← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · il ragno
Thread ID: 19487 | Posts: 16 | Started: 2005-08-07
2005-08-07 23:15 | User Profile
[COLOR=Navy]Don't get me wrong, I fully expect that DUKES OF HAZZARD movie to be the piece of shit everyone is already claiming it is. As far as the original goes, I was 19 when it premiered and thus hardly watched it - and when I did, it was strictly either to look at Catherine Bach's ass and legs, or to laff at the low-comedy hijinx of Roscoe and the Boss.
In other words, you can't desecrate what was junk to begin with. I just figured Roger Ebert, regularly humping Fudgie the Whale as he does, would have a uniquely whitey-hatin' comment to add. And he does.[/COLOR]
The Dukes of Hazzard
BY ROGER EBERT / August 5, 2005
"The Dukes of Hazzard" is a comedy about two cousins who are closer'n brothers, and their car, which is smarter'n they are. It's a retread of a sitcom that ran from about 1979 to 1985, years during which I was able to find better ways to pass my time. Yes, it is still another TV program I have never ever seen. As this list grows, it provides more and more clues about why I am so smart and cheerful.
The movie stars Johnny Knoxville, from "Jackass," Seann William Scott, from "American Wedding," and Jessica Simpson, from Mars. Judging by her recent conversation on TV with Dean Richards, Simpson is so remarkably uninformed that she should sue the public schools of Abilene, Texas, or maybe they should sue her. On the day he won his seventh Tour de France, not many people could say, as she did, that they had no idea who Lance Armstrong was. COLOR=Navy[/COLOR]
Of course you don't have to be smart to get into "The Dukes of Hazzard." But people like Willie Nelson and Burt Reynolds should have been smart enough to stay out of it. Here is a lame-brained, outdated wheeze about a couple of good ol' boys who roar around the back roads of the South in the General Lee, their beloved 1969 Dodge Charger. As it happens, I also drove a 1969 Dodge Charger. You could have told them apart because mine did not have a Confederate flag painted on the roof. COLOR=Navy[/COLOR]
Scott and Knoxville play Bo Duke and Luke Duke; the absence of a Puke Duke is a sadly missed opportunity. COLOR=Navy[/COLOR] They deliver moonshine manufactured by their Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson), and depend on the General to outrun the forces of Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (M.C. Gainey). The movie even has one of those obligatory scenes where the car is racing along when there's a quick cut to a gigantic Mack truck, its horn blasting as it bears down on them. They steer out of the way at the last possible moment. That giant Mack truck keeps busy in the movies, turning up again and again during chase scenes and always just barely missing the car containing the heroes, but this is the first time I have seen it making 60 mph down a single-lane dirt track.
Simpson plays Daisy Duke, whose short shorts became so famous on TV that they were known as "Daisy Dukes." She models them to a certain effect in a few brief scenes, but is missing from most of the movie. Maybe she isn't even smart enough to wear shorts. I learn from the Internet that Simpson has a dog named Daisy, but have been unable to learn if she named it before or after being signed for the role, and whether the dog is named after the character, the shorts, the flower, or perhaps (a long shot) Daisy Duck.
The local ruler is Boss Jefferson Davis Hogg (Burt Reynolds), "the meanest man in Hazzard County," who issues orders to the Sheriff and everybody else, and has a secret plan to strip-mine the county and turn it into a wasteland. I wonder if there were moments when Reynolds reflected that, karma-wise, this movie was the second half of what "Smokey and the Bandit" was the first half of.
There are a lot of scenes in the movie where the General is racing down back roads at high speeds and becomes airborne, leaping across ditches, rivers and suchlike, miraculously without breaking the moonshine bottles. Surely if you have seen, say, 12 scenes of a car flying through the air, you are not consumed by a need to see 12 more.
There is a NASCAR race in the film, and some amusing dialogue about car sponsorship. You know the film is set in modern times because along with Castrol and Coke, one of the car sponsors is Yahoo! I noted one immortal passage of dialogue, about a charity that is raising money for "one of the bifidas." I was also amused by mention of "The Al Unser Jr. Story," an "audiobook narrated by Laurence Fishburne."
