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(Can be sung to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”)
Travolta went down to Houston,
He was lookin’ for a job to take.
He was young and dumb, just a country bum,
And he was waiting for his big break,
When he came across this young girl
Dancin’ round in a honky-tonk,
A promised land of beer and band
With a metal bull or bronc.
When the misfit pair were married,
Things at first were going well,
But some stubbornness made a jealous mess
And the marriage quickly fell.
While the two just boozed and pined away
And rode that bucking bull,
I began to think that this movie stinks
And was near unbearable.
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This is it, the original bottom-dweller. This is the first movie I sat through and immediately hated, or, to coin Roger Ebert’s quote from his review of North, I “hated hated hated hated hated this movie.” Urban Cowboy was yet another star vehicle for John Travolta, but with films like this, it’s a wonder he became a star at all. I don’t usually subject myself to terrible films, but never before have I asked “Is it over yet?” so many times.
It starts out with some promise: small-town wannabe cowboy heads to the big city to find his fortune, meets girl, marries girl. That storyline alone might have been worth seeing, but the relationship between Bud and Sissy is hardly one for the ages. They meet each other in the famous Gilley’s Club, a multi-acre theme park of booze and cowboy paraphernalia, and Sissy (Debra Winger) has to practically twist Bud’s arm to convince him to dance with her. After some dancing and an argument and a roll in the mud, they’re suddenly walking down the aisle. Did either of them really think a marriage starting like that would last? As it turns out, barely a week passes before Bud’s pride is hurt, and both go their separate ways to make the other jealous, with increasingly depressing results.
One of my biggest problems with Urban Cowboy is the character of Bud. Travolta isn’t appealing in the slightest; he’s a juvenile man-child so unconfident in his masculinity that the slightest hint that someone may be better than he throws him into a blind rage, especially if it’s his own wife. In addition, he’s the kind of bumpkin that gives country music a bad name, content to work (sometimes) during the day and wile away his nights at the bar, picking fights and slapping his wife when she disagrees too much (but not too hard, of course). Plus, he’s supposedly in Houston to work and save up enough money to buy land and become prosperous, yet never seems to realize that he’s pouring his paycheck down the drain every night on beer and bets and pointless mechanical bull rides. Oh, and let’s not forget that he doesn’t just pretend to cheat on Sissy to make her jealous; he freely sleeps around, too stubborn to actually care for the girl he uses (Madolyn Smith) and too dense to realize why Sissy isn’t running back to him with open arms. What exactly am I supposed to like about this guy?
A series of misunderstandings keeps the couple apart, and Sissy ends up with “real cowboy” Wes Hightower, played by a leery Scott Glenn, who’s just a slightly harsher version of Bud, hitting a little too hard and stealing what he can’t earn. If Bud and Wes are “real cowboys”, they’re the worst kind, selfish he-men just trying to prove their own toughness to girls they only moderately care about. By the end, Bud trains Rocky-style for a mechanical bull showdown, and he seems to think that winning it will win Sissy back. How so? A silly championship is not going to repair a relationship; all his training is pointless, since all he really needed to do was go and apologize for his own pigheadedness. While he ends up doing exactly this, it’s as if he can’t muster the effort until he’s once again proven his alpha male status. Of course, it all works out for a happy ending, where assault turns into just desserts and a whirlwind romance rekindles into a whirlwind reconciliation. And then, thank God!, it was over!
This just might be my most hated bottom-dweller, with hardly any redeeming value. The only bright point is the classic country music soundtrack, particularly Charlie Daniels’ “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” For reasons beyond my comprehension, my VC and many other critics actually liked the film itself, looking past its unlikable characters and petty squabbling. She tells me that she finds the movie “interesting for its dysfunctional lifestyle” and as compelling to watch as a car accident, while I’d prefer just to not look at all. I don’t plan to ever see Urban Cowboy again; I have much better things to do than watch white trash with superficial, totally screwed-up priorities cheating on each other.
