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Today's newsletter is on GQ!!!! Where else would it be? Read it here:
https://www.gq.com/story/snake-america-racing-hat
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https://www.gq.com/story/snake-america-racing-hat
https://www.gq.com/story/snake-america-racing-hat
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Photos of the auctions in question:
For more information on these items and some funny anecdotes, go right over to GQ.com. Where do these items fit in the culture? What's my opinion on the logos here? Bobby Labonte stupid? All opinions limited to publication on GQ.com.
Here are a couple movie reviews for email subscribers.
Rio Grande (1950, USA) (reviewed June 5 by me):
What a great movie this is. I went to watch Rio Bravo, but my copy had a Serbian-language overdub -- or maybe it was just the original Serbian version of the film. I watched this instead. John Wayne is less hungover here and not as fat as he is in his 20 other movies. He has a mustache that looks real good. He's in Texas but plays a Confederate Lieutenant Colonel, and has an Irish sidekick who is balder than him. His son shows up after flunking out of college and then the kid's mom shows up. They weren't divorced but haven't talked in over a decade. He has not seen her in a long time and she doesn't seem to have anything else going on. He tries to win back her affection by getting a bunch of soldiers to serenade her after he helps her with her luggage. They sing throughout the rest of the movie, and are very good. The Indians in this movie are the bad guys but I think they get an unfair shake here.
The horseback riding in this movie is the best I have seen in any film. During one scene, Ben Johnson, who went on to play Sam in The Last Picture Show, rides two horses like a Razor hover board, one under each leg. He races against a fellow conscript and jumps over a fence. John Wayne's kid tries to do the same thing right after, doesn't clear it and is barely injured. Wayne's horse is also fast as hell in this thing. It is the first movie I have seen where I stopped in my tracks to marvel at what the horses were doing. I guess that is the genius of John Ford. Recommended.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (USA, 1962) (reviewed June 24th by me):
This is a masterpiece of a film in which two actors who more or less can't play anybody but themselves play themselves and more or less team up against another actor who can't play anybody but himself. John Ford directs.
Jimmy Stewart plays a senator, back West for a funeral, interviewed by a newspaper reporter. Without much prodding he tells the story of the guy that died, which is also the story of his life, which is the whole movie. John Wayne, now dead, was his buddy. It took them some time to warm up to each other. We learn who actually shot Liberty Valance, and how Stewart met his wife, Hallie. Valance is played by Lee Marvin. He's pretty mean in this one, even going so far as to eat someone's dinner. One of Valance's sidekicks is played by the Jewish/Persian looking guy from those Sergio Leone movies. Light research reveals that actor to be Dutch, name of Van Cleef, and from New Jersey. Who knew. Marvin beats up Stewart early and later embarrasses him over a steak. Marvin is so mean in this thing that when Stewart, now working as a waiter, trips and drops the steak, it's not even funny. This despite the steak being two feet wide and belonging to John Wayne. In any other movie a steak this big would be a comedy prop but not here. It's how the war starts. John Wayne is very drunk in this movie and has no mustache. I think Marvin is pretty drunk, too. There's not as much horseback riding in this film as there is in Rio Bravo. I guess that's what makes this a revisionist Western. I keep thinking about this scene in this Ian Frazier story where Frazier hangs out in his friend Le War Lance's living room in Washington Heights watching Westerns:
Perhaps it should have occurred to me that those TV and movie war cries were made by actual people with names. It didn't, though, until I watched Westerns in Le's living room. Often an Indian would cross the screen to tomahawk a soldier, or would catch a bullet and fall, and (depending on the movie) Le or Floyd John would say, "That's Burgess Red Cloud."
"No," the other would reply, "that's what's-his-name, Kills Enemy. Lived over there with Mildred? Was it Bob? Bob Kills Enemy?"
"No, not Bob."
"Burgess Red Cloud was the guy in the buffalo-horn hat in How the West Was Won."
"No, man—Burgess wasn't in that movie."
It is crazy how in every other John Wayne movie the guy who talks a lot or who works in politics is an idiot. That's the implicit lesson in all his movies. Having a lot to say means you don't think enough, and Wayne doesn't say shit but is often right. If he's wrong it's because of other reasons. In this one the main guy who talks a lot isn't a dumbass. Stewart does better than Wayne here by a longshot. It's true that David Carradine's dad plays an asshole politician here--no one can deny that. I wonder in the 1960s people just thought Jimmy Stewart spoke normally. Or if he was more powerful than Tom Cruise in his prime. There really is no way to know. What a film. Recommended.
Thanks for reading.
Snake
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