Fourth of July movies, part 3

Continuing from my previous list, just in time for July 4th of 2004. Once again, these are cataloged in no particular order, and I'm not even sure my numbering (sequencing) is consistent with my last installment.

6. Return of the Jedi (1983). Even though this is the sequel with the cutesy teddy-bear like Ewoks, there are also some terrific sequences involving speeder bikes in the woods and Princess Leia as a hostage. It's also the movie where the idea of Star Wars as a metaphor for American independence (vs. the imperial British and/or fascist Nazis, take your pick) becomes most obviously revealed. Toward the end of the movie, the Ewoks and the other rebels celebrate their independence through fireworks and revelry. There's also a shot of the three Jedi spirit-ghosts (Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin) standing by in silent reverence, the senior guard guarding over the renewed spirit of independence and self-reliance. This shot was made ridiculous when Lucas digitally replaced the original, older actor playing Anakin beneath DarthVader's mask with a younger version of himself, as portrayed by Hayden Christensen. This is dumb for several reasons that I know have been expounded on at length on various websites through the years, the most important of which are (1) Hayden Christensen was only like 2 years old when this movie was released, and (2) the other Jedi spirits don't become any younger. (Why not replace Alec Guiness with Ewan MacGregor?) Besides being a great touchstone in the discussion about Luca's evolving "grand plan" that he continually has updated, this reminds me of the kind of Christian "lore" I used to hear as a kid, like the idea that we revert to our younger, more ideal selves if and when we get to heaven. But the image was already kind of dumb (and weirdly evangelical-like) in that Darth Vader (as Anakin) is able to step into this place of reverence and redemption after just a couple of lines of apology as he lies dying in Luke's arms. (Like, sorry about killing all those people, son, including those times I blew up entire planets or choked people with my mind.) The image reinforces that common religious idea that nobody is beyond redemption, which is OK, I suppose -- in that it allows people to still have hope and turn a corner no matter what they've done -- but that doesn't mean they should be revered and worshipped as dieties in death or that they should just be able to step into this weirdly little holy trinity of Yoda-Obi Wan-Anakin.

7 and 8. Titanic (1997) and Planet of the Apes (1968). I'm lumping these movies together because of the way they both make great use of the Statue of Liberty, albeit in very different ways. Rose admiringly gazes at the statue in the rain as the Titanic pulls into New York, and in Planet of the Apes --  well, I don't want to spoil it for anyone, even though it's more than 50 years old. The statue remains a powerful symbol for America and all its promise, so powerful that it's often used as a signifier for the destruction of those ideals, and we see it toppled over in countless disaster and action movies. In both of these movies, though, it makes you think about what America has tried to stand for (even as it often failed) and how that optimism and sense of promise is often forgotten among political and personal battles. In Titanic, especially, it reminds us of the promise made to immigrants and also to the way ships have been used as a metaphor for America generally, as we navigate troubled waters and depend on a sense of purpose to see us to safety. 

Photo of flags on Bolivar ferry. Taken using Lomo "four-square" camera, which captures four slightly different times of the same image (separated by the distances of the four lenses) to convey a sense of quick action. 

9. Glory (1989). This was the very first film I ever reviewed for a newspaper, as a kind of "try-out" piece. The newspaper published the review of the other person trying out, but they still liked mine and hired me as a reviewer. (I think this was the most mainstream movie I ever reviewed, though; after this, the paper liked to send me to weird movies like the 4-hour version of the The Mahabharata). The film may seem dated for a number of reasons, but it's still a great, stirring, action-based film with nice performances from Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman, among others. What other people may cite as "dated" (specifically the centering of the Matthew Broderick character) is still often done in movies (in spite of filmmakers' best efforts) as a simple way to make a narrative more complex and interesting. (Instead of "just" telling the story of the black regriment, you're also telling the story of the conflicts and struggles experienced by the officers in charge.) It's still one my favorite Civil War movies, and while many films romanticize the Civil War, this one does a good job of displaying the ugliness and horror of the violence as well, reminding us (in turbulent and divisive times) that a civil war should not be something we contemplate lightly. (I remember hearing people throw the term around when Obama Care was passed (!)). 

