8/5/2005
NEVER MEANIN’ NO HARM
Dave Barry once said, “There are few joys as great as seeing a really good critic tee off on a really bad movie.” In that spirit, I recommend you go read Roger Ebert’s review of The Dukes of Hazzard.
Here is a lame-brained, outdated wheeze about a couple of good ol’ boys who roar around the back roads of the South in the General Lee, their beloved 1969 Dodge Charger. As it happens, I also drove a 1969 Dodge Charger. You could have told them apart because mine did not have a Confederate flag painted on the roof.
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Kenneth Turna blistered it on Mornign Edition today: “a film so meaningless that it is almost impossible to review…the movie is, “not empty calories, which implies pleasure, but simply empty. It’s a cosmic void where a movie ought to be.”
Comment by Harry — 8/5/2005 @ 8:56 am
OK, so she doesn’t know who Lance Armstrong is.
I saw the movie last night, opening night, at a drive-in east of St. Paul (close to the hometown of Seann William “Stifler/Bo Duke” Scott, BTW).
“Dukes” will always have a special place with me, because it was one of the few shows I can remember being watched and enjoyed together by three generations of men in my family. (I was born in ‘71; my two grandfathers died in ‘86 and ‘88.)
Colin Covert, a film critic for the Mpls. StarTribune, wrote in his review that - just like Ebert - he never had seen a single episode of the TV show.
From now on, I think I’m going to have to stop reading reviews of films based on TV shows from critics who claim never to have seen the show.
Because any critic who would wonder why there was a Confederate flag painted on top of the General Lee in this movie, probably wondered why the fashions and hairstyles sported by the lead characters in the “Brady Bunch” films were so out-of-date.
Best single line in the “Dukes” movie:
The Duke boys have conned a student chemist working at an Atlanta university (this is the scene where the Dukes get soot in their faces, as mentioned by Ebert).
Early during their con, they claim to be from Japan. They offer the student an opportunity to “work” at their Japanese facility. Then, as the Dukes are leaving, Bo turns back to the student and says:
“See you in Beijing!”
I don’t know, I laughed …
Comment by Paul — 8/6/2005 @ 9:13 am