Posted on 10/12/2013 2:05:14 AM PDT by Kaslin
On Saturday nights at my house, I often trot out classic movies and force the urchins to watch them. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I think it's important to teach kids about American culture, and films certainly are a big part of it. Actors like John Wayne, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn are worth seeing and remembering.
So the other night I trotted out "American Graffiti," a film released 40 years ago. The movie was directed by "Star Wars" creator George Lucas and chronicles one night in the lives of some California teenagers in the year 1962.
The first thing the kids noticed was Harrison Ford playing a young hood driving a hot rod. That got their attention. The movie features other great actors such as Richard Dreyfuss and Charles Martin Smith, along with Ron Howard and Cindy Williams, who turned the "Graffiti" success into the television hits "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley."
About 20 minutes into the movie, which is heavy on dialogue and light on explosions, the urchins pulled out their iPads and began typing away. Dismay enveloped me.
"So you don't like this?" I asked the 14-year-old.
"It's OK. I'm listening."
"But you're playing with that machine!"
"I can multitask!"
A few minutes later, the 10-year-old demanded popcorn. I told him we'd get some halfway through the flick.
"Do they ever get out of the cars?" the urchin wailed.
"That's the culture in California. They cruise around in cars listening to the radio."
"But there are so many cars!"
I was losing them.
So I paused the movie and brought in snacks. I demanded they shut off the machines while eating.
"Why?" the 14-year-old asked.
"Because you can't text, eat and watch a movie at the same time."
"Yes, I can. I always do that."
"They're still in cars," the 8-year-old said.
We got through the movie, but just barely. Their interest peaked when The Pharaohs, a gang of juvenile delinquents, forced Dreyfuss to vandalize a police car. Finally, some destruction!
After "American Graffiti" concluded, I asked for their reviews. I got them while their heads were down looking at their iPads.
The consensus: It was OK. Too many cars.
These days, the machines and awful films that blow things up every 10 seconds are delivering heavy blows to American culture. The graffiti is on the wall. The attention spans of young people average about 30 seconds. Baseball? Forget it. Chess? Are you kidding me?
We live in a time where machines that deliver instant gratification rule. But I will continue to fight the cyberspace power. Coming attraction: Hitchcock's "The Birds."
Let the texting begin.
That Darn Cat!
my fave
Must have been the USS Midway.
Leni
Funny how that whole nostalgia thing works. I'm not sure how old you are, but I was about 13 when the Kinks released their song Come Dancing. In the song, Ray Davies recounts the music and dancing of his youth and it seemed like such a long reach into the past. It recently dawned on me that I'm now a lot older than Ray Davies was when he wrote the lyrics, and now, that song is a nostalgic recollection of my youth!
Ray Davies may have been born nostalgic.
After about 20 years of people telling him what a genious you are, how could anyone maintain proper humility? I think it kills many writers, that after a certain point, people aren't willing to tell them to their face that what they are doing is a stinker. YOu see that most stronly in the Star Wars movies.
Ralph Nader started ruining it, then came the console between the two front seats.
Now it's adrenaline-fueled video games and roller-coaster movies with overly dramatic music and acting.
Have you done Harvey yet? Absolute classic.
You might give Tracy/Hepburns “Keeper of the Flame” a try. The ending will pleasantly surprise you, and it was strikingly prescient.
Toad trying to score a bottle of booze at the liquor store....classic.
Boo hoo... the truth hurts.
I was reading reviews of some classic flick from about fifty years ago or so, and one obviously very youthful reviewer opined as how he couldn’t stand older movies. In his mind there are just so many modern “great” movies, he couldn’t understand how anybody could watch a movie older than say ten or fifteen years. I have absolutely no idea how to respond to someone like that short of just hoping as they get older their tastes improve.
The Car Culture is dying.HUH? There are numerous very popular car related shows on cable and even new copycat shows popping up all the time.
Then there's this custom car/hot rod/jalopy builders site: The Hokey Ass Message Board with over 200,000 (a few yrs ago it was around 30,000) members from all over the world. One thread there called Vintage Shots From Days gone by (not car related) has over 20 million hits.
Televised car auctions that are spread out over several days and have expanded to multiple times a year from different locatons around the country.
The car culture is not dead or dying it's growing.
The first AG was great. AG2 is not worth the celluloid it was filmed on. A totally forgettable piece of junk.
Hey Bill, try it’s A Mad, Mad, Mad World next time.
I'm not against action-adventure movies, but I agree with you about most of them. Especially the modern flicks. There is still no substitute for a great plot and great acting. Multiple explosions, car chases, shoot-outs just become cartoonish in short order.
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