10. The Patriot (2000). I'm sure some people criticized this movie because the two main actors (Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger) are Australian (though Gibson was born in America and retains dual Irish-American citizenship), and the film has undoubtedly been increasingly ignored as Gibson has faced backlash (appropriately so) for some of his troubling personal behaviors. However, it's a stirring and well-constructed story that, like Glory, does not romanticize the graphic horrors of war and also pays direct attention to the problem of young people too eager to serve and sacrifice (a problem that seems all too relevant in the way that young people continue to be recruited and serve -- as is said in Troy, war is when old men talk and young men die). It's the only movie listed in my July 4th list (I think) that directly concerns the war for independence, and I think it approaches the subject matter with appropriate realism even though there are streaks of patriotic reverence (a kind of American Braveheart). Also, the action sequences with Gibson's character and his tomahawk are terrific. In another way, also, it's interesting to have Australians play early "Americans," since they would have been British subjects, anyway, and not entirely evolved as Americans in the way that we may envision. 

The TV Kid

 A few years ago, in a used bookstore, I came across an old copy of a children's book called the The TV Kid by Betsy Byars. I had fond memories of reading the book in the 4th grade or so, so I bought the faded copy to take home and read again, which I didn't do it until just a few days ago. As I remembered, the story is easily summed up as follows: a lonely boy who lives with his single mother in a motel they run is bitten by a rattlesnake one day while out exploring. The boy is a fanatical TV viewer and often references TV shows and characters in his ongoing mental narrative of the events that unfold. 

Sign in Utah (my photo, 2011).

Many Gen Xers were raised by television, so to speak, and it's in fact one of the defining characteristics of what shaped our generation (this is how generations are defined, more or less). I was probably on the more severe end of this Gen X continuum, in that like Lennie (our character), I was a lonely, quiet kid and had moved more than most kids (due to my father's being transferred and my parents' divorce). Television and reruns especially (also a favorite of Lennie's, as he references shows like The Brady Bunch and Bonanza) provided a kind of solace and refuge, and there wasn't much quite like the feeling of settling into thick carpet with a glass of Coke to watch reruns on afternoon TV as a way to assuage feelings of loneliness and being out of place (and spectacularly bad at sports). 

Lennie's story thoughtfully takes us to a place where the hero realizes, in the aftermath of his snakebite, the falseness of television and the reality of the people around him and even, appropriately so for a book with older elementary readers as its target audience, the value of reading and education. He writes a report about his snakebite experience and learns to apprepriate the people around him, including the visitors to his motel and a new policeman friend. There are a few striking, even heartbreaking lines in this book, a minor novel from a writer known for other works, including Lennie's thought that he sometimes thinks maybe he "needs to take acting lessons on how to be a person."

Lennie's realization about TV is all well and good for a story (and the snakebite as an awakening agent of change or epiphany is a nice, 4th-grade-level metaphor), though it's perhaps too obvious to point out the irony of this message being revealed through yet another kind of storytelling. It was a standard 1960s-80s perspective to denigrate the value of television, however, so this kind of meaning-making is expected. For me, though, it's important to restate that just as the "real world" exists online even as we insist it is only found elsewhere, television has historically served as more than just a medium for unhelpful advertising and cheesy, worthless entertainment. At its best (even before the so-called golden era of streaming television), it was a valuable medium for communal storytelling with important series like Roots but also with less important sitcoms like The Brady Bunch that helped to bring people together while providing a common set of images and references. 

For me, though it's painful to think about and reveal, television provided an escape but also a salve for my young loneliness, and I still have positive (though not entirely pleasant) memories of eating macroni and cheese while watching reruns of old Planet of the Apes movies that would show on Friday night television. I still like television, though an old book like the The TV Kid (and other books) probably does more to help me with loneliness these days. So I pass this old book along, though I wonder what a modern young reader would make of the dated TV references.

One side note on this book: Lennie conjures an imaginary set of TV commercials in his head for a product called "Friend," a life-size doll companion for lonely kids. This is meant to be rather sad and pathetic (and it is), though it also foreshadows the introduction of the My Buddy dolls in the 1980s (which in turn weirdly provided part of the inspiration for the Chuck movies). Byars and the My Buddy dolls rightly hit on a growing sense of loneliness among male children especially, perhaps, which has in turn grown into an ongoing discussion of male loneliness in general, still with us.   

