2.20.2008

Swayze, Swayze, Swayze

Hey, not to stop the comment-fest on the last post (keep 'em coming! Seriously, much appreciated!) but it dawned on me our newest members -- the loverly Miss JP, and the Singular Sensation that is Jill Alexander Essbaum -- have yet to publicly declare their favorite Patrick Swayze movies.

The rules:

1. Honesty, please.
2. Only one movie (no "I like this one sometimes, but then other times..." That is horseshit and you know it).
3. You're not allowed to pick Donnie Darko, which the Barrelhouse Editorial Squadron has previously determined to not be an official Patrick Swayze movie, despite featuring Patrick Swayze, and also because we're on to your little game and know it's a bullshit pick meant to make you seem cool while avoiding the real question.

Also, you should know we will totally use your answer to judge you.

So, ladies, what say you?

14 comments:

JP said...

So, so easy:

Red Dawn.

JP said...

(Wolverines!)

JP said...

However, if it wasn't already deemed uber-verboten to pick two movies, and in the name of full disclosure (which isn't a Swayze movie), I might have added the ubiquitous Dirty Dancing.

My love for it has such a different (yet still distinctly Patrickian) flavor than my adoration for Red Dawn that it's almost like discussing two different genres.

We all know that a flick about high schoolers defeating the pinko commie bastards that parachute into their small, sleepy town cannot be beat, for any reason.

Yet I, like every young girl whose eighties childhood haunts her (via a crippling nostalgia for synthesizers and the ever-inspirational "slow clap") spent many fond pre-pubescent hours spazzing around my room to "Hey Baby," "Hungry Eyes," and, most importantly, "She's Like The Wind."

Sigh. Too bad the Red Dawn version of Swayze has taken my heart. (He doesn't know what he's done.)

dave said...

I'm gonna show my hand and say Youngblood. For two reasons: one is that as a Fancyass Barrelhouse Editor, I'm not allowed to go with either of the obvious answers and say Point Break or Road House. Two, Youngblood is basically the fucking template for The Patrick Swayze Movie, in that it contains the following:
-- Patrick Swayze: duh
-- Sports: hockey in this case
-- Fighting: at which Patrick Swayze is awesome
-- Montages: ah, the 80s. I love a montage. You love a montage. Only the truly douchebaggy do not love the montage.
-- Bad, Bad Theme Music: A quick googling results in no definitive answers, but trust me, I'm a retard, I've seen this movie in the past two months, and it has a terrible, terrible, 80s style theme song. I think maybe by John Parr. Or John Waite. Of the Babys. Yeah, that I Ain't Missing You At All. Since You Been Gone. Away. John Waite. Maybe.
-- Keanu Fucking Reeves: If you thought he couldn't act in Point Break, check out his turn here as a French Canadian goalie. Whew. He looks like one of those douchebags from that Next show on MTV, trying to sound all cavalier while they read the teleprompter. Except with a bad supposedly french accent.
-- Daddy/Big Brother Issues: Oh god, the classic 80's movie/Patrick Swayze Movie trope. Daddy or big brother issues. This movie has them all. Plus, substitute a little overbearing coach for daddy action and you have the 80s sports movie trifecta.
-- Tits: really good ones in this case. The coach's daughter, hot little number. Adds to the daddy issues, of course.

Youngblood, bitches. It's fucking terrible. And by that I mean, of course, it's fucking brilliant.

Mike Ingram said...

I like that the presence of our new members is already dirtying everyone's mouths just slightly. It's funny, sometimes I write a swear on the blog and then think -- wait, can I do that? I don't know why there's that moment of hesitation, unless it's a latent fear that the aleady overreaching FCC will come after blogger next.

Fuck.

Shit.

Cunt.

Anywho: I'll break my own rule and give two answers (you know why? Cuz I makes the rules, I can breaks 'em, bitches).

Answer #1: Point Break, which is in fact a highly addictive movie that I watch pretty much every time it's on TV, at least part-way through.

Answer #2: which would be the only answer if I weren't such a pussy, and if I didn't know what this answer supposedly said about my sexuality, according to Dave's little game. Dirty Motherfucking Dancing. That's right, I said it. I'm a sucker for Dirty Goddamn Dancing. I have no idea why. Maybe I just dig Jennifer Grey in capri pants. Or maybe it's because when it came out, I was young enough that the idea of dirty dancing seemed somehow sexy and forbidden. Or maybe I'm just a goddamned homo who never properly developed his taste for cock.

I really can't explain why I like Dirty Dancing. I know it sucks. I know it's cheesy. On paper it should be totally unwatchable. And yet.

