Rancho Deluxe, 1975 (dir. Frank Perry)

SYNOPSIS: Bridges plays another guy named Jack (see also …. and). He teams up with Assistant Disctrict Attorney Jack McCoy (these are their stories) who plays a half Indian (70′s speak for Native American). Together they steal cattle and do lots of stuff that feels metaphorical about America (see also: The Bicycle Scene from Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid) A big landowner hires Harry Dean Stanton to find them but he just ends up meeting Bridges in an arcade and having a cryptic conversation about the New West while playing pong (PONG!) . Then the landowner hires Slim Pickens to find them. Along the way, they rustle both cattle and the hearts of the locals. Jimmy Buffet shows up and gives you one more reason to not bother seeing this.

FILM: 5/10

BRIDGES: 6/10

BOTTOM LINE: Thunderbolt & Lightfoot > Bad Company > Hearts of the West > Rancho Deluxe

This movie feels like it didn’t age well but I don’t know how it played in 1975 so I can’t be sure (just in case, I rated the film a 5 even though it feels like more of a 3). I asked my mom if she saw this in the theater and she retold me the story about how she called Dustin Hoffman collect in 1969 after seeing The Graduate with a high school friend and getting loaded on gin and tonics. Cool story. She tells this as a way to say that movies ran at a theater for a very long time back then and she doesn’t remember many movies playing locally in 1975 except for Jaws and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I watched it in 1998 after buying the VHS tape at Reckless Records. The drawing is of  the box art on the VHS tape case. My lettering is really good here. Sam Waterston and Bridges sort of look like Bert and Ernie if they wore hats and Bert had a gun.

Tron, 1982 (dir. Steve Lisberger)

SYNOPSIS: Jeff Bridges plays Tron? Nope. Let me stop you right there. Bridges plays Kevin. Kevin used to date Lora and now he’s mad at Encom CEO Ed for stealing his ideas. Meanwhile, Alan is Lora’s new boyfriend and also wrote a computer program called Tron (!) which can help Kevin get his ideas back. But before Kevin can use Alan’s program (Tron!), Ed traps Kevin in the Matrix (look it up) where he eventually frees the internet (Tron). Finally, Ed’s shenanigans are revealed and Kevin succeeds him as CEO of Encom in a move approved by shareholders.

Tagline: “Where love and escape do not compute.”

FILM: 6/10

BRIDGES: 8/10

BOTTOM LINE: (The Matrix + Disclosure) / The 80′s = Tron

The first time I saw Tron was at a birthday party. It was followed by cake and three hours of laser tag. Someone threw up cake in the “Photon Arena”. The last time I saw Tron was with Adam at the New Beverly. It was on a double bill with The Last Starfighter. I made this drawing with two new shading markers which don’t really match each other in hue but that seems to work in the drawing’s favor. I got the nose wrong so you can’t tell if he’s scared or sneering or surprised. I put the close-up of MCP on the side because it used to freak me out and I’m working through that in my art. I added all the diagonal lines so now it looks 3-D.

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The trailer looks good, but I know it will suck.  Brad, Stephen, ready to skp the showing at Navy Pier?

You’ll get the horns.

Winter Kills, 1979 (dir. William Richert)

SYNOPSIS: Bridges stars as Nick, the younger brother of the recently assassinated President. Nick tries to uncover the truth about his brother’s death and begins to suspect that his own father (John Fucking Huston) had something to do with it. And it’s sort of a comedy? In case you weren’t sure, here’s a fairly benign and expository scene featuring Sterling Hayden in a tank with a weirdo beard.

FILM: 6/10

BRIDGES: 7/10

BOTTOM LINE: (Parallax View – Warren Beatty) + (Dr. Strangelove – Peter Sellers) x John Fucking Huston = Winter Kills

I caught this movie late one night in a student lounge when I was taking a break from writing a paper about representations of evil in the works of Goya. Like many films from the late-70′s/early-80′s, it was obviously financed by cocaine dealers and features a rather nihilistic worldview countered only by insane production values and gloriously broad tonal shifts (see also: Night Moves). The upside-down Bridges on top had weird eyes so I started over at the bottom but the eyes are too big. Something wrong with the nose too but my new, grey pen-brush helps. I tried to do something cool with the title. Tried.

Tucker: The Man and His Dream, 1988 (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)

SYNOPSIS: Preston Tucker (Bridges) basically invents cars and wholesomeness with the help of the Pleasantville Milf, Father Guido Sarducci and a pre-cube gleaming Christian Slater. Martin Landau reprises his role as the oldest cast member in all of the movies. The film follows Tucker as he tries to make all his American Dreamz come true by buying a factory in Chicago and trying to introduce the city to a new industry… so it is basically a tragedy… except for the part where all the cars in the movie belong to Coppola and George Lucas and a lot of facts about Preston Tucker being a grifting fraud a-hole are suppressed so that the value of all those cars goes up and they can sell them all off to make personal projects like Star Wars video games and the shittiest third of New York Stories.

FILM: 7/10

BRIDGES: 9/10

BOTTOM LINE: Tucker:Cars::The Hudsucker Proxy:Hula Hoops

I saw this when it first opened at a United Artists’ theater near White Settlement Road (relax, this was in the South so it’s okay). I remember the film being advertised as a big epic full of themes (runtime 110 minutes) so I was pretty proud of myself for not getting tired and bored. I still get a lot of the workshop/garage scenes mixed up with parts of The Rocketeer.

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I like Green Lantern, but not a huge fan of Ryan Reynolds.  So I am cautiously optimistic.

Suuuure, “DIE HARD” Director is sentenced to a year in prison. Because nobody weeps for the internment of the director of Medicine Man. Please, everyone reading this, do Schadenfreude.net one favor. JUST ONE favor, please bring up this topic with a loved one or a friend tonight over dinner, but asking if they’ve heard that the director of Medicine Man is going to jail? Thank you Bit Police. I know Joel’s in, I’m sure Connor’s in, and I know Fenster’s down.