and doing what many adults won’t.

I’ve liked those stories from even before the episode in my life I’m about to relate. My brothers and I were at the local city pool (15 miles from our own farm) on a an extremely hot day. This stranger … to me, I guess he knew us, came up to the fence, and got my attention. Asked if we were the Leith boys. We were. It was like 97 degrees with eleventy billion percent humidity. Doc McElwaine (yep, that was really his name) was putting up hay. This was his son. A crew of adults took in one load and quit.

Now if you know anything about hay and midwest afternoons, once the hay is baled, you gotta get it in the barn ahead of any rain — which is typically possible any given hot summer afternoon.

I was maybe 15, and a wiry and scrawny boy. Two younger brothers, 13 & 11. We put up 800 bales that afternoon. I hate putting up hay as much as I hate moving. It gets everywhere, places you wouldn’t think it could. In the tips of your socks. Chiggers. Scrapes & abrasions everywhere. Sweat, pouring over them, stinging and burning them, and into your eyes doing the same. Soaking wet shirt and pants sticking to you everywhere, along with the hay — because your sweat doesn’t work out here on a typical Missouri summer day. It can’t evaporate. I know exhaustion, and I know pushing through it. And it was probably worse for my little brothers.

I think I made $20. But we would have done it anyway for Doc.

Sort of a theme in my life, and I have my dad to thank for it. You do what needs doin’. I think in many ways I was tougher back them than I am now. I’d like to think that’s not true. But I’m not tested nearly as often these days.
- philmon | 08/26/2009 @ 08:11

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Tuesday, August 25th, 2009