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In need of mindless entertainment to distract me from my computer woes last night, I bought and watched the new "deluxe" edition of the movie Road House with Patrick Swayze.
I should state up front that the movie itself would be a guilty pleasure for me, if I ever felt guilty over anything. It's fun to watch and very high with the cheese factor. As one of the people in the included features put it, "you can tune in any time and not feel you missed important plot."
The deluxe edition has a feature about the movie (cute, especially since it appears the people involved have no illusions over the peculiar place in pop culture their movie has landed), a feature asking real bouncers what they think (not bad), sneak peek at the straight-to-DVD Road House 2 which left me utterly unmoved, and, the reason I bought it, the commentaries.
The director's commentary is boring. Skip it and go straight to the real treasure, the guest commentary by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier. Apparently they went on about Road House during a commentary of one of their own movies and got invited to come do this one, and it's freaking hilarious.
When they're not spouting behind-the-scenes facts clearly cribbed from imdb (at times you can hear them looking them up), they're talking about the zeigist of the movie or the constant homoerotic themes or the utter greatness of how bad it is or why anyone would want to have sex against a rough brick wall or on a sloping roof.
When they have nothing else to say they swipe lines from ChuckNorrisFacts.com to talk about how tough Swayze's character Dalton is. "Dalton does not go hunting, as that would admit the possibility of failure. Dalton goes killing." "Dalton doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants." It's so silly it's funny, especially when they can barely get the lines out because they're laughing too hard.
I kinda like the movie, but I love it with the sound turned off and these two guys just having a blast for two hours.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Yeah, Road House is one of my guilty pleasures. To the extent, as you say Chris, that I feel the need to feel guilty about watching any movie. Not a big Swayze fan, but Sam Elliot is also in it, which is a definite attraction as far as I'm concerned.
Another attraction for me is that a good part of the movie was filmed in the country around here, east of Fresno. The river you see is the Kings River, and the street Swayze drives down at night near the beginning of the film (at night) is actually the main street of Reedley.
And that commentary sounds like lots of fun. I might have to look for that DVD.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Mike Nelson of MST3K said in one of his books that Road House is his favorite movie of all time. In fact, check this out:
quote:What I really believe is that a film should be judged on how well it comes off when compared with the Patrick Swayze film Road House. For Road House is the single finest American film.
He elaborates from there.
I've been wanting to check it out for a little while. Maybe I'll use this thread as incentive. I'll tell you what I think.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Is it really funnier than Next of Kin? The guest commentary... I've been wondering when those would come along.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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According to Slashdot, Mike Nelson has proposed selling add-on heckling/commentary tracks for films. The target price is $1.99, and you'd play the commentary on another device while playing the movie on your television. He's calling the service RiffTrax, and the first track available is for Road House.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I bought a few old movies just because they gave Mike a commentary track. It's no MST3K, but they were still better than most director commentaries.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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