Last December I was lucky enough to go surfing in several places along the coast west of Melbourne including Apollo Bay and Bells Beach. I'm an out of shape 40 year old Irish guy from Belfast so it wasn't anything spectacular: small wave surfing on a long board. But I was thinking about it today. At the end of Point Break, Patrick Swayze ends up in Australia and goes out to Bells Beach to die on the wave of a 100 year storm. Of course the scene at Bells was really filmed somewhere on the Oregon coast but that's not the issue. What I'm trying to say is that I really liked that goofy movie Point Break and I'm sorry that Patrick Swayze is no longer with us. One of journalism's rare voices of sanity Joe Queenan had a nice piece about Swayze in the Guardian today. You can read a couple of paragraphs he wrote about Point Break below and you can read the rest of the article here....
"The 1991 Kathryn Bigelow film, in which Keanu Reeves plays a fabulously good-looking though not especially cerebral undercover cop, revolves around a gang of surfing bank robbers led by the disarmingly philosophical Swayze. The very idea of making a movie about surfing, philosophical gangsters led by Swayze, who Reeves vows to bring to justice, reaffirms why America is such a great country. Anyone can make movies about good love gone bad. Anyone can make movies about the lives of others. But we make movies about surfing bank robbers who spout Buddhist wisdom to undercover cops named Johnny Utah. And we have the good sense to cast Swayze in them.
Our favourite movies are never the ones that are shown out of competition at Cannes. They're the ones you can't wait until your kids are old enough to see. They're the ones you always recommend when a friend calls up and asks what film she should watch to cheer her up and you cannot, cannot believe that she has never crossed paths with Johnny Utah and Bodhi. They're the ones that if someone told you they didn't understand their appeal, you would terminate the friendship on the spot. They're the ones that make you feel that the stars on the screen will always be young ."
Our favourite movies are never the ones that are shown out of competition at Cannes. They're the ones you can't wait until your kids are old enough to see. They're the ones you always recommend when a friend calls up and asks what film she should watch to cheer her up and you cannot, cannot believe that she has never crossed paths with Johnny Utah and Bodhi. They're the ones that if someone told you they didn't understand their appeal, you would terminate the friendship on the spot. They're the ones that make you feel that the stars on the screen will always be young ."
30 comments:
"See you in the next life Johnny."
Have you read Tapping the Source by Kem Nunn?
I have, Brian. I thought it was a terrific book.
I haven't seen this movie, but I loved the description about crazy movies that shouldn't work but somehow do and in fact sometimes become the ones we love most.
I love Nunn's work, particularly his "surf" trilogy. Don Winslow has nothing on him :)
With sentences like:
"An old Mex meth chef even showed him the bones in the ground and he saw for the first time the enormity of what he had begun. He saw iniquities without end, as a procession of days, and to these he had added other and greater iniquities in which his father had played no part and of which he would not speak, neither then nor now, yet he knew himself for what he was, his father’s son, and he vowed to finish what he had started the night he’d gone to beat the truth out of the old man, if only to rid the planet of them both, for in this crime he had no concern with perfection."
Kem Nunn stands as proof that Elmore Leonard and his famed rules don't have to be the only entry point into writing crime fiction. Transparent prose is one possible style to use in telling a story not an alter for an entire genre to worship at.
**
Oh -- and I love Point Break. I could watch it endlessly. A couple of years ago I posted a long piece on a forum called An Appreciation of Bad Movies or something like that that talked about the movies that we really love not the ones that we should love. Maybe I'll have to dust that one off....
Nice piece. I also did a Swayze blog over at artimitatesknife. Not a huge fan of all his works, but Point Break quite a good one.
Point Break is a great flick, and I'd like to see Bigelow direct more, especially since I enjoyed The Hurt Locker so much.
Swayze was a good actor and more importantly seemed like a good guy. It's a shame he's gone.
