Wolverines!!!

WOLVERINE!!!

Roadhouse.

I have to admit Red Dawn is the first film I think of when I think of Swayze. But then, I first saw it running private screenings for congressmen and senators at the MPAA. I was so blown away by the rightwing clichedness of the movie I called friends at the ACLU to tell them they HAD to check this out.

Ironically or not, when someone bombed the ACLU office a few months later, they spray painted Wolverines on the door. Must have been one of those pre-fortysomething Reaganites.

Good God, that story shows the nature of the conservative coccoon better than anything else I've seen today.

Oh, and uh...WOLVERINES!!!

I must have been too busy watching Dirty Dancing for the umpteenth time on another channel while Red Dawn was playing on Fox. Or maybe I was watching it from DVD instead. For whatever reason, I don't associate Patrick Swayze with much more than Dirty Dancing. And I've never watched Ghost all the way through.

And overcounting Teabaggers while undercounting liberal protesters in D.C, a Post tradition going back over forty years, makes them lefties, too. You can count the liberals still with the Post on one hand, even if you have a couple fingers missing.

Red Dawn was a major picture only in the minds of deranged rightwing adolescents, no matter what their age. According to The New Yorker, it was also Timothy McVeigh's favorite movie. He watched it, again, the night before he blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Very silly, and interesting evidence of a self-reflective bubble. Red Dawn was a fun, forgettable popcorn movie for many folks, but it's apparently a requirement of faith for others.

Ghost and Dirty Dancing were international blockbusters, so they are rightly highlighted in an Obit. Also, The Outsiders was his breakout film, as it was for a half-dozen other promising young male actors.

What? No mention of Too Wong Foo? Certainly the wingers love love love that one.

Oh, wait, I messed up. Here we go:

WOLVERINES!!!!!!

There, much better. ;)

All-time gross:

Ghost: $505,702,588
Dirty Dancing: $213,954,274
Red Dawn: $38,376,497

Oh, Swayze was the lead in the first two films, not part of an ensemble. Even if Graham's complaint weren't inherently stupid (An obituary? Really?), it would be stupid on the facts.

O.M.G.

Can't. Help. Myself.......

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WOLVERINES!1!
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Anybody who has visited the Romanesko media gossip site has encountered his insane ravings, though he hasn't posted many letters to the editor there lately. They're always entertaining.

Actually, that movie was named Ped Dawn. The backwardwards 'R' in the Cryllic alphabet is a 'P' in the Latin alphabet.

Wait a minute, if Americans (Swayze) organize an insurgency called the "Wolverines" in response to a Soviet invasion they are heroes and freedom fighters but if the Iraqis organize an insurgency in response to an American invasion they are terrorists?

OK, got it.

P.S. I think the WaPo was more than balanced since they omitted the movie Point Break in which the good name of God Ronnie Raygun was besmirched by Swayze wearing a Reagan mask during bank robberies.

Err, you mean "obituary," not "eulogy."

Hey, everybody's got a point of view:

(NaturalNews) Beloved actor Patrick Swayze died yesterday evening after a 20-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Having put his faith in conventional chemotherapy, he largely dismissed ideas that nutrition, superfoods or "alternative medicine" might save him, instead betting his life on the chemotherapy approach which seeks to poison the body into a state of remission instead of nourishing it into a state of health.

These are not condemnations of this remarkable man; they are simply descriptive explanations of the path he chose and the results he experienced. Patrick Swayze was a talented, dedicated actor and dancer, and his work brought joy to the lives of millions. He will be deeply missed, and in his death, he joins many other celebrities who have been recently killed by pharmaceuticals or chemotherapy.

Peter Jennings died following chemotherapy for lung cancer...

Just think, if you're not reading conservative blogs, you're missing out on all kinds of fascinating insights you probably won't find anywhere else.

Yes, I can see where that might be a concern.

Luckily, I find enough moderate and liberal blog readers who are willing to wade through those places that I can get all of the information and entertainment value with little effect on my blood pressure. I really appreciate your help here, Steve.

(NaturalNews) ...

The woo is strong with these children.

In other news, Patrick Swayze joins the growing ranks of celebrities who have died of cancer after breathing oxygen, highlighting just how highly toxic this chemical can be.

