Dennis Quaid and the "Tim Riggins" Type

Remember when Dennis Quaid played f***up former high school football star "Mike" in Best Picture nominee Breaking Away (1979)? [What a vintage crop, eh? Breaking Away, Kramer Vs. Kramer (write-up), Apocalypse Now (write-up), All That Jazz (write-up) and Norma Rae? Love that Oscar year.] Or, depending on when you were born, do you remember when you first saw him doing so? Erik Lundegaard does and wrote up a sweet tribute to the film yesterday.

Dennis Quaid in Breaking Away. He turned 25 shortly before the movie opened.

Erik describes Mike aptly as "a Springsteen character without the guts" and uses Mike's own words to further the point

You know what really gets me, though? I mean here I am, I gotta live in this stinkin’ town, and I gotta read in the newspapers about some hot-shot kid, new star of the college team. Every year it’s gonna be a new one. And every year it’s never gonna be me. I’m just gonna be Mike. Twenty-year-old Mike. Thirty-year-old Mike. Ol’ mean ol’ man Mike! These college kids out here are never gonna get old, or out of shape, cause new ones come along every year.

Mike is too gutless to stop the downward slide and knows it. He's tragically aware that his glory days are behind him and he's only 19. Dennis's best days, on the other hand, had just begun. This was only his sixth feature and first memorable breakthrough.


People often uncharitably view older stars as "has beens" -- I'm not saying people say this about DQ mind you. What do they say about him? -- but if you were working when you were in your early twenties and you're still working consistently in your mid fifties, this is a resounding success story for any actor, whether they're above the title or way down on the call sheet. It's a tough life and the odds are against success.

But back to Breaking Away... and Friday Night Lights (?)

Wasn't Quaid's Mike essentially Tim Riggins before there was a Tim Riggins? Or at least from the same character gene pool. Mike has more of a chipped shoulder and less of a golden heart.


Character intros: "Mike", former football star, is introduced singing, leisurely leading his friends to an afternoon swim in Breaking Away. He's all about killing time, responsibility is not a priority. "Tim Riggins", current football star, is introduced in the Friday Night Lights pilot, drunk and sleepy-eyed. Getting to football practice on time is not a priority.

Yes, this post has also been brought to you by last night's season finale of Friday Night Lights which was just marvelous. Speaking of FNL and Tim Riggins, can Taylor Kitsch, who came to fame playing him (coincidentally, like Quaid, just as he was turning 25), manage a movie career after Friday Night Lights? That's the plan. Dennis Quaid wouldn't be a bad role model at all in building an enduring big screen resume. And that's true not just for Kitsch, who is 29 now, but true for any other young actor who excels at aimless bad boys, charming devils and/or All American types approaching personal crises.

Kitsch has made six movies already but he'll get his first real shot at big screen stardom when John Carter of Mars, his seventh, opens in 2012. He's already done filming but the post-production will be long on that one.

<-- Dennis seen prepping for his role in Soul Surfer earlier this year

Dennis will next be seen (presumably) at the Emmy Awards on August 21st. He's nominated for playing Bill Clinton in the TV film That Special Relationship. Next year we'll see him as the dad of a shark attack survivor in Soul Surfer and (possibly?) in the bible-thumping John Lithgow role in the remake of Footloose (2011).
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John Carter of Mars. Dustin Lance Black of California

Today's one-post-that-really-ought-to-be-two-posts's theme is gratuitous nudity.


Let's start with John Carter of Mars. My disappointment that the film would not be a Pixar animated effort (I was quite excited at the prospect of a 'toon that wasn't for little children and for Pixar to spread their current excellence into other genres) has been somewhat tempered knowing that Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) will be trying his hand at live action (interesting). I like Taylor Kitsch who'll be playing the titular role. Anybody who watches Friday Night Lights knows that there's a nice unforced depth to his acting that you couldn't really see in his cameo in Wolverine. Lynn Collins (also from Wolverine) will play his eventual betrothed Dejah Thoris. Coming Soon reports that Thomas Haden Church may be appearing in the film as well. Since the role is supposed to be very dramatic and Church is a "name" I'm assuming we're talking about a substantial role. Maybe it's Tars Tarkas, the four armed martian warrior who begins the narrative as John's enemy only to become his ally. We're early in pre-production still.

In most depictions of this famous pulp series both John Carter and Dejah are nude or wearing itty bitty teeny weeny strips of cloth. Now, I'm no master swordsman but I feel very safe in stating that it's probably not a good idea to sword fight naked. Only try that if you're a quasi immortal like John Carter. In the book when John Carter first arrives in Mars (transported mysteriously from the Civil War era south) he's completely starkers. One expects that the movie will find a way to cover the hero up throughout, Hollywood cameras being so frightened of nudity, even when the bodies they're looking at are as perfectly sculpted as Kitsch's.

Speaking of perfectly sculpted gratuitous nudity...

As you may have heard elsewhere on the net this weekend, a certain famous "hated" blog posted explicit pictures of Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black (Milk) that were taken in 2006. As one might expect a round of hypocritical judgments and holier than thou proclamations could be heard 'round the net. You see this reaction all the time: bad workplace decisions, bad parenting decisions, bad financial decisions, you name it... any mistake that is or becomes public is followed by faux horror and "what was he/she thinking?!?" as if the chorus of naysayers had never themselves and would never themselves experience a similar lapse in judgment or (in this case) experience a betrayal from a former friend.

