Who didn’t love Patrick Swayze? Women fell for him in chick flicks like Dirty Dancingand Ghostwhile men (like myself) rooted for him in guy movies like Road House, Red Dawn, Black Dog, Point Breakand others. A few kids might have even caught on through Tall Tales and The Fox and the Hound 2. And yet he never kept up the popularity he had in the 80s and early 90s. He certainly wasn’t that bad an actor, and his constant display of ridiculous hairdos wasn’t any worse than Nic Cage’s.
Wondering why he didn’t remain a big star to the end — was it the horse riding accident and subsequent depression/drinking? — isn’t of concern now, though. Since his death from cancer yesterday he’s at least received a lot of love from around the web, and we can hope that his soul has lingered, a la his character in Ghost, enough to notice. Remember that Sam was able to still use a computer thanks to the tricks he learned from Vincent Schiavelli’s subway ghost.
Check out what the film blogs are saying about his legacy after the jump and pay your own respects in the comments below: …Read more
If all you remember of Patrick Swayze, who died yesterday of cancer at age 57, is his dance moves, you may be forgetting what an iconic tough guy he was. Sure, he started out specializing in arguably unmanly ventures like ballet and gymnastics, and many of his most memorable scenes show him as a limber romantic with thick, luxurious hair. But he was really best when he portrayed macho, domineering and otherwise badass dudes.
We grew up thinking of him first as a big brother type, thanks to movies like Red Dawn and The Outsiders. And even when he went on to sappier fare like Dirty Dancing and Ghost we accepted him as a man in control of every situation he was in. Later in his career, he would play more desperate and vulnerable characters, such as in Donnie Darkoand the underrated 11:14. Still, we never got over believing that Swayze was the boss.
Below we spotlight ten favorite movie quotes that display the power commanded by his characters. …Read more
Oh, Keanu Reeves, must you continue playing cops? I’d rather you did more Shakespeare, in which you’re actually more believable. But no, after Point Break(I consider FBI agents to be cops) and Speed, you have to go and do Street Kings and try to make us accept you as one of the hardest vice detectives to ever grace the big screen. Want a cookie? Or an Oscar? Even if you do pull off the equivalent of what Ethan Hawke did in Training Day, you’re not going to get the notice of the Academy. The only thing keeping you from being the least likely actor to be taken seriously as a tough undercover officer is the existence of Paul Walker, whose performance in The Fast and the Furiousmakes you look like Dirty Harry.
Speaking of Training Day and The Fast and the Furious, the screenwriter behind those two movies, David Ayer, is the director of Street Kings. Fortunately, he didn’t write this one. The guys who did write it are L.A. Confidentialnovelist James Ellroy, who also came up with the original story, Equilibriumwriter-director Kurt Wimmer and an apparent newcomer named Jamie Moss. Co-starring in the film, some of whom are sure to make Reeves’ acting appear even worse, are Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans (if you saw Sunshine, you know he’s actually a pretty good actor), Common, Jay Mohr, John Corbett, Cedric the Entertainer, The Game and Naomie Harris. OK, enough ragging on Reeves. But despite the appealing names of Ellroy and Whitaker, this still looks like a generic cops-and-gangstas movie. I’d rather just wait for Keanu as Klaatu later this year.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Who didn’t love 