Tim Graham is seething because Red Dawn wasn't mentioned until the 2nd or 3rd paragraph, while Ghost and Dirty Dancing were up there in the lede.

Um, Mr. Graham. Ghost made millions upon millions of dollars. Dirty Dancing made millions upon millions of dollars and I think earned Swayze one of two Golden Globe nominations. Red Dawn made mere millions of dollars and is at best a cult classic known for the WOLVERINES! battle cry.

Dear Mr. Graham, as a journalism grad myself I would like to remind you that your lead paragraph in any newspaper article has to be reasonably brief (roughly one-two sentences, handful of words), so if the writer is going to highlight Swayze's major hits it was best to stick to the two largest films on his resume. If you include Red Dawn in the lead you might as well include Roadhouse, Point Break and Donnie Darko.

Oh, and one other thing: Swayze's breakout role was in the Outsiders in 1983-84. So there.

What I find most amusing about the right's continual fap fap fapping over Red Dawn?

The fact that, when given a chance to join up and play Soldier for a cause they believe in (the Iraq war), they lacked the courage to do so, choosing instead to ... type a bunch of crap on the Internet.

These clowns are cowards who watch films like RD to live out their Soldierboy fantasies, insecure in the knowledge that, if the Soviets had invaded, they would have surrendered within five minutes.

J writes:
Actually, that movie was named Ped Dawn. The backwardwards 'R' in the Cryllic alphabet is a 'P' in the Latin alphabet.
It would be (approximately) Ya-ed Dawn, actually. The backward-r (Я) is /ja/ in Cyrillic. (P in Cyrillic maps to the English R, which may be what you were thinking of.)

There are probably a lot of fortysomething Reaganites at the Post, but they all telecommute so they can stay home and masturbate to Red Dawn.

The only potential conspiracy here is that possibly, Swayze's family tagteamed journalists around the country and said, Please, please, for the love of God, when you talk about his career, don't say much about Red Dawn.

For as many times as I saw Red Dawn as a kid (and I saw it many MANY times), it really can't compete with Road House, which truly was classic filmmaking. Every element of that movie was so perfectly cliched and horrible that the entire film became a masterpiece which I can watch countless times without getting bored. There wasn't a wrong note in the whole thing and I really do believe it's one of the greatest westerns ever made; even if it has no actual cowboys in it. I say this without any snark: Anyone who can't appreciate Road House doesn't understand cinema.

For god's sake, people, he was the best bouncer in the world and could kill a man by removing his esophagus with one move; yet he had a quiet zen and would only use violence as a last resort. But for as tough as he was, I always thought he'd be bigger.

Wolverines!

The obituary should have highlighted Point Break. The fact that it didn't shows that the Washington Post supports masked bank robbery and/or surfing.

Quite by accident, I read Ronald Reagan's 1984 Republican national convention speech. In a remarkable case of monkeys writing Shakespeare, the intertitles at the beginning of the film are identical to the distopian future of Reagan's speech. Identical. wikipedia tells me Red Dawn was released the day after the convention ended...

Also, by not giving Youngblood more prominence, the Washington Post whitewashed Swayze's support for the un-American activity of hockey.

From the quacks at NaturalNews:

Could Patrick Swayze have saved his own life with natural medicine? Absolutely. Without question. Even late-stage pancreatic cancer can be reversed (yes, reversed) with full-on naturopathic treatments involving Chinese herbal medicine, deep body detoxification that includes sweat saunas and colon cleansing, radical changes in diet from "dead" foods to "live" foods, a healthy dose of vitamin D and the daily consumption of raw anti-cancer living juices made from fresh, organic produce like cabbage, broccoli and garlic.

Bullshit. Nothing reverses late-stage pancreatic cancer. All an oncologist can do is hand you a shovel.

as a bit of movie history trivia, iirc, "red dawn" received the first-ever PG-13 rating from the mmpa -- for excessive violence.

Wait, wait wait. War movies, movies which cast the US as the good guys, movies that cast the Soviets as the bad guys, and movies which express violent right-wing revenge fantasies are a rare in Hollywood? So rare as to be "shocking"?

Great Zombie Jesus, what planet is this drooling MRC moron living on?

"Also, by not giving Youngblood more prominence, the Washington Post whitewashed Swayze's support for the un-American activity of hockey."

And by not giving Youngblood and The Outsiders more prominence, the WaPo whitewashed Swayze's support for the un-American acting career of Rob Lowe.

But wingnuts may take heart, Red Dawn is mentioned before his role as a pedophile in Donnie Darko.

Pretty smart writing by Graham!

Now, when Charlie Sheen dies, he can just replace "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost" with "Wall Street" and "Platoon."

And then he'll just insert an extra paragraph about how overrated Oliver Stone is/was.

Breakout role? Hmmm, I'm not so sure. After Dirty Dancing came out I was flipping channels late one night and saw him in Red Dawn and realized then that it was the same guy in both movies.

Oops. I forgot...Wolverines!

@ howie:

not to mention an early screen appearance by keanu reeves and the film debut of former chicago blackhawk defenseman eric nesterenko.

Anybody remember the old episode of MASH he guest-starred in? He was just a kid at the time.

Never saw Red Dawn. Never will. I couldn't figure out why everybody was talking about X-Men (Wolverine) until somebody half-way down the thread cleared it up for me.

Boy, some people are soooo single-minded. Graham's clearly an idiot.

What, Graham, no love for Point Break?

WOLVERINES!!!

I'm no conservative and I LOVE "Red Dawn." However, it is an ensemble piece so "supporting role" can be applied to him as well as any other actor in the movie.

Young people in the Colorado mountains, looking down at their homes, where they can not return. Homes now occupied by murderous invaders from far away lands. They must be Arapaho, right?

Even in the age of DVDs (late 1980s), many women paid to see "Dirty Dancing" multiple times in movie theaters. And they weren't going back to see Jerry Orbach.

This is beyond stupid.

Really !?! This is your proof of liberal bias? Really????

Man, no wonder Rethugs are losing the culture wars. They don't even know where the battlefield is.

The WaPo obit didn't mention "Road House" until the 12th paragraph, which is evidence that the media hate the heartland.

Dr. Biobrain, I completely agree w/you about "Road House" - it's my favorite bad movie. I love it.

Mr. Graham's quote:
"'Red Dawn' was not a prestigious film,..."

Which explains why it doesn't get mentioned along with "Ghost" and "Dirty Dancing". They were more successful than "Red Dawn".

Whenever someone hears "Patrick Swayze", those two movies are the first to come to mind for most people.
(Except me. I will always think "Roadhouse")

It's just like how when people hear "Harrison Ford", they usually think "Star Wars" or "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and not "American Graffiti", even though that last movie came out before the other two.

Get a clue, Graham.

p.s. WOLVERINES!!!!!

The WaPo obit didn't mention "Road House" until the 12th paragraph, which is evidence that the media hate the heartland.

The best part about Roadhouse is that it's allegedly set right outside of Kansas City ... yet in many scenes you can see mountains in the background.

I don't think eastern Colorado can be considered "right outside Kansas City," but then I actually passed geography.

Nit? Consider it picked. :-)

Failure to mention Skatetown U.S.A. in either the headline or the lede renders the entire piece an utter travesty.

I worked with a guy who was about 25 years old when Red Dawn was first released on TV. A Reagan republican, he was well spoken and forthright in his boilerplate beliefs. We agreed on very little, but our brief conversations were always amicable. We both happened to catch the movie on the tube, and he asked me what I thought of it. I replied it was one of the most preposterous films I'd ever seen, and ticked off my reasons for feeling that way. And he was stunned. He considered it an epic, a veritable Battle of Algiers. He honestly believed its premise not only reasonable, but eminently so, and its plot line a viable rendering of... well, of what exactly I never understood. For the first time in all our talks he was detached from any semblance of reality. When I told him he was crazy, he genuinely resented hearing it. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn he had helped organize last weekends Teabaggers Pride parade.

RIP, Mr. Swayze.

Red Dawn HAS to be re-released or remade. No one wants to be the last person to pay money to see Red Dawn.

Oh no. I've actually re-read your post and realised I've made a right dick of myself. Steve, I apologise unreservedly for my dickishness, I just went off on one.

Er...WOLVERINES! (runs off like a cowardly Russian soldier)

[Now I almost wish I hadn't been so quick to delete your comment, so readers could see what you wrote then how you retracted! At least I stopped the process and didn't ban you from posting in the future. --Mod]

I always thought Roadhouse was the worst film ever made. It's so bad I have watched it about four times, sort of like rubbernecking a car wreck.

Then I saw Surfer Dude starring Mathew McConaughy. It just blew Roadhouse away for total all around crapiness. An incredibly bad movie.

Liked Ghost a lot, though, even if it was a little corny. RIP Patrick Swayze.

If you mean reality..Liberal and reality go hand and hand..

Red Dawn HAS to be re-released or remade. No one wants to be the last person to pay money to see Red Dawn.

You're in luck! Coming next year to a megaplex near you!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234719/

The right wing is so funny. When "Red Dawn" is not credited to Swayze early in the article they howl about liberal slant. But, when the new British movie "Darwin" (starring Paul Bethany and Jennifer Connelly) cannot find a US distibutor because of the feared backlash by anti-evolution religionists, they cry the left is hysterical.

Really, Red Dawn as his break-out? LOL. That film was atrocious. Look to "Roadhouse", "Ghost", "Dirty Dancing", or "Point Break", not to mention his role as a soldier with leukemia in "MASH" (talk about a break out, on the greatest liberal show of all time), or as Orrey Main (as in mainstream?), the honorable slave-owner in the Civil War era "North and South". These t-baggers are truly a laugh riot of lies, hypocrisy and mendacity.

Whenever someone hears "Patrick Swayze", those two movies are the first to come to mind for most people.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the SNL skit with Chris Farley when they were auditioning as dancers. Classic.

Red Dawn isn't a bad flick. I got a different message out of it than the right-wingers. Go figure.

Swayze's best film: Steel Dawn. Because his wife's in it. (I'm joking, but you can watch it on Hulu at http://www.hulu.com/steel-dawn)

RIP, Patrick.

It's worth noting that that "completely shocking product coming out of a Hollywood" in 1984 was sandwiched by First Blood in 1982 and Rambo: First Blood II in 1985. But it's part of the right-wing conspiracy of repression and isolation that NO ONE EVER does anything conservative. Hollywood makes what sells (or tries to).

But, but, but Red Dawn is a LIBERAL film!! Those dang insurgents fight against the invading foreign occupiers. We've been told for the past 8 years that that's liberal. Therefore the Washington Post is a good conservative rag putting the juicy dirty dancing at the top where it belongs.

How nice. A guy who pretty much avoided engaging in any kind of political talk has his dead body used for Rushpubliscum talking points.

Every time I think they can't get more sleazy, they prove to me how wrong I was.

Cnnservatives are always waxing nostalgically about Regan and I find it ironic that as much as they bitch about the deficit and amnesty for the economic refugees from Mexico and elsewhere they never talk about how Regan ballooned the national debt with his tax breaks for the rich and trickle no where economics, gave amnesty to millions of so called illegals and helped screw the middle class out of much of what they had worked so hard for so long. Republicans talk about family values and do everything theycan to screw families over.

Red Dawn is just a bad movie. That's its problem.

Interesting premise derived from much science fiction. See Cyril Kornbluth 'Not this Autumn' or Robert Heinlein 'Free Men' (or 'If this Goes On'/'Revolt in 2100'). A staple of science fiction (Philip K Dick 'The Man in the High Castle')-- US under foreign occupation.

Clunky characterization and plot.

Its closest comparator is 'Amerika' the TV mini series with Robert Urich and Kris Kristofferson, which was muchly filmed in Toronto, but has the US under a Russian-UN occupation. I think 'Jericho' was kind of going that way, before it was cancelled?

Amerika too is a favourite of those who believe there really are Black Helicopters.

But as a film, Red Dawn is without many redeeming features. Besides the clunky insertions ('confiscate their guns. The local registry office will have a full list'). Improbable plot and characterization.

It does have some great one-liners: 'What's a defilade?'.

A film which speaks to those who feel themselves disenfranchised, and which plays to the paranoid tendency in American life.