Tag Archives: Patrick Swayze

Scenes That I Love: Sam Elliott and Patrick Swayze in Road House

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to Sam Elliott.  In this scene from the classic film Road House, Sam Elliott and Patrick Swayze have a heart-t0-heart.  Swayze’s Dalton has a past that can only be understood by Sam Elliott’s Wade Garrett.

Take it away, mijo.

Scenes I Love: The “Head Over Heels” Montage from Donnie Darko

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This Saturday, while I was live tweeting 2001’s Donnie Darko, I was reminded of how much I enjoy today’s scene that I love.  Not only does this scene introduce us to the film’s ensemble cast but it also makes perfect use of a great song.

Scenes That I Love: Sam Elliott and Patrick Swayze in Road House

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to Sam Elliott.  In this scene from the classic film Road House, Sam Elliott and Patrick Swayze have a heart-t0-heart.  Swayze’s Dalton has a past that can only be understood by Sam Elliott’s Wade Garrett.

Take it away, mijo.

Guilty Pleasure No. 80: Point Break (dir by Kathryn Bigelow)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Some films are so ludicrous and self-aware of their absurdity that you can’t help but love them and that’s certainly the case with 1991’s Point Break.

Consider what Point Break offers us:

First, you’ve got Keanu Reeves playing a former college football star who, after blowing out his knee, ended up joining the FBI.  Keanu, who looks like he’s barely out of high school in this film, plays a character with the wonderful name of Johnny Utah.  Keanu gives a relaxed performance.  You can tell that he’s having fun in this movie and Johnny Utah’s enthusiasm is infectious.  Personally, I prefer Johnny Utah to John Wick.

Secondly, you’ve got Patrick Swayze as Bodhi, the ruthless bank robber who is also a surfer.  Much like Reeves, Swayze could occasionally be a stiff actor but in this film, you can tell he’s having fun and again, it’s hard not have fun watching him as he spouts his surfer philosophy, jumps out of planes, and dreams of dying while mastering a 50-foot wave.  Swayze is so charismatic as Bodhi that you totally buy that Johnny Utah would like him despite all the times that Bodhi tries to kill him.

You’ve got Bodhi’s bank-robbing gang, who call themselves the Ex-Presidents.  Bodhi wears a Ronald Reagan mask.  Other members of the gang wear LBJ, Nixon, and Carter masks.  “I am not a crook!” Nixon says.  The wonderful thing about the Ex-Presidents is that they seem to truly enjoy robbing banks.  Of course, they also enjoy surfing.

Gary Busey plays a character who is not Gary Busy.  Instead, he’s Johnny’s partner.  Everyone in the FBI laughs at him when he says the bank robbers are surfers but guess who knows what he’s talking about!  Seriously, though, it’s always interesting to see Gary Busey in the years when he was still a somewhat serious actor.

John C. McGinley does the uptight boss thing.  Lori Petty is the waitress who teaches Johnny Utah how to surf.  The surf footage is beautifully shot.  A soaked Johnny give the camera a thumbs-up.  Director Kathryn Bigelow keeps the action moving quickly and, just as she did with Near Dark, uses the film’s genre trappings to explore the bond that holds together a group of outsiders.

It’s an over-the-top and cheerfully absurd film and it’s impossible not to love it.  I haven’t felt the need to watch the remake.  Why would I?  The original has everything I need.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