[B]The movie has one offensive scene, alas, that doesn't belong in a contemporary comedy. Bo and Luke are involved in a mishap that causes their faces to be blackened with soot, and then, wouldn't you know, they drive into an African-American neighborhood, where their car is surrounded by ominous young men who are not amused by blackface, or by the Confederate flag painted on the car. [I]I was hoping maybe the boyz n the hood would carjack the General, which would provide a fresh twist to the story, but no, the scene sinks into the mire of its own despond[/I]. [/B]
[COLOR=Navy]I believe that is the scene where the Duke Boys, made aware of the acute plight of people who ordinarily would like to kill them, learn the error of their Confederate-flag-flying ways and renounce them. But apparently even such explicit nigger-groveling isn't enough for Ebert; while a bloody Carr Brothers finale, while more deserved, would be too grisly to [I]send the right message [/I] to America's youth.[/COLOR]
2005-08-08 01:32 | User Profile
I was rooting for the Dukes of Hazzard to be a good movie just to get the Confederate flag some popular respect.
I haven't seen the movie. But, from reviews, it's clear that the producers spent a lot of time trying to think of ways to make the movie stupid. That's par for most TV shows made into movies.
One reviewer said Bo and Luke are not good ol' boys, but jackasses. But, I'm sure the movie has one good laugh. The boys, in black face, meet some black punks. The blacks call them hillbillies. The boys reply that they prefer to be called Appalachian Americans.
Roger Ebert is such a hypocrite. "The movie has one offensive scene [see above], alas, that doesn't belong in a contemporary comedy." Here's a guy has numerous highly offensive movies, NC-17 level comedy movies with truly mean-spirited offensive comedy, yet Ebert hasn't said that those offensive scenes don't belong in a movie. I don't even have a clue why Ebert thinks the black face joke is so offensive. But, Ebert could have done better than to pander to the Politically Correct crowd, as if he needs to put in his vote that the Confederate Flag is evil else he'd be judged as racist himself.
2005-08-08 01:55 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]I was rooting for the Dukes of Hazzard to be a good movie just to get the Confederate flag some popular respect.
I haven't seen the movie. But, from reviews, it's clear that the producers spent a lot of time trying to think of ways to make the movie stupid. That's par for most TV shows made into movies.
One reviewer said Bo and Luke are not good ol' boys, but jackasses. But, I'm sure the movie has one good laugh. The boys, in black face, meet some black punks. The blacks call them hillbillies. The boys reply that they prefer to be called Appalachian Americans.
Roger Ebert is such a hypocrite. "The movie has one offensive scene [see above], alas, that doesn't belong in a contemporary comedy." Here's a guy has numerous highly offensive movies, NC-17 level comedy movies with truly mean-spirited offensive comedy, yet Ebert hasn't said that those offensive scenes don't belong in a movie. I don't even have a clue why Ebert thinks the black face joke is so offensive. But, Ebert could have done better than to pander to the Politically Correct crowd, as if he needs to put in his vote that the Confederate Flag is evil else he'd be judged as racist himself.[/QUOTE] Well, a few years ago I saw a magazine photo of Roger Ebert and his girlfriend at the time and she was a really overweight Black woman so that's one big reason why he fights "racism" because he considers it his obligation since he sleeps with so called "Ebony Queens" :yucky:
2005-08-08 02:10 | User Profile
[QUOTE]I don't even have a clue why Ebert thinks the black face joke is so offensive. [/QUOTE]
Hack, as Otto said, Ebert's wife is an overweight Black woman (hence, the "Fudgie the Whale" reference). There's your mystery solved.
2005-08-08 02:18 | User Profile
[QUOTE=OttoR]Well, a few years ago I saw a magazine photo of Roger Ebert and his girlfriend at the time and she was a really overweight Black woman so that's one big reason why he fights "racism" because he considers it his obligation since he sleeps with so called "Ebony Queens" :yucky:[/QUOTE]
[IMG]http://www.suprmchaos.com/eberts_022505.jpg[/IMG]
I know of his fat, black wife and his liberal politics. It still does nothing for me why a black-face joke is the only thing he ever found so offensive that it shouldn't be in a movie. That is saying something. My guess is he slipped and called his wife a "porcine negress" and now he's having to do extra sucking up.
