| 3/8/06 - The Brokeback Kid (Spoof) |
The night overall was a pretty big snooze; no real surprises, no political outbursts or insanely hideous gowns. The most entertaining part of the show came at the very beginning, with a film clips montage that showed scenes from classic Westerns, all cut in such a way as to be homosexually suggestive (and wow, were they ever!). Very funny indeed, but they forgot an obvious addition: The Frisco Kid! Background: as most big Ford fans know, Harrison portrayed a homosexual character once, in The Conversation (1974), (although my money for most obviously gay was always on the mime, played by Richard Shields of, yes, “Shields and Yarnell” fame). However, Ford’s character, Martin Stett, the executive assistant to the sinister “Director” (Robert Duvall), wasn’t written as a homosexual; he’s only so because Ford decided it’d add more to the character if he played him gay (these were the lean days when Ford was fighting for any little twist or nuance he could inject into a role). Probably the only clear hint of gay is Stett’s words to Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), who discovers Stett following him at a trade show, “I'm not following you, I'm looking for you.” So, that is the grand extent of Ford’s “experimental” side when it comes to gay characters. But… then there’s The Frisco Kid, the touching story of two cowboys… OK, a cowboy and a rabbi… yeah, OK, a two-bit robber who dresses like a cowboy and a rabbi who kinda dresses like one from the neck down (and they both ride horses, ha!). They spend a lot of time together up in the wilderness, searching… yearning… OK, searching and yearning for San Francisco, where the rabbi is going to head up a synagogue. But they’re searching and yearning, that’s the point, and they sure found a way to make the time pass up there... |
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| There are tender moments along the way… |
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| And when they reach California, they have their own special celebration: Swear I didn't know we were gonna get into this again. Hell, yes I did, redlined it all the way, couldn't get here fast enough. |
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| I figure we got a one-shot deal going on here. It's nobody's business but ours. |
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| Ya know, it can be like this... just like this... always. |
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| Humbly submitted to Gil Cates (and in case anyone is confused or wondering: this is defintely a spoof, please regard it in such spirit!). |
| 3/1/06 - Own a Not-Quite-Wax Piece of Hollywood History! |
I never made it into the Hollywood Wax Museum before it closed, having always been lured by the siren call of Musso & Frank’s every time I ventured down to Hollywood Blvd. ($8.95 for admission to the museum vs. $8.25 for a heavenly Tanqueray and tonic made by Manny or Ruben = no contest). However, I’ve got the real lowdown on the place, and the figures they’re selling off, from this awesome guidebook: L.A. Bizarro! by Anthony R. Lovett and Matt Maranian (1997, St. Martin’s Press). Some excerpts that show you why it’s buyer beware when considering bringing “wax” Harrison home:
The book continues to outline the hilarious features of the figures, including what “separates the men from the boys” (discovered by pulling down Michael J. Fox’s figure’s pants): a wad of tinfoil securely held in place with several pieces of duct tape. The authors also make the intriguing point that “of all the celebrities on display, only three of them were deemed prominent enough to be featured in the museum twice: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jesus.” Indeed! UPDATE: If you live in the Los Angeles area and you really don't have anything else to do, they're having an auction preview March 4 in Buena Park: follow this link for more information. |
| 2/14/06 - Yeehaw, The Frisco Kid is out on DVD |
Despite what’s depicted on the DVD cover, Gene Wilder stars as Avram Belinski, a new rabbi dispatched from Poland to America to head up a synagogue in San Francisco. While making the arduous (and treacherous) journey across America, Avram is befriended by two-bit train and bank robber Tommy Lillard (Ford). Tommy is reluctantly drawn into guiding Avram across country, and the film focuses on their burgeoning friendship and the trials they face as they make their way to San Francisco. While this film can’t compare to Wilder’s classic 1970s comedies with Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein), it is still a sweet little fish-out-of-water buddy comedy with a lot of gentle humor. And it has a few scenes that, while probably not meant to be homoerotic, are probably the closest thing to Brokeback Mountain moments that Ford will ever have on screen. (We’ll screen cap some of these when our DVD arrives… that stuff on the beach is grabby, all’s I’m sayin’!) The film was directed by Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen), and the role of Tommy Lillard was originally meant for John Wayne, who wanted to play the part but balked at the low salary the producer’s offered. According to producer Mace Neufeld (who would later produce the Jack Ryan movies, including the two starring Ford), Aldrich was bitterly disappointed about losing Wayne, and was less than thrilled with his replacement (Ford). Never mind the controversy – it’s a very fun movie and I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t seen it to rent the DVD! |
| 2/12/06 - Live by the box office, die by the box office... |
This points to a serious problem for Ford: he has allowed his career to be defined by his box office success, and what goes up inevitably comes down. Because of this narrow definition of his contribution of star power to a project, his box office failures are assigned to him as an actor. If the film he stars in fails, then he has failed. It wasn’t always this way. In the early 1980s, Ford’s career was defined by the two blockbuster movie series he starred in – the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. Starting with Witness, Ford and his team made a concerted and successful effort to take control of that definition, steering away from discussion of his involvement in Spielberg and Lucas films and onto the quality of films and diversity of roles that Ford was doing. However, around 1997 and following the disappointing response to both Sabrina and The Devil’s Own, Team Ford started talking up the box office success angle over the quality/diversity angle, partly to promote the popcorn thriller Air Force One and partly as a response to the times: Jim Carrey had been given a record $20 million salary for The Cable Guy and everyone in Hollywood started talking salary. It started floating around that Ford was getting that $20 million salary too, and that he deserved it because of his history of boffo box office. Talk show intros, magazine profiles, and interviews with Ford switched focus from the talent of the actor to the crunching of numbers: more films among the top 20 highest grossing than any other actor, films that have earned a combined X billion at the box office worldwide, an actor who makes $20 million per film, etc., etc. Well, that worked for the summer of 1997, and the crowd-pleasing Air Force One backed up the argument (although it was really the concept that sold Air Force One; I can think of several peers of Ford’s who could have had the same success with that role). But it cuts both ways, and since he allowed that definition to be made that links him directly to the success of his movies, then he is also linked to the failure of his movies. And that is a terrible burden on his career as he negotiates through his 60s. If I could sit Ford down and have a chat about his career, there are three pieces of advice I would offer him: First: Stop defining your career, and allowing the media and others to define your career, in terms of box office success. Take the steps you need to bring the focus of your career back to the quality of the film projects you choose and the diversity of roles you play. Box office numbers do not reflect the quality of a film, and certainly not the worth of the actor. Your reliance on your box office to define your success takes a middling to poor box office for a film like Firewall and directly links that to your career – Firewall’s box office shows that Harrison Ford can no longer sell a movie. That isn’t fair, but as long as you sell yourself as a box office draw rather than a quality actor, that’s what the Hollywood pundits will say. Second: Forget your instincts for what the audience wants… you no longer have that gift. More accurately, you still have the instincts you’ve always had, but the audience has changed dramatically since the days when you really could connect with them, back in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. The under-30 set drives the box office today, and advances in home theater and the shortening of the window between a theatrical release and the DVD release means that it’s easier for those of us in the 30+ crowd to say “I’ll wait for the DVD”. You aren’t going to draw the kids into the theater, and the adults want to see good, quality films with compelling stories and complex characters. When choosing a film project or working on a script, focus instead on your instincts of what you feel makes a quality, compelling story. Make movies that you feel are good, that you want to do for you. Your instinct for quality is still there… trust in that and let the box office chips fall where they may (and lower your salary for goodness sakes!). I recently watched you laud George Clooney and Good Night, and Good Luck to Charlie Rose. Clooney didn’t make that movie for the audience (although happily the film found its audience; a great film tends to find a way) – he did it because it was a quality story that he felt a burning need to tell. Focus on the story. The best news I heard come out of all of the press for Firewall: your revelation that you are actively developing projects for yourself. About time! Focus on the story, and focus on quality! And last: Get back in touch with your craft. In the 1980s you would correct people who called you a movie star – I’m not a movie star, I’m an actor and a storyteller. I don’t know what a movie star does. You haven’t been too critically rewarded for your work, but that doesn’t mean you should give up and give into the movie star trap. When talking about woodworking a few years back, you admitted that if you don’t keep up with those skills, you lose them. Well, with 2½ years between Hollywood Homicide and Firewall, your acting skills might be getting a bit rusty. You’re in real danger of becoming a caricature of yourself, a trap that has captured many a great actor (Pacino and De Niro jump immediately to mind). You don’t want to become Harrison Ford on screen, you want to become the role. Your acting reputation in Hollywood must be suffering a bit when a character basically written with you in mind isn’t even offered to you (The Da Vinci Code), nor are you offered the role of a character widely rumored to be based on you (Lost in Translation). Sir Anthony Hopkins pops up as a guest teacher at an acting class in Santa Monica once a month – in an interview about this he admitted he learns as much about acting through this experience as the lucky acting students he coaches. And two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank has talked about working with her acting coach to nail down her characters… with quite amazing results, I’d say. Take an acting class, or give an acting class. Hire an acting coach. Heck, get Calista to go over lines with you and talk about your performance. Just sharpen up those acting skills and get back in touch with why you fell in love with acting in the first place. A renewed enthusiasm for your craft and profession will definitely show up on the silver screen. |
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Last Sunday marked with 78th annual Academy Awards, and officially drew to a close the Hollywood awards season as well as the "year of the gay cowboy." Brokeback Mountain and its controversial tale of forbidden love among the rugged American icon set dominated much of the talk this past awards season, although it lost out on the big prize of best motion picture of the year to the equally controversial (though more popularly accessible) Crash. 
I saw this on the morning news this morning but was surprised to see it pop up on Ebay so soon: the collection of wax figures and memorabilia from the Hollywood Wax Museum, which closed last year and was located on Hollywood Blvd. right by the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum, is up for sale! And Harrison’s figure is already up on 
A favorite of the ford-jones.com team, The Frisco Kid, has been released on DVD for the first time today. Released in theaters in the summer of 1979, this is one of the few flat-out comedies that Harrison Ford has to his credit, and while it’s certainly not a classic, it is a highly enjoyable little comedy that takes advantage of the looser, more light-hearted approach to acting that Ford had back in the 1970s.
Firewall opened this weekend to mostly dismal reviews and a definitely dismal box office, placing fourth behind the other three major film’s released February 10 (source: Associated Press):
