Wonkette
And you thought Wonkette was having a slow news day! Well Tim Graham of the conservative Media Research Center’s porn blog, Newsbusters, has been reading most newspaper obituaries of newly dead actor Patrick Swayze, for political blog material. But it all paid off when he reached paragraph 23 of the Washington Post’s version only to find JACKPOT JACKPOT JACKPOT. “Here’s a sign the Washington Post is a liberal newspaper,” Graham begins his post.
Here’s a sign the Washington Post is a liberal newspaper: today’s Adam Bernstein obituary for Patrick Swayze begins obviously by noting his big hits “Ghost” and “Dirty Dancing,” but doesn’t get to “Red Dawn” until paragraph 23. Even then, Bernstein wrongly suggests he had a supporting role…
“Red Dawn” was not a prestigious film, but it was a breakout lead role for Swayze, and a completely shocking product coming out of a Hollywood: a movie about American teens fighting a resistance against a Soviet invasion of the United States.
There are clearly no fortysomething Reaganites working in the Washington Post newsroom.
Tim Graham is a good writer.
WaPo Patrick Swayze Obit Gets to His Drag-Queen Movie Before ‘Red Dawn’ [Newsbusters via Washington Monthly]
Wolverines!!!!!!111!11
To Wong Foo is my second favorite movie of all time. I guess I has the Liberalz.
Here’s a sign the Washington Post is a liberal newspaper…
they hire neocons to pimp for as many wars as possible and fret when they sense the administration and the public does not share their enthusiasm.
The 60-something Reaganites are all in the Op-Ed room. The rest of the WaPo newsroom is SEETHING with Trotskyites!!1!
Ah, those were the days. Patrick Swayze drank deerblood and defeated the Mighty Nicaraguan Army and their Evil Russian Pupptmasters at the multiplex.
“I mean, Red Dawn was not what I’d call ‘good’ by any stretch of the imagination…but c’mon! It was easily as influential on the nation’s psyche as Robot Jox!”
Look it up.
Yeah, why would an obituary focus on more recent movies where Swayze was the lead and not the ones where he was part of an ensemble? Next you’ll be telling me most of the Michael Jackson coverage didn’t revolve around his days in the Jackson Five!
Graham is a real fucking Wolverine.
AVENGE ME!!!!
And we all remember those years when we ran the streets fighting the reds. Oh, that film was ahead of it’s time.
The WaPo Swayze Obituary was 23 paragraphs long?!? Wow. Actually I guess it was more than 23 unless the big concluding paragraph on his life was about “Red Dawn”, in which case Tim Grahams analysis is completely wrong.
Clearly the WaPo only considers movies worthwhile if others consider them worthwhile. That’s collective thinking, COMRADES!!!!!11!
He forgot the part where Red Dawn was piece of shit.
It’s bad enough that Swayze’s obit even mentioned that horror.
When Jack Nicholson dies, will we have to remember his role in “The Little Shop of Horrors”?
Now I know how they manage all their faux outrage: constant practice. I’m also surprised they didn’t mention Red Dawn first, but more because Swayze’s part in it represents the greatest military achievement by a Texan since losing the Alamo.
jesusbutter: You’re Julie Newmar, aren’t you?
Was “Red Dawn” a true story?
It’s difficult to go on with life now that History’s Greatest Actor has passed.
SayItWithWookies: Still too fictional…”Jed” was shown doing things far too fantastical for most Texans, like “thinking” and “planning”.
Patrick Swayze Movie Night at the C Street Townhouse on the Hill Tonight!!
7-9 p.m.: “Dirty Dancing”
9-11 p.m.: “Ghost”
11 p.m.-1 a.m.: “Red Dawn”
1-2 a.m.: Pin the Tail on Swayze Competition
Red Dawn was actually a metaphor for the communist infiltration of the U.S. via the Washington Post.
How does Skatetown USA fit into the American sociopolitical continuum???
loudmouthredhead: Win!