JP said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JP said...

Oh my God, Dave. Go watch motherfucking Red Dawn. It doesn't just follow the rules. It WROTE the rules.

PS -- You forgot to add some sort of aerial gymnastics to the list of classic Swayze movie tropes (including but not limited to skydiving, log-dancing, flying through closed train doors in an unearthly manner, etc.)

PPS - Have we all just brushed aside Ghost like it never happened? Like the bottle cap never miraculously moved, the Whoopi never fortune-told, the clay never flung lasciviously through the Swayze- and Demi-scented air? What's wrong with us?

jill alexander essbaum said...

At Kellerman's the friendships last long as the mountain stands....

I was gonna be all poetic and shit and say The Outsiders. But who am I kidding?

Almost every high school slumber party of my otherwise goody-goody youth involved renting the DD video and forwarding it frame by frame through the scene where PS gets outta bed so we could oggle his ass. That man had a very fine ass. Never been a terribly rabid fan of the face, but what an ass.

So much to love about that movie. It had that Happy Days anachoronism thing* going on where the Jennifer Warnes / Bill Medley theme song that was decidedly NOT 1963ish (nor was Eric Carmen's "Hungry Eyes," nor was Swayze's own "She's like the Wind"). Jennifer Grey still had her old nose. (Ahh, old nose. The times we shared.) Jerry Orbach was wooden and totally walk-overable as Baby Daddy.

And Johnny Castle himself. So tall, such a great ass, such a good dancer. What gal doesn't get chills still when she thinks of him firmly scolding Baby when she veers and ventures into his "dance space?" And it's hot that he wants to help take care of Penny even though he didn't poke her, right? On the downside, he ain't all that smart (about as bright as the post he boot-loosens from the ground to bash his window in when he locks the keys in the car). But he's devoted. And we believe him when he tells us that nobody puts Baby in a corner.

And I'm forever entranced by the scene where the watermelon-carrying Baby stumbles into the help's afterparty. LOVE all the super-slutty-lookin' chicks. They are all so ripe and ready and rounded. And the boys, so sweaty and daring with their hands just about everyplace that a hand can be. That dance scene is just HOT. Am I right?

-t.s.j.a.e.


* You know what I'm talking about, right? How especially in the Ted McGinley / Heather O'Rourke** era, they were still technically in the Happy Days*** of the 50s, early 60s but everything and its laugh track smacked of late 70s cheese.


** Jessica M. Piazza and I saw the little O'Rourke girl's grave when I came to visit Lost Angeles last fall. We also saw Marylin's, Dean Martin's, Rodney Dangerfield's (his epitaph is "There goes the neighborhood"), John Cassavetes', and Don Knotts'/ And Fanny Brice's. And Ray Bradbury's eventual resting place.)


*** When I was teaching at a small denominational university in Texas, I had a student whose father was an original writer for Happy Days. He, in effect, invented Fonzie. He later went on to invent Urkel. I'm not kidding.

dave said...

Just a quick update from the Editorial Squadron. In an unprecedented, secret Dick Cheney style midnight vote, Mike Ingram has been reassigned and will take on the new title of Junior Misses Editor for Girly Issues.

Red Dawn is good. There's no doubt about that. But where are the tits? Are the montages? Bad theme song? Maybe it's been too long since I've seen that one, actually.

Jill, you just set a new high for blog comments. Goddam it's good to have you fucking bitches on this newly dirtymouthed blog.

jill alexander essbaum said...

Never much into Ghost, myself. Demi is too.... well, she just mews too much in that film. And while time do indeed go by so slowly, I guess doing it in a pile of mud just has never been my thing.

Jess-Puss, did it ever oddly turn you on, the scene where they pee in the radiator? I mean, no, er, me neither.

Wait, screw that. I'm a barrelhouse bitch now. Which means I'm, like, invincible or something. It TOTALLY turns me on.

(Is that wrong?)

Anonymous said...

I have to be honest, but there is no real Swayze movie that is memorable for me. I didn't like Point Break when I first saw it, and I can't really say why.

JP said...

Oh, peeing in the radiator. I guess that day, green wasn't the ONLY thing that was gold.

But Jilly...really? Mud sculpting does nothing for you, but C. Thomas and his boys golden showering gets you there. Ugh.

Sarah D. Bunting said...

The Outsiders, yo. I challenge you to find me a man hotter in a black t-shirt and ducktail than the Swayz. Can't be done. Can't!

RL said...

Donnie Darko.

Fuck y'all.