Chicken Supreme sandwich

In 2021, Burger King officially entered the Chicken Sandwich Wars, I guess, with a large, "hand-breaded" fried chicken-breast that seems to clone all the others. It's probably a good thing I don't make these marketing decisions, because I think Burger King already won these wars back in the day with its first (now called the "original") chicken speciality sandwich. Yes, it was a sandwich made with a processed patty, instead of being hand-breaded (which, like "crunchy," is just a euphemism for fried) giant sandwich. It was a sandwich you could actually get your mouth around, not a monstrosity which makes its mark by being messy and impossible to eat. 

Original chicken sandwich at BK in Louisiana. (My photo.)

The so-called "Chicken Sandwich Wars" started as an official thing back in 2019 when Popeye's introduced its much-hyped new fried chicken-filet sandwich, and they sold out of the product in a way that would have been embarassing had it not also been a great marketing gimmick. People naturally "blame" the wars on Popeye's, perhaps to the frustration of Chick-fil-A, since it seems obvious that the entire corporate race to create the best chicken sandwich originated with jealousy over Chick-fil-A's popularity. In spite of some bad PR related to the conservative stances of some of the founders, and in spite of the fact that Chick-fil-A isn't even open on Sunday (a related quirk), lines to buy Chick-fil-A sandwiches are always around the block. The sandwiches are just that good.

This is a raw chicken about to go in the oven. "Help me!"

I haven't tried many of the other chicken sandwiches, other than a random Wendy's or Jack-in-the-Box spicy chicken filet sandwich (Jack's budget chicken sandwich is also a guilty pleasure), and these are minor players in the crispy-sandwich wars. The hoopla has reminded me of how much I like the "original" chicken sandwich at Burger King, however. This sandwich, far from being a crispy filet that inspires such adjectives as "fresh" or "juicy," derives its goodness from being tasty and simple. The chicken patty is placed on a sesame seed bun with mayo and lettuce (I like to add cheese to mine). It goes well with the similarly processed BK onion rings, which appear to be made from onion meal rather than actual onions but which I like for not falling apart when you eat them. These are terrible reasons to like foods, I realize, but there you have it. 

I try not to eat BK food or any fast food very much these days, but I remember eating an original chicken sandwich right after renewing my driver's license on my 40th birthday. I was feeling sorry for myself, and the sandwich provided a soothing comfort meal on that day. It also brought up some nostalgic (literally painful in the way that word's origins suggest) feelings about eating lunch in high school. I usually ate at the outdoor snack bar, and while I had some friends in high school, I usually end up eating lunch by myself or with another lonely friend I had, a guy from Argentina. I always ordered the "Chicken Supreme" sandwich, which was a lowly version of the BK sandwich but served on a regular hamburger bun instead of a hoagie roll. The nice older laides who worked the snack bar (and worked very quickly) would pull the chicken sandwich out of a heated drawer. It was packed in a foil wrapper and somehow, besides being a little mushy and oversteamed from that drawer, always tasted pretty darn good with a little mayonaise from a packet squirted on. I also usually ate a Nutty Butter bar as well, and then would promptly fall asleep in my pre-Calculus class after lunch. What can I saw? I was probably a little depressed and not exactly on top of my nutrition game, but I was also in that maddening condition that many 17-year-old boys find themselves: I was skinny, felt like I was too skinny even -- in spite of lifting weights and trying to bulk up -- and it seemed like I could eat whatever I wanted and still would feel hungry. (I would say I envy those days, but really, it created some bad habits that I'm still working on breaking.) 

Burger King has tried offering different versions of the chicken sandwich before, but they keep coming back to the original. There's even a few pages on the web about how to make your own at home. 

"When I teach, I teach ... When I ride, I ride"

At a point in my life when I was going through a difficult time and wanted to do something different, I took motorcycle-driving lessons. I later bought myself a motorcycle, but it was old and smoked too much, and I probably rode it a total of three times around the neighborhood before selling it. The hobby was over before it really got started, though I still have a nice helmet and motorcycle gloves sitting on a shelf somewhere.