@Chain Tattoo: Yes, just like we will have to remember Clint Eastwood’s appearance in Revenge of the Creature from the Black Lagoon?
not that i didn’t love that movie. cuz, yeah, i always dreamt of hiding from the commies in the mountains. also–chicks in the floorboards man!
anywho, WaPo is librul. Obvs.
Gratuitous violence vs. a buncha “sissies.” Tough call, WaPo. Damned either way IMHO.
This is what happens when otherwise unemployable “writers” are given free rein and an open blog.
Technically, this is known as “reaching.” Or, just plain “stupid.” Or “d-u-m-m dumb.”
What a maroon.
Why do drag queens hate America?
Yeah, because NO other movies in the 1980s (except Rambo II, Rocky IV, Top Gun, and literally every other military movie) dealt with us killing commies in one form or another. Jesus Christ, Red Dawn was stupid then and stupid now.
thefrontpage: No no. You’re confusing it with Matthew Broderick’s magnum opus, “Wargames.”
Roger the Shrubber: No, Red Dawn was a metaphor for the actual takeover of our country by literal alien pod people. WAKE UP SHEEPLE.
Roger the Shrubber: Slumming at Wonkette again? Getting tired of the NewsBusters clusterfuck daisychain groupthink? Or is it that you just wanted to read comments that were actually clever?
loudmouthredhead: Meow.
I think the Libertarians / Ayn Rand-tards should be particularly miffed that the WaPo obit failed to mention Road House entirely. I mean, come on, its basically a remake of ‘The Fountainhead’ only instead of being about a super architect like Howard Roark, Swayze is a super bouncer named Dalton. And instead of designing soaring edifices emblematic of the individualist human spirit, he rips an individual’s throat out, liberating his spirit.
so tim has found a sign that wapo is liberal (like being in a forest and saying, “aha! i found a tree!”), but has left no sign that he has a thinking brain. sounds like a win-win situation.
I can’t get anything done at work because no one will return my calls, so I turned to Wonkette to ease my frustration, and now what with this story about Red Sucking Dawn and the people not going to South Carolina just because some guy from there thinks out loud, I now just want to go home and drink.
The New York Times, however, put Red Dawn into its proper chronological perspective, and recognized the significance of the role. Is that a sign that it’s a conservative newspaper, one wonders?
Ass-munch - Aspergers - Cheese Burgers - LOLcats - Thunder Cats - Thunderbirds - Puppets - Finger Puppets - Finger Hut - Useless Bullshit. I rest my case.
Tundra Grifter: Nah, I’m just trolling for crazy people.
Red Dawn? Give me a fucking break. That’s for fucking pussies.
WaPo’s fucking un US Amerikan! No mention of his great work in Uncommon Valor as a slightly wacked out son of an MIA who helps a rich Texan guy organize a rescue team of ‘Nam Vets led by Gene Hackman.
“Die YOU MUTHAFUCKERS!!!!!”*
*Not really ashamed he saw this on AMC last month.
Who could forget the bumper sticker “you can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hand” and then the camera pans back to the owners cold dead hand and a commie prying the gun from it.
Poetry, Wonketeers, absolutely visionary. My only regret is it wasn’t a documentary.
Tundra Grifter: Go on! Roger is serious?!
Poor man.
*shakes head*
ManchuCandidate: Uh, it’s mentioned in the same sentence as Red Dawn. Not that it wasn’t also an awesome movie.
loudmouthredhead: I took a sci-fi writing class with Joe Haldeman, way back in the day. He was writing the screenplay for Robot Jox, complaining the whole time. He said, “They want to call the movie Robo Jocks, but there’s no way they’re calling it that, if I’m writing the scrrenplay.” He was right: finally, they gave him a ‘t’. And added an ‘x’.
Formerly Preferred:
Er, that should read Newsbuster not Wapo.
If I recall correctly, Swayze wore a Nixon mask during the robberies in Point Break, the film WaPo noted in the 12th paragraph. Ergo, wingnutty media critique, FAIL.