Ian
Last line of the film right? Said by Swayze as he goes off to die.
Brian
Havent read that Kem Nunn one. Read one called Winter Dogs (?) that was pretty good though. I agree with you. If you really know something that few other people know about it and can make it interesting you've got it made as a writer.
I remember carrying my long board through Harlem to the A train stop on 125th Street. I didnt think twice about it back then, but its an arresting image. Sometimes it takes a while for that stuff to percolate in your brain.
Liam
Just checked you out. Nice piece. Yeah I never fell for that Ghost movie, despite Demi Moore's haircut, but I did like Point Break.
Seana
If you liked The Hurt Locker I think you'd like this. Kathryn Bigelow out machoes Tony Scott any day of the week.
I like a lot of Tony Scott's earlier stuff (esp. Crimson Tide), but his style has just become way too excessive recently. Such as in Man On Fire, when Denzel Washington yells in Spanish, the subtitles are in all caps and bigger fonts. Thanks Tony, I didn't realize he was yelling.
I didn't see Hurt Locker. I heard it was good, mostly, but I didn't think I could take an entire movie of detonating mines. Too suspenseful.
Brian, I only read that first one, but Nunn did come to our store once, and read from Tijuana Straits. It sounded interesting, but unfortunately, I didn't get around to it.
IIRC there's only one unexpected 'make ya jump' explosion in Hurt Locker. Most of them are telegraphed quite well in advance, although the tension is pretty heavy throughout the film.
Keanu (Johnny Utah = Joe Montana?) was at the TIFF this weekend and said nice things about Swayze. Not too crazy about Point Break myself, I think a lot of its resurgence is owed to Hot Fuzz - but I love Uncommon Valor. If Swayze was a little older I'm sure Milius would've tapped him for Big Wednesday, he'd have been terrific
for it.
Favourite Tony Scott film - Spy Game. Just find it has terrific repeat viewing value.
I committed the cardinal sin of giggling during the ending of Ghost on a date in a crowded movie theatre. If looks could kill they'd have dragged me out by my heels. I couldn't help it, I swear. Twenty years later and I can still feel all those eyes upon me.
Thanks, Matt. I suppose I could probably manage it as a rental, but tension is not one of my favorite things in movies. I'm not actually a particularly anxious person in day to day life, but I do seem to have an overdeveloped startle response. I remember sitting in the break room once when I jumped because the flip top of my Coke suddenly fell off the top of the can. I like to think I've grown out of this, but it's probably not true.
I probably shouldn't even be speaking to you, though, now that I know you're a Ghost giggler.
Just kidding. I liked the movie at the time, and I think it was effective, but I didn't swoon over it. Though, being me, I probably jumped a few times.
Brian
I thought Crimson Tide was pretty good, although I would have liked one of the two principals to die at the end instead of just being told off by the navy board. Still, yeah, good film.
Seana
The Winter Dogs one was pretty good. I'm surprised he came to your store. I thought he'd given up writing and was exclusively doing Hollywood stuff now. I suppose I was wrong about that.
Matt
I dont know, I liked Demi Moore but Ghost just didnt cut it with me.
Whoopie Goldberg in anything is a massive turnoff as far as I'm concerned.
I'm very glad Kathryn Bigelow is making a comeback though.
Totally agree on the Whoopi comment - there's something so totally off about that woman that I can rarely watch a movie she's in. The Player being about the only exception - Altman there seemed to play off of her creepiness and for some reason it worked.
Point Break - I must love the movie since I rarely pass it when I find it while channel surfing. Swayze is cast perfectly in it. They had the good sense to cast Reeves as himself, which made the acting required of him only a slight stretch.
No, he was there. And as I realize it was a bit ambiguous the way I phrased that, I did go to the reading, I just haven't gotten around to the book, even though I liked what I heard.
It's unfair of me to say that I think Tapping the Source might be his best, since I haven't read the others, but I think it might be.
