First, like all good internet dwellers, we love Ronda Rousey and we cheered when we heard she was going to star in a remake of Road House (1989) - which we hadn't seen. So to get psyched, and to make up for this lapse in our viewing, we queued up this Patrick Swayze classic - Directed by Rowdy Harrington.
Since everyone else has seen this, I'll keep the synopsis short: Patrick Swayze is an uber-bouncer (or "cooler") brought in to clean up a Missouri road house. Which he does while getting the babe and destroying the local bad-guy (Ben Gazzara). He does it with a mixture of zen centeredness and ass-kicking. Anyway, a few thoughts:
- I really like the Jeff Healey Band - Healey is a blind Canadian with an odd way of playing lap guitar. He plays a combination of classic bar-band rockers (Mustang Sally, Knock on Wood, Travelin' Band) and a few originals. As the leader of the house band and Swayze's buddy, he gets to be a kind of Greek chorus.
- Was Patrick Swayze supposed to resemble Kurt Russell so much? It's not just the mullet - it was also everybody saying they thought he would be taller.
In other Rowdy news, Rowdy Roddy Piper has passed on. Very sad, but a great excuse to re-watch They Live (1988) (previously blogged in 2007 - one of my first posts!). This John Carpenter action-comedy (or possibly documentary) has a simple premise: Drifter Piper finds a pair of sunglasses that reveal the truth - rich people are aliens who have brainwashed humanity to worship money, watch tv and stay asleep. At this point, he utters his famous tagline, "I've come to kick ass and chew gum, and I'm all out of chewing gum."
But our favorite part (like everyone's) was when he tried to convince Keith David to try on the glasses. This results in an epic brawl that goes on and on. David is now fixed in our minds from the last season of Community, and the Riddick movies. But this is surely his finest hour.
Looks like they are remaking They Live as well. I'm not looking forward to that as much.
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