Red Dawn sucked, but it was great in Dirty Dancing when Patrick Swayze screams at everyone about how awful the illegal abortion whats-her-name had to have. Probably his career highpoint, aside from taking it up the butt from Keanu Reeves in Point Break. In your face, conservatives!
SnarkNotFark: I’m no Rand-tard, but I was surprised that a lot of the obits didn’t mention Roadhouse since it has gained a cult following among bad movie fans.
Today, we are all Dead Patrick Swayze’s.
@lampadadog: Only if the NYT headline was “Swayze, Star of ‘Red Dawn’, Dies”. Otherwise, they’re still commies.
Wait a second, is this guy anti-capitalist or something? According to IMDB Too Wong Foo has made 36 million todate, Red Dawn only 8 million. By any true Randroid/Capitalist standard Too Wong Foo is by far the superior film. In fact it is almost precisely 4x as good.
I’m just trolling for crazy people.
That must save them some time. How much are they paying you?
I always thought that Red Dawn was a true story, thanks a lot for bursting my baloon, jackasses.
@widget09: It was. They had to disguise the role of Dick Cheney, though.
I just don’t know what to say about someone whose neurological pathways could take him from “Patrick Swayze died” to “The Washington Post is librul.” But I do love this, that there are conservatives who genuinely think “Red Dawn” is worthy of conservative pride on some *literal* level, and who are unable to recognize the film for what it is: a stunning masterpiece of kitsch probably rivaled only by “Showgirls.”
Nobody puts Baby in the 23rd paragraph!
OK, that’s the stupidest movie ever, in terms of being a supposedly realistic future with completely impossible stuff happening. The idea that Russian tanks could drive from Alaska, and Cubans could do some sort of attack up from Nicaragua and meet in the Midwest is about a billion percent less likely than the stuff that happens in The Wonder Twins.
But, assuming THAT COULD HAPPEN, the best thing about the movie was the commies complaining about running out of RPGs, because they used them all in the first reel to blow up school buses.
loudmouthredhead: Me liked the part where Jennifer Grey gets herself all blowed-up. I teared when she got deaded.
Chain Tattoo: When Jack Nicholson dies, will we have to remember his role in “The Little Shop of Horrors”?
Please. It will be ‘Ensign Pulver’ all the way.
thefrontpage: “1-2 a.m.: Pin the Tail on Swayze Competition”
Which of the C Streeters gets to play Swayze? Or do they take turns?
I know you all hate me. But I have to tell you, in any list of the “20 Greatest Mindless Trash Films Of All Time,” “Red Dawn” is going to be up there.
For example, top this kind of dialogue/screen writing:
Matt Eckert: *Tell me what’s the difference between us and them!*
Jed Eckert: Because WE *LIVE* HERE!
[kills Stepan; Robert kills Daryl]
And:
Col. Andy Tanner: …The Russians need to take us in one piece, and that’s why they’re here. That’s why they won’t use nukes anymore; and we won’t either, not on our own soil. The whole damn thing’s pretty conventional now. Who knows? Maybe next week will be swords.
Darryl Bates: What started it?
Col. Andy Tanner: I don’t know. Two toughest kids on the block, I guess. Sooner or later, they’re gonna fight.
Jed Eckert: That simple, is it?
Col. Andy Tanner: Or maybe somebody just forget what it was like.
Jed Eckert: …Well, who *is* on our side?
Col. Andy Tanner: Six hundred million screaming Chinamen.
Darryl Bates: Last I heard, there were a billion screaming Chinamen.
Col. Andy Tanner: There *were*.
[he throws whiskey on the fire; it ignites violently, suggesting a nuclear explosion]
And finally:
Darryl Bates: [he and the other Wolverines are gathering food, weapons and survival equipment from Robert Morris's father's store] And grab some toilet paper; I ain’t gonna use no leaves.
:::Sniff:::
I can’t type anymore, I’m getting all weepy.
Good bye, Patrick. And thank you.
WOLVERINESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!
