Starring Dick Van Dyke and written and directed by Norman Lear, 1971's Cold Turkey is one of my top 10 favorite comedies of all time. Cast with practically every comedy/character actor from the early seventies, this overlooked classic satire has been playing on SHOWTIME the last couple of weeks. I remember seeing it for the first time as a young kid and I loved it even then.***Spoiler Alert***
I even laughed when the dog got kicked!
Recently TRIED to watch Hairspray, the movie of the musical of the movie. What the fuck was John Travolta thinking? Supposedly he was affecting a Baltimore accent to play the character of Edna Turnblad. He actually sounded 1/2 southern and 1/2 retarded. Millicent, my faithful researcher, tells me that Travolta insisted on going that way with the character, much to the dismay of everybody involved. I mean, nobody else in the movie bothered to use a phony accent. Nobody on HBO's The Wire, a show set in Baltimore and noted for its realism, tried to sound like a local. This is just more proof that Travolta is completely unhinged and a self-obsessed moron.
Like The Big Lebowski, Showtime has been playing Quiz Show for the last several weeks and I can't tear away from it when it's on. Along with My Favorite Year, Quiz Show is my favorite movie set in the 50s, a time when America was losing an innocence it never really had.
