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Thunderbolt And Lightfoot", from
Tuna
Tuna's comments:
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is a lackluster Clint
Eastwood testosterone film. Clint and his
sidekick Lightfoot are supposed to be loveable
bank robbers, and part of the reason is that one
of their associates (played by George Kennedy) is
such a creep that they look good by comparison.
This device just made Kennedy a two dimensional
character with no depth, and I still couldn't
relate to either Thunderbolt or Lightfoot.
Eastwood nearly slept through his performance.
The decide that banks are too much like work, and
rob something easy like a state armory.
The short exposure was
from three actresses. The first, a pickup date
who is dressing after sex with Eastwood. The
second is a "housewife" flashing
workmen through a sliding glass door. The last
(and best) is from a supposedly-teenage daughter
being tied up by Kennedy.
Note: I haven't looked
it up, but I think Jeff Bridges was nominated for
an Oscar for this movie. He played part of the
movie as a woman. Tuna and I don't disagree that
often, and I don't strongly disagree here, but I
think I kind of liked it, although my memory of
it is hazy. If I remember right, I felt some
scenes had been cut improperly, or perhaps some
had been cut out entirely, because there are a
couple of transitions that are very choppy. By my
generally hazy gut feeling is that I thought it
was an OK caper/buddy flick with some comic
relief and an unexpected bittersweet ending. You
film buffs probably know that this film was the
first theatrical feature directed by Michael
Cimino ("The Deer Hunter",
"Heaven's Gate"). I wouldn't balance
Tuna's thumbs-down with a resounding thumbs-up,
but I'd say that it might be worth a watch if the
premise appeals to you.
thumbnails June Fairchild (1,
2,
3,
4,
5)
Leslie Oliver (1,
2)
Luanne Roberts
"Kiss
The Sky", from Johnny Web
The great problem of
middle age has always been an attack of the
crazies. You wake up one morning, and you
question everything that you've done. Maybe
you're a great success, by the typical standards
of society, but you question the value of those
successes. You get a longing for a time in your
life when you were living closer to the edge,
when everything was new, when you still had your
ideals, and a full lifetime ahead to realize
them. When you realize what those ideals were,
you become acutely aware of how few of them you
did realize, and you become intensely aware that
you got distracted by day-to-daylife which gave
you some detours. When you took the detours, they
gradually became your new road, and you never
even realized it.
I suppose this
phenomenon, although prevalent in all generations
and probably in all developed societies, has an
unusually intense psychological impact on my
generation, because our youths were so full of
freedom. In that crazy 1968-74 period, we
experienced something the the guys before us
never had. Instead of crushing us under the
weight of conformity, adults started copying us,
believing us, changing their own lives because of
us. We first began to realize our power on the
night LBJ announced he wouldn't run again. Damn,
our silly little protests kicked a president out
of office. Then the rules started changing in
every way. From global issues like minority
rights to petty matters like campus rules, they
times, they were a-changin'. Then the adults
started co-opting our speech, clothing, and
drugs. Middle aged guys would flash the peace
sign and ask you for a doobie. What a trip. It
was a wild and heady ride, I tell you, to be
steering the ship at that age instead of just
sitting in a passenger seat waiting for the
destination. It all culminated when another U.S.
president, resignation in hand, left office in
humiliation and disgrace.
And that was the end of
it for the mainstream of our generation. Except
for a few idealistic stragglers, we set down our
protest signs, and in time we traded in our VW
campers for Porsches, and most of us created a
nest not very different from the one our parents
had raised us in. As I said earlier, every
generation of youth loses its ideals, so there's
no great storty in that, but we sure seemed to
fall from a greater height to a greater depth.
The sheer drop of that fall seemed to us to be
tragic at Aristotelean levels.
And that's what this
movie is all about. Two guys "have it
all", and they can't breathe. So they seek
to recapture their youthful passion by
adventures, exploration, experimental
relationships, mysticism, whatever it takes. The
movie doesn't really reach any conclusions. One
of the guys returns to his job and family, still
confused, with one foot still out the door. The
other guy ends up in a Buddhist monastery, not
knowing where his next road will lead.
I don't know if the
movie is any good. Probably not, because it's
only a couple of years old, was obviously
produced with a substantial budget by a major
studio in exotic Philippine locations, and yet
was totally buried by the studio that produced
it. I can't find any record of a theatrical
release, or even a cable showing, and it took two
years to get to DVD. Nobody ever reviewed it,
there are only 13 votes on IMDb, and only one
brief user comment. Yet I was fascinated by it.
It is so close to the bone for me that I enjoyed
watching it, ina painful and depressing sort of
way. If you are from my generation, it will ring
some familiar chords, and the sounds will be
amplified by the growling, despairing, music of
Leonard Cohen. (Remember the score to
"McCabe and Mrs Miller"?)
You guys from other
generations? Well, MGM didn't seem to think it
was much good - what else can I tell you?
The nudity is very
subtle considering that three-way sex is one of
the most important elements of the movie.
Sheryl Lee (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) Patricia
Charbonneau Elena
Bennett and Katie Chesters
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