I liked motorcycles and had recently read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I was intrigued by the idea of riding a motorcycle feeling like flying, as I remember the author putting it. But I think really taking up motorcycle-riding was a way to challenge a fear I had. This is a realistic, probably overall healthy fear to have (of motorcycles generally, but especially in Houston), but I think it went beyond that. I remember being scared of motorcycles as a kid and not wanting to ride on one with my brother, denying him a chance to ride on some stranger's motorcycle in the small town where we lived in Ohio. When I was in my 20s and talked of getting a motorcycle, people I knew -- family members and in-laws -- said I would kill myself and that I was too much of a klutz to ride a motorcycle. I resented this and wanted to prove them wrong. 

Taking motorcycle-riding lessons was a great experience, and I learned (during the course of instruction) that it's a statistically proven way to be safer when riding a motorcycle. Too many riders just jump on the bike without having any notions of things like countersteering or how to best navigate lanes and road systems designed for passenger cars. Inexperienced riders often don't even know how to brake properly. Moreover, the class was fun and a nice way to do something active and new. 

The motorcycle instructor -- who was straight out of central casting with his small, wire-rim glasses and long braid down his back -- once said during a break, as he was telling some students about his motorcycle and weekending experience, "When I teach, I teach ... when I ride, I ride." As someone who had already spent a few years as an adjunct teacher in the community-college system, this struck me as an interesting if not profound statement, and it stuck with me.

On a rented Kawasaki in Maui in 2004. We drove this all around the western side of the island (with helmets on).

 

Not long ago, I was asked to read poems to a creative writing class at the college where I teach. I worried about selecting the "right" poems; I wanted them to be accomplished poems and worth sharing, but I also didn't necessarily want to expose too much of myself to students who might have me as an instructor at some point. I was worried about the "content" of some of these poems hinting at things too blue or lurid, since I try to be honest -- really honest -- when writing creatively. I try not to think about "audience" until later, as I'm reshaping or considering publishing outlets for what I've written.  I found a couple of poems that were "suitable" enough, and I used my experience to talk to the students about how writers must be honest and how I respected their ability to understand that.

I've thought of the motorcycle-riding teacher's line often over the years in considering the pressures and contradictions of teaching at the college level especially. We want to be intellectual role models and guides when it comes to complex disciplines in the most honest ways that are appropriate for adult learners, but we also want to be role models in general, to help students understand how to take care of themselves and to get along in life as professionals and responsible adults. Writing isn't always about that; it's often about our failures and our doubts, our struggles. It's often about exposing ourselves for the benefit of others. 

We have different versions of ourselves, and we create those identities out of necessity -- for us and for those that we serve. "When I teach, I teach, and when I ride, I ride" could easily be transformed into, "When I teach, I teach, and when I write, I write." The two jobs are different, and though there are certain intersections when one teaches writing especially, it isn't always necessary to disentagle those complications when doing something like serving as a guest speaker for a creative writing class. You've got to give these students, often young writers, credit for at least understanding that writing must be honest. On the other hand, it's also a good idea to write some poems, perhaps, that work better for a general audience, poems you aren't afraid to show your mother -- or your students. 

I no longer have a motorcycle, though I sometimes daydream about buying another one, something like a classic Royal Enfield or a high-end scooter, and I sometimes rent and ride scooters when traveling to places like Cozumel or Key West. I ride pretty well and am pretty safe. Even on a scooter, it sometimes seems a little like I think flying must feel, even more so than sky-diving, which I've done and which feels like, well, falling. When you ride, you're propelled through the air, buzzing over the ground but not encapsulated in the steel cocoon of an automobile. It's a dangerous freedom, yes, but then teaching -- as we've become more acutely aware of in recent years as politicians have attacked education -- has its perils as well. (Knowledge is power and all that.) Teaching's also a bit like flying, when it's going well. 