However--I went to the Lorrie Moore reading the other night, and she read well, it was a good crowd, all that, but I am just so tired of the format. I think her fans enjoyed it, as I would enjoy someone I already really liked, but trying to pay attention to a long reading in a building with a lot of distractions and then listen patiently to other people's questions is actually not my idea of a fun evening. I've really enjoyed the ones done in an interview format, because that way something of the writer's life and methods and motives comes out.
I only mention this because I think I'm not alone on this one. It's perfect if you're just wanting to draw in the writer's fan base, but if you're trying to draw in someone new, it doesn't really work that well.
Oh yeah, and I love what did Tony Scott did with The Last Boy Scout, though the story's success for me probably has more to do with Shane Black's script than anything else.
Kem Nunn's novels and release dates are:
Tapping the Source - 1984
Unassigned Territory - 1986
Pomona Queen - 1992
The Dogs of Winter - 1997
Tijuana Straits - 2004
So yeah he is still writing novels he just ain't the most prolific fella in the world
Hobart
I think it was the late great Bill Hicks who said that sometime in the early 80's America must have gotten together and had a secret meeting to pretend to like Whoopie Goldberg, a meeting he was not invited to.
The Player was an effective use of her talents I agree. I also liked the way they were ALWAYS dissing writers throughout.
Seana
I know what you mean, at the Poisoned Pen in Arizona they do it as a Q&A and it works very well.
Brian
Not I think you'll agree the talent of his big brother Ridley though.
Brian
Ah, I see. Dogs of Winter was the one I read. I actually heard him interviewed in New York on NPR I think. The questioner was all: a surfer can write?
Glad to see others share my love for Point Break, one of the best cheezy movies out there. Swayze was great in it. Also, the cameo by Anthony Kiedis, lead singer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is classic.
BTW, Adrian, love your writing. I'm plowing through the DEAD series and am hooked. I don't normally read books (more of a magazine article or non-fiction kind of guy) but your stuff is great. Stumbled on Dead I Well May Be by accident. That book was freakin' awesome. Can't wait to get to some of your other and more recent stuff soon. Big fan here.
- Jason Duffy (Charlotte, NC by way of Schenectady, NY)
Jason
Thanks man, I appreciate that. I know the books arent for everyone, but I keep plugging away doing my thing and its nice if someone likes it down the road. We cant all be Dan Brown.
Do you remember Flea's appearance in Back to the Future? He made a good villain.
Picked up Tapping the Source this week based on recommendations here & got through it on the United Airlines slog from Cleveland home to SFO via Chicago last night [ugh, air travel blows chunks these days].
Thoroughly enjoyed TTS & will definitely try Nunn's others. I was a bit uncomfortable with the familial love aspect of Ike/Ellen's relationship, but it clearly worked & it's abundantly clear if you read the book all in one pass that Nunn expended some energy on a detailed plotting - there's tons of tiny details that tie together really well. Nunn did a super job on the surf noir SoCal atmosphere - there's definitely a SoCal noir lineage I'd include this book in going back to Chandler and including Hansen's Brandstetter novels [re-reading those now - IMO Hansen didn't get the credit he should have, probably because of the gay theme].
Odd how the Ike/Ellen relationship made me squirm but the violence in DIWMB didn't bother me at all - a psychologist would have fun telling me about that.
Anyway, thanks for the TTS recommendation.
Hey Adrian - if you're interested in shows where writers are dissed, check out the DVDs of the TV series Action (Jay Mohr). It's the funniest TV show that was ever on & the opening scene with the sleazy agent pimping a client who has, ah, ..... certain legal troubles in the pilot is priceless. Writers, directors, actors & producers all get their share of abuse in the series.
Hobart
Flying is the worst. If I'm in the US I only like to fly first thing in the morning now before all the delays or last thing at night when nobody gives a shit.
I'll have to do a blog sometime about my favourite surfing movies.
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