  1. Half-Baked
  2. Save The Last Dance
  3. Every Rose Has Its Thorns
  4. The Jeremy Kyle Show
  5. Invasion USA
  6. The Golden Child
  7. Final Destination 2
  8. Paparazzi
  9. The Principal
  10. The Substitute
  11. Terror In The Family
  12. Pandorum
  13. Lambada
  14. Fear
  15. Cocktail
  16. Keep Off The Grass
  17. Girls, Girls, Girls
  18. Class
  19. Tart
  20. King Kong vs. Godzilla
  21. Hawk the Slayer
  22. Battle Beyond the Stars
  23. Meridian
  24. Walk of Shame
  25. From Justin To Kelly
  26. Project Greenlight
  27. Sex Decoy: Love Stings
  28. Swimfan
  29. On the Line
  30. Wolfen
  31. Hail Caesar!
  32. It’s So Cold In The D
  33. In the Mix
  34. Healed By Grace
  35. Valley of the Dolls
  36. The Legend of Billie Jean
  37. Death Wish
  38. Shipping Wars
  39. Ghost Whisperer
  40. Parking Wars
  41. The Dead Are After Me
  42. Harper’s Island
  43. The Resurrection of Gavin Stone
  44. Paranormal State
  45. Utopia
  46. Bar Rescue
  47. The Powers of Matthew Star
  48. Spiker
  49. Heavenly Bodies
  50. Maid in Manhattan
  51. Rage and Honor
  52. Saved By The Bell 3. 21 “No Hope With Dope”
  53. Happy Gilmore
  54. Solarbabies
  55. The Dawn of Correction
  56. Once You Understand
  57. The Voyeurs 
  58. Robot Jox
  59. Teen Wolf
  60. The Running Man
  61. Double Dragon
  62. Backtrack
  63. Julie and Jack
  64. Karate Warrior
  65. Invaders From Mars
  66. Cloverfield
  67. Aerobicide 
  68. Blood Harvest
  69. Shocking Dark
  70. Face The Truth
  71. Submerged
  72. The Canyons
  73. Days of Thunder
  74. Van Helsing
  75. The Night Comes for Us
  76. Code of Silence
  77. Captain Ron
  78. Armageddon
  79. Kate’s Secret

Uncommon Valor (1983, directed by Ted Kotcheff)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Retired Marine Colonel Jason Rhodes (Gene Hackman) and oilman Harry MacGregor (Robert Stack) share a tragic bonf.  Both of them have sons that served in Vietnam and are listed as being MIA.  Believing that their sons are still being secretly held in a POW camp in Loas, Rhodes and MacGregor put together a team to sneak into Southeast Asia and rescue them.

With MacGregor supplying the money and Rhodes leading the mission, the team includes Blaster (Red Brown), Wilkes (Fred Ward), Sailor (Randall “Tex” Cobb), and Charts (Tim Thomerson), all of whom served with Rhodes’s son.  Also joining in his helicopter pilot Curtis Johnson (Harold Sylvester) and former Marine Kevin Scott (Patrick Swayze), whose father was also listed as being MIA in Vietnam.  After a rough start, the group comes together and head into Laos to bring the prisoners home!

Uncommon Valor is one of the many movies released in the 80s in which Vietnam vets returned to Asia and rescued those who were left behind.  In the 80s, there was a very strong belief amongst many Americans that soldiers were still being held prisoner in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos and Hollywood was quick to take advantage of it.  The box office success of Uncommon Valor set the stage for films like Rambo and Missing In Action, film in which America got the victory that it had been denied in real life.

What set Uncommon Valor apart from the films that followed was the cast.  Not surprisingly, Gene Hackman brings a lot more feeling and nuance to his performance as the obsesses Col. Rhodes than Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris brought to their trips to Vietnam.  The film surrounds Hackman with a quirky supporting cast, all of whom represent different feelings about and reactions to the war in Vietnam.  Fred Ward’s character suffers from PTSD.  Randall “Tex” Cobb, not surprisingly, is a wild man.  Patrick Swayze’s character is trying to make the father he’ll never know proud.  Robert Stack and Gene Hackman represent the older generation, still trying to come to terms with everything that was lost in Vietnam and still mourning their sons.  The raid on the POW camp is exciting but it doesn’t feature the type of superhuman action that’s present in other POW-rescue films.  Col. Rhodes and his soldiers are ordinary men.  Not all of them survive and not all of them get what they want.

Uncommon Valor started out as a screenplay from Wings Hauser, though he’s not present in the cast of the final film and he was only given a “story” credit.  John Milius served as producer. Director Ted Kotcheff is best-known for First Blood, another action film about America’s struggle to come to terms with the Vietnam War.