2005-08-08 02:35 | User Profile
The sad thing is that - as mainstream film critics go - Ebert is unquestionably one of the best out there. However, now that the Internet has helped create a million and one overly serious beret-sporting "film critics", each one eager to flash their Serious Thinker credentials and ruminate on race* at the drop of a hat, "one of the best" should be followed by "of a very bad lot".
It must truly [B]suck [/B] to be an up-and-comer among the Chattering Classes these days....by the time you realize your vaunted Social Conscience (and that of everybody around you) is like an actor's capped teeth - an illusion that [I]has to look authentic[/I], or you're finished - you have no choice but to take deep breaths and keep shovelling out the horseshit, lest your [B]own [/B] Serious Thinker credentials be revoked.
[SIZE=1]*= meaning they're eager to shit on the white race and give every other color a Pollyanna pass.[/SIZE]
2005-08-08 02:56 | User Profile
[QUOTE]..."one of the best" should be followed by "of a very bad lot".[/QUOTE] LOL! That's the damn truth!
2005-08-08 04:05 | User Profile
From the teasers of the movie that I had seen and from what the critics have to say the movie looks to me like T&A (tit and ass) muvie therefore I wont see it.
2005-08-08 06:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]The movie stars Johnny Knoxville, from "Jackass," Seann William Scott, from "American Wedding," and Jessica Simpson, from Mars. Judging by her recent conversation on TV with Dean Richards, Simpson is so remarkably uninformed that she should sue the public schools of Abilene, Texas, or maybe they should sue her. On the day he won his seventh Tour de France, not many people could say, as she did, that they had no idea who Lance Armstrong was.
COLOR=Navy[/COLOR][/QUOTE]LOL...well said as usual, IR.
Hack, as Otto said, Ebert's wife is an overweight Black woman (hence, the "Fudgie the Whale" reference). I didn't know he was married to a fat Negress. I guess the educational system failed me, too! :lol:
2005-08-08 06:52 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Ponce]From the teasers of the movie that I had seen and from what the critics have to say the movie looks to me like T&A (tit and ass) muvie therefore I wont see it.[/QUOTE] The Simpson sisters (Jessica and Ashlee) should just drop the pretend act of being so Christian and go ahead and pose in Playboy, they've already lost any shred of credibility as singers and actresses. :smoke:
2005-08-08 18:38 | User Profile
Lance is probably one of the best athletes in world history and does not really get any coverage in the media. But the Simpsons girls are indeed totally retarded nevertheless.
As il ragno pointed out, the blackface scene sounds like a Black Like Me (required reading/brainwashing back in the old days when PC schooling was just getting underway) type of thing. Ebert's suggestion that a carjacking was in order is troubling since those crimes perpetrated by Blacks and Hispanics frequently involve rape and murder in addition to the stolen car.
2005-08-08 22:13 | User Profile
[QUOTE]On the day he won his seventh Tour de France, not many people could say, as she did, that they had no idea who Lance Armstrong was. [/QUOTE] I wonder what he'd say about the fact that I don't know who Jessica Simpson is....
2005-08-08 22:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE]But people like Willie Nelson and Burt Reynolds should have been smart enough to stay out of it. [/QUOTE] This from the guy who wrote the screenplay for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls....
2005-08-09 00:28 | User Profile
[QUOTE=mwdallas]This from the guy who wrote the screenplay for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls....[/QUOTE]
.....a [I]killer[/I] z-movie, by the way.
2005-08-09 01:27 | User Profile
[QUOTE=OttoR]The Simpson sisters (Jessica and Ashlee) should just drop the pretend act of being so Christian and go ahead and pose in Playboy, they've already lost any shred of credibility as singers and actresses. :smoke:[/QUOTE]
If those are the two girls in the movie then all that I can say is that they are fairly good looking "ladies", I would have them in my bed for a couple of days for not for ever. :thumbsup:
2005-08-13 07:50 | User Profile
[IMG]http://www.suprmchaos.com/eberts_022505.jpg[/IMG]
Wow! A vivid mental image of their connubial jowl-suckings just flashed thro-oh God.....[I]BARRRGHHH!![/I]