Across The USA by Dodge
Chapter 10
Time for a few general matters....
Movies and stars. I saw quite a few movies in the States. The cinema prices are incredibly cheap (compared to here) and some places cost as little as one dollar and the most I paid was five dollars. There are a lot of multiplex cinemas in shopping malls but there are also some lovingly restored beautiful old cinemas in the smaller towns.
I saw Clint Eastwood's new movie "Unforgiven" on opening night in Albuquerque. It was excellent, a true classic and I would think that even if I wasn't a fan. There is a distinct anti-violence theme in the movie and shows just how hard it is to kill somebody.
One issue that's always interested me is just how much the media has built up a myth about how the "wild west" used to be. "Unforgiven" also deals with that subject and shows just how the truth could be blown out of proportion often only days after the event happened. It's no wonder history is distorted. [I also got to see quite a bit of Billy The Kid history, which I'll have to get to some other time.]
Gene Hackman has some great moments in the film as a vicious sheriff and an inept carpenter. His "Duke (pronounced duck) of Death" scene is brilliant. The movie got really good reviews from the critics which is highly unusual for an Eastwood effort and went to number one on the movie charts for five or six weeks. The movie charts get as much publicity as music charts over there.
The next year the movie would win the Oscar for best picture while Clint also won as Best Director.
On other Clint matters, I strolled around the Civic Square in Phoenix where parts of "The Gauntlet" were filmed including the over the top ending; I kept waiting for this bud to roll down the street with a thousand law enforcers blasting away from the rooftops.
I went to "Old Tucson Studios" where a couple of his movies including "Joe Kidd" were filmed; and in Carmel (what a pretty town) I had lunch at his restaurant, the "Hogs Breath Inn". One of the waitresses said Clint comes in almost every night to say hi to the customers when he's in town but I couldn't wait around til that evening to see if that was true, unfortunately.
Some other movies I saw included "Unlawful Entry" (Kurt Russell and Ray Liotta) which I liked but it got bad reviews from the critics; "Honeymoon In Vegas" (Nicholas Cage) which was very funny although highly implausible; "Columbus" (Tom Selleck) which was pathetic; and "A League Of Their Own" (Madonna, Geena Davis, Tom Hanks) which I enjoyed.
On the plane I saw "Straight Talk" (James Woods, Dolly Parton); "My Cousin Vinny" (Joe Pesci) and "Hear My Song" (Ned Beatty).
"Hear My Song", about Irish tenor Josef Locke, is what you would call a "charming" movie. Pretty good actually. [It was released in Australian cinemas in December.] Why I mentioned it is because of one particular scene.
Over twelve months ago a guy I know told me an hilarious "true" story (which I found hard to believe at the time) about two of his friends who had visited Ireland during a British holiday. They were walking through a field and came across a well. They wanted to see how deep it was so they dropped a pebble down it. They couldn't hear a splash so they got a bigger stone. Still nothing. They dropped in a larger rock, but still couldn't hear it hit bottom. They saw a large slab of concrete with a chain embedded in it and tossed it in. All of a sudden they heard a noise and saw this goat (attached to chain) charging towards them and then watched it disappear down the well. They ran for their lives, end of story.
Anyway, in this movie there's a scene where that exact same thing happens!
I only saw one "star" in the flesh (so to speak) which was the incredibly beautiful Shannen Doherty. This was at the height of her 90210 fame. Since then she's been portrayed as one mean bitch, trying to kill boyfriends and so on. Despite all that I still think she's a fox. A small, curvy fox ...
They have great street names in America. Phoenix had streets like "Speedway" and "Indian School".
I also found out how they number houses over there and it's quite a good system. You often see movies/TV shows where they buildings with addresses like 1210 N Main Street. What that means it's building number 10 in the 12th block from the centre of the town in a northerly direction.
In other words the first block goes 1xx, the next 2xx and so on. The direction indicator (N S E or W) is important if the street runs all the way across town.
Chapter 11
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