And why no love for Point Break where Swayze proudly used his Second Amendment rights in the face of oppression from the Fascist government that wanted to take away his freedom to surf and rob banks.
Chain Tattoo: Was the plant a Commie and a Cuban? If so, yes.
Just look at the op-ed writers to see how liberal WaPo is. Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, George Will. All pinkos. Plus the way the paper fought against the idea of an Iraqi war was shocking.
Tundra Grifter: What? The Shrubber was serious about communists taking over America via the WaPo? That’s funny, BCZ I ROTFLMAO. (If there is truly a conservative amongst us, I assumed it would be best to communicate in twat language.)
SnarkNotFark: Win. Credit where credit is due.
:::Polite Golf Clap of Appreciation:::
Oh, well shot, sir! Well shot!
I’m confused. Swayze fought the Commies in “Red Dawn”, but was a drag queen in “To Woo Fong”. So was he a conservative or liberal — or a cross-dressing conservative?
Offering love for “Point Break.” Sigh.
Surf on, Bodhi, you Commie Librul Hindu-ish Buddhist bastard….
The great left-wing conspiracy is being imposed upon real America via Patrick Swayze’s Obit. Now there is a sentence I never though I’d type.
Is it too fucking early to get off the train to crazy town??
Hah! Graham can’t even count. “Red Dawn” is in graf 22!
Though it’s kind of ridiculous how short these grafs are– most of them just two or three sentences.
sagebrush: Patrick Swayze was the Rudy Giuliani of Hollywood.
dr.giraud: Listen, Jed ate, therefore he hunted.
This epic movie shaped the political learnin’s of comrade Sarah Heath while she was huffing copious amounts of Sharpie Markers while attending Hawaii University of Central Idaho Community College (Anchorage Annex).
“You crossed the line! People trusted you and they died! You gotta go down!”
And so it finally came to pass that Brodie did indeed go down, today, the fifteenth of September, two-thousand and nine.
Now Patrick Swayze can finally marry Farrah Fawcett - in heaven!
yes, a cold war movie coming out of hollywood in the 80s was, indeed, “completely shocking.” i mean, only about 90% of action films from that era were about the red threat.
Everyone seems to be forgetting “Heathers” about a horrible high school in Ohio (I’m sure)? Swayze as a psychopathic high schooler, killing obnoxious jocks and making it look like suicide? Who can forget the deputy sheriff at the cow-tipping/murder shouting “Look! Perrier! They must’ve been queers!”
WaPo is obviously liberal cuz they didn’t lead the Swayze obit with his role as a kiddie porn collector in Donnie Darko.
I liked the part where they were trapped in a mountain pass for the winter and became cannibals. Dawn, a carrot top, was the first one they ate, I think.
So that 60,000 man wing-nut march on Washington this past weekend was just a scene from the sequel “There’s a Red in the White house. He’s Black and we’re Blue.”
Carl Spakler: And yet Keanu Reeves still lives. There is no God.
zhubajie: Erm, are you serious? ‘Cause that was Christian Slater in “Heathers”.
DemmeFatale: Go to NewsBusters and read “The Shrubber Report.” You can track comments from “Roger the Shrubber.” He’s dead serious. And - like most of the fools there, unintentionally hilarious.
Leave a comment supporting President Obama on any blog, sit back and watch the right wingnutz boil over!
More fun that watching your girlfriend’s mom and pop fight.
DustBowlBlues: Another fascinating feature of comments on NewsBuster blogs. Random capital letters at the end of messages. I think it must be some sort of right wingnutz code. Or other dead language.
They can have my trucknutz when they pry them from my cold dead fingers.
I’m surprised they knew Swayze was even in Red Dawn. Most people can’t remember the names of the stars in pr0n they masturbate to.
LittlePig: You don’t know Jacks!
I’m sorry Wonkette. I DIDN’T MEAN IT. My girlfriend, she sleeps with other guys and I DIDN’T WANT TO DRINK BUT OH MY GOD!!!. The bus driver had it coming. SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE TREATED ME THAT WAY. Those people