The "new" Star Wars trilogy: An appreciation

The Star Wars prequel movies George Lucas produced and directed in the late 1990s and early 2000s were massive money-makers but were also unevenly received by fans and critics. Many of the die-hard fans thought Lucas had monkeyed too much with his own premises and depended too heavily on CGI effects. Then there was the "wacky," universally hated and vaguely racist Jar-Jar Binks. What's clear enough, especially given how Lucas has also used CGI and other advanced digital effects to "enhance" the video releases of his earlier films, is that Lucas's "vision" has never been exactly what fans thought it was. He was hampered by the limitations of earlier film technology and didn't seem to realize how much those limitations helped him. 

The "new" films were entertaining, though. I still find myself tuning in for a while when they're on TV, which is often because of Disney's current ownership, I suppose. Here are some things (aspects of the films) I think make them worth watching. 

What's Good about the "Prequel" Trilogy:

1. Ewan McGregor

2. That weird rainy outpost where the clones are being created.

3. Yoda's fighting, especially his duel with Christopher Lee. Just watching Yoda in action is great. This is CGI at its best.

4. When Darth Vader kills the young Jedis and when he executes Count Dooku. Good work establishing Vader as especially evil. (It's always been hard to buy Lucas's retrofitted theory that the whole overarching story is about Vader's redemption, but especially after he kills the young Jedis. Sheesh, there's no coming back from that.)

5. Count Dooku generally; also his little mopedish land cruiser bike.

6. Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor. It's also cool that he's been around, more or less, for so much of the saga. 

7. Natalie Portman; even the goofy outfits have a certain bizarre charm. 

8. Samuel L. Jackson and Liam Neeson. Jackson is underused, but they both bring gravitas to the films and take their roles seriously. Of course this is the job of actors, but it must be especially difficult when you're acting with muppets and green screen so much of the time. 

9. Kiera Knightley as Amidala's double and handmaiden, because really, they do look strikingly similar. How many viewers didn't even realize the ruse when watching the first time?

10. Anakin being struck down by Obi Wan, before his scenes of transformation, which are pretty ridiculous (he looks too short, and the scene where he screams "No!" looks like it was created for the purposes of parody). His actual near-death scene, though, is pretty dramatic and gruesome and about how I imagined it as a 9-year-old. (Somehow, we were already passing around stories about Vader's prequel story, which had been fleshed out in some novel or magazine article or maybe just in Lucas's notes about the alleged nine-film saga that somehow got out to the general public.) I think as a kid I always imagined it as more of an actual volcano, but this was all pretty close.    

My with my toy Death Star, 1978. I dislike this photo, but it's a royalty-free image, and the only one related to Star Wars I could find. 

Road House: So Good It's Good

Patrick Swayze's "crowning" movie achievement, 1989's Road House, is often cited as the ultimate example of a movie "so bad it's good." It's easy to see where this comes from: This is not a movie that strives for arthouse emotional catharsis or any kind of subtlety. The plot is ridiculous, and the focus is on roundhouse kicks, raucous bar fights, car crashes, and cartoonish violence. There's even a monster truck for a true 80s feel.  

But I would argue it's actually a good movie, and not because it's "bad." This is not some cheap production with silly attempts at visual scares, like Frogs (also with Sam Elliot). The visuals are well done, as is the editing, the sound, the cinematography. The technical aspects are fine, and the film is tightly written around the central plot, with little time wasted. These actors are taking this material about as seriously as they can; Patrick Swayze doesn't seem "in" on the joke or anything. He's full of controlled rage and physical energy. The other leads, especially Sam Elliott and Ben Gazzara, are believable within this world and fun to watch. Gazzara relishes playing this implausible villain and makes an ordinary line like asking Swayze's character if he wants some breakfast humorous and threatening at the same time. Similarly, Elliott knows exactly why he was cast in this film and fleshes out his character with sardonic wit and sex appeal.

My photo from the Silver Dollar lounge in Bandera, Texas. It's a great dive bar.

There's funny dialogue, sex appeal, and violence that is somehow convincing without being grotesque or even particularly alarming (like an Old West movie). Even the sets, like the "barndominium" Dalton rents, are unique and just appealing to take in. These are filmmakers (with most of the credit presumably going to the director, Rowdy Herrington) that understand the possibilities of movies as rich entertainment, set in the "real" world (in as much as we're in a kind of gritty rural land, supposedly Kansas, with sleazy honky tonks and broken-down cars) but also creating a world of their own that we can submerge ourselves in for a couple of hours. Sure, you might say "oh, come on" at a couple of scenes (like when the monster truck destroys a local auto dealership), but mostly you just sit back and say, "Well, this is entertaining."

It's the focus on ordinary sets as interesting visuals and, especially, Herrington's excellent selection of character actors that set this film apart from "so bad it's good" movies and even the big-budget comic-book movies of today, which are supposedly redeemed by being "entertaining." (For my money, these are mostly entertaining like a video game, slick and fast-paced with very little of the interest that comes with minor characters and "slow burn" sequences.)

My favorite thing about Road House, though, is Herrington's use of minor actors, including the actors with larger speaking roles like Red the auto parts store owner and Kevin Tighe, who has been terrific in so many films and TV shows but will forever be known as "one of the guys on Emergency 51." And what about those character actors? There's the black man who Dalton gives his car to ("What do I look like, a valet?"), the used car salesman (and his sandwich), the diner owner, Dalton's landlord ("like putting an elevator in an outhouse"). Some of them don't even have lines, like the used tire salesman, but they all make quite an impression. Herrington really knew how to find these guys and how to populate a film with colorful characters to make it interesting. This isn't all you need, but it sure does help, and it brings a sense of reality to balance out the main story, which is highly entertaining but, yes, also ridiculous.

Fourth of July movies, part 2

 Here's my list, in no particular order besides the first two, which I've already discussed. 

1. Independence Day

2. Jaws

3. Born on the Fourth of July. I like this movie, but it's actually a little heavy for holiday viewing. The main character was born on the 4th, as the title suggests, and the early sequences featuring a recreated Fourth of July parade and fireworks in small-town American really capture the nostalgic appeal of the holiday, even as theses are set up as an ironic contrast to what unfolds. This movie is on most of these types of lists (with the title and war themes, how can you not include it?), so it's really on with #4 that I start to diverge. 

4. Frogs. This is one of those so-bad-it's-good horror movies about reptiles attacking a family as it begins to celebrate Fourth of July on its Southern plantation island estate. I'm not sure about the cult status of this film, and I'm definitely not convinced it's the best of this type of "bad" movie. It's bad, yes, but Sam Elliot and Ray Milland (and even Joan Van Ark) elevate the acting quite a bit, and it's pretty hard to be dignified when all the other minor characters are being attacked by snakes and turtles (the frogs, oddly, mostly seem to watch). We accidentally watched this on the Fourth of July this year, without knowing it had a Fourth of July connection, so I'm just thinking it's serendipity and that the movie was begging to be put on the list. Plus it is eerie and strange to watch this dysfunctional rich family assemble for its annual Fourth celebrations on the lawn. There's lot of passive-aggressive behavior and cutting remarks, which makes it seem like an authentic rich family to me. The cinematography is also good, as others have pointed out, though the "horror" just mostly looks like well-shot nature images of reptiles intercut with people thrashing on the ground as they are being "attacked." We're just supposed to assume from the intercutting that this is what's happening. That's a lot to ask from parallel editing, and the effect is more boring than funny. But there are lots of other reasons to watch, if you've got nothing better to do. 

Original fireworks photo, from about 2005. Captured on Nikon digital camera.

5. Brokeback Mountain.  This inclusion is also serendipitous, I think, in that I recently read the short story for the first time and have been thinking about the excellent movie. There's a scene where the Heath Ledger character fights some men, in an unexpected and somewhat excessive explosion of violence. After he easily dropkicks the men, who had been offending him by cursing in front of his young children, he's shown against a dark sky illuminated by fireworks. (This makes me pretty sure it's a Fourth of July celebration, though I really don't remember.) Some have apparently criticized the scene as an unnecessary display of masculinity, but, like this writer, I tend to just appreciate the beauty and ponderous nature of the shot. It is a movie, after all.  

Well, this is getting too long again, so I'll add a part 3 for the last few movies.