I was disheartened to read the judgments... People were even putting Black's activist heroics in the past tense! Do people really think that gay marriage advocacy can't be performed by a person who has sex (GASP! and: um...who doesn't?). So I was happy to read on Pink is the New Blog that Dustin was honored this weekend in California for something else entirely and seems to be handling this invasion of privacy like a pro i.e. apologizing for the right detail and ignoring the rest. Well done. Move on.

P.S. First Diablo Cody and now Dustin Lance Black... since when do Oscar winning screenwriters become celebrities in their own right? And now it's happened in back to back years. Weird, that.

I Missed Nicole! And Other Festival Stumbles

Nashville Film Festival ~ Day 2
Began the day with the Inuit drama Before Tomorrow and fantastical optimism. Basically I was expecting another Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner. Atanarjuat, one should know, is nearly impossible to repeat. Followed that with a tiny indie called Mothers & Daughters (so tiny it doesn't have an IMDB page) which... I hesitate to talk about. It was so in love with its actresses that I imagine it would be the type of movie I would make (warts and all) if someone handed me production equipment and several eager actresses eager to chew on scenery. Not that anyone should hand me those.

<--- You'd probably be more interested to hear that it was preceded by a short called Water Pills which starred none other than Winona Ryder. She played a shaky sweating desperate hot mess of a former actress / addict. Um... ouch. She attacked the role so aggressively that I kept thinking she was going for a deglam Oscar. Apparently nobody had the heart to tell her that it was only a short film and you can't win gold for those.

That said, Noni fared better in front of the camera than other big 90s stars did behind it... but more on Demi Moore and Courtney Cox later.

Nashville Film Festival ~ Day 3
Finished jury discussions/ selections today (must keep private until the reveal closing night) so for the rest of the fest I'm off the hook for official duties. Now it's just about seeing movies and trying to spot celebrities. Today there was a lot of excitement on the red carpet but I didn't recognize most of the people causing the rubbernecking. You'd be safe to assume that that's because I know zilch about country music and this is Nashville. The only country stars I'd recognize are those who've married A list actresses (i.e. Chesney & Urban), tried their hand at acting (Reba, Mr & Mrs. McGraw-Hill) or played themselves in movies I'm obsessed with (I do not ♥ Shania Twain but I sure do ♥ Huckabees)

Giancarlo Esposito and Dominique Swain working the crowds

Nick and I did speak briefly with Giancarlo Esposito in the VIP tent after the screening of his directorial debut Gospel Hill. I told him I was thrilled to see Angela Bassett again -- we don't see her enough -- and he said that he was glad to have finally met her through this movie (they didn't know each other before? Or maybe he said he was finally able to work with her through this movie. It was noisy in there). The movie is loaded with celebrities as first films from known actors tend to be. The Bassett but also: Taylor Kitsch, Danny Glover, Nia Long, Samuel L Jackson, Adam Baldwin. Julia Stiles also appeared working her absolutely favorite miniscule niche: down white girl in interracial dramas. It's more niche than Jodie Foster in tight spaces.

A few minutes after meeting Giancarlo I learned that ♥Nicole Kidman♥ was in the building! If you must know, she and Keith were attending the premiere of the documentary Prodigal Sons in the next theater while I was watching Gospel Hill (so close and yet so far!). They chased it with Antonio Campos' Afterschool (which I saw at NYFF last year). I waited in vain for her to come out of the latter but she was too sneaky. Secret exit! I should have known. Basically I have zero in the way of stalking skills. I love my favorites but I'm mostly content to do so virtually and from afar.
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Stone Cold Linker

Silver Screen
The Big Picture still waiting on the (nonexistent) trailer for Avatar.
Do You Have a Flag? remembers The Virgin Suicides. Mmm, pretty pictures.
Big Screen Little Screen Melissa Leo going back to series television.
MNPP James Franco (I nearly spit out my coffee. LOL)
Getty Should Julia Roberts get a restraining order?


Film Addict remembers Ruth Chatterton in Dodsworth. Dodsworth is one of my all time favorites. For some reason I have yet to surmount my block about writing it up.
/Film is Skarsgård picking up Thor's hammer? And do we need a Thor movie? Remember how that little girl in Adventures in Babysitting was obsessed with the Norse god and how totally random and weird that was?
Oscar and the City reveals his "most anticipated performances" list.
The Inciting Incident How cool must it be to be a Pixar intern? I imagine very.
Disney Blog Seems The Princess and the Frog is doing a limited Thanksgiving wide mid- December release so favored by live action prestige pictures. Curious.

Precious Box
Towleroad Apparently Taylor Kitsch is sick of providing beefcake for Friday Night Lights (Not to worry. Riggins is about to graduate and become "Gambit")
EW Friday Night Lights might get a 4th and 5th season. If it comes to pass I will explode with happines. Quick show of hands in the comments please. How many of you watch it? And if you do, how much do you love Connie Britton? So EMMY worthy! Between ignoring both her and the women of Galactica for years it's quite possible that EMMY voters officially have the worst taste in actresses of any organization that's ever existed. They'll have another chance to fix this in July, but they love to repeat their mistakes.
LA Times I never thought I'd be linking to an American Idol piece again (I've been over that show since as long as I can remember) but this is a fairly interesting piece about the show's deep homophobia and racial comformity issues. They'll never have to correct any of their sins against society (i.e. their devoted audience) with the ratings they get, though. Sad but true.