Best line: (Bud) “All cowboys ain’t dumb. Some of ’em got smarts real good, like me.”
VC’s best line: (Bud’s Uncle Bob) “You know, Bud, sometimes even a cowboy’s gotta swallow his pride to hold on to somebody he loves.” (Bud) “What do you mean?” (Uncle Bob) “Hell, I know I pretty near lost Corrine and the kids a couple of times just ’cause of pride. You know, you think that ol’ pride’s gonna choke you going down, but I tell you what, ain’t a night goes by I don’t thank the Boss up there for giving me a big enough throat.”
Rank: BOTTOM-DWELLER!© 2015 S. G. Liput
311 Followers and Counting
The earth is getting dusty,
And our crops are less than trusty,
And our history is rusty,
And all life is soon to end.
Farmer Coop is in frustration
Till suspicious gravitation
Sends him to a NASA station
To encounter an old friend.
Dr. Brand suggests spacefaring
On a certain wormhole bearing
Will reward the pilots’ daring
With a new potential Earth.
Leaving son and loving daughter,
Coop departs to be the spotter
On new worlds of ice and water,
Where time carries greater worth.
Though he carries on with yearning,
Many dangers are concerning.
Complex choices stem from learning
He may not end up returning.
______________
A lonely hotel is a dangerous thing,
At least in the works of an author named King,
For no one can know what occurs in the mind
When volatile men are annoyed and confined.
They say, like Jack Torrance, the winter caretaker,
That past tragedies are no sign or deal breaker.
He’s simply too sane for such things to occur;
His wife is the same, and he’d never hurt her.
But get them alone in a desolate maze
And watch them get worse with the passing of days
And cringe as the dread and the wickedness weave,
For those at the Overlook may never leave.
__________________
With S.H.I.E.L.D. out of service,
At least on the surface,
Six awesome Avengers defend the world still.
Since HYDRA arose,
They’ve empowered new foes,
Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, twins with ill will.
Once Tony Stark’s had
An epiphany bad,
He then starts preparing for “peace in our time,”
But Ultron’s created
And quickly upgraded,
Equating true peace with a murderous crime.
Against these new threats
And alarming skill sets,
Our heroes must deal with their goals and their fear,
And when all agree
To save Earth mightily,
The smackdown is epic and worth a good cheer.
____________________
Surgeries happen every day,
Routine and clean, so doctors say.
You simply go to sleep and then
They ought to wake you up again.
What’s that? You’ve heard, through some mistake,
That sometimes people never wake?
That’s possible, but don’t dismay;
It’s very rare, so doctors say.
You need not worry of a coma;
Trust the doc and his diploma.
Never fear about foul play
That can’t occur, so doctors say.
Statistics prove how safe you are;
The surgeon’s been ideal so far.
He’ll deftly take the pain away,
And you’ll be fine, so doctors say.
________________
In District 13, Katniss Everdeen waits,
Unsettled by District 12 citizens’ fates.
Deep under the ground with her saved family,
She worries for Peeta interminably.
Both Plutarch and resolute President Coin
Are eager for her to recover and join.
Insisting that Peeta be rescued someday,
Poor Katniss agrees to be their Mockingjay,
The hero for all districts, sure to inspire
The masses and light an unquenchable fire.
Since staged propaganda does not work as well,
She heads to the war zones to get mad as hell.
Her anger at Snow for the cruel devastation
Extends to the people who rise from privation.
Yet who should appear on the Capitol screens
But Peeta, denouncing the riotous scenes?
The boy’s brain seems washed, but he still tries to warn
The rebels of sudden barrages that morn.
When Capitol power is violently cut,
The rebels move in ere the window is shut.
The three captive tributes that Snow has been holding
Are surely a part of his scheme still unfolding.
Though Katniss is eager for Peeta’s return,
She’s shocked at the lesson Snow wants her to learn.
_________________
The author Jane Austen
Refused to get lost in
Romance of her own,
Though for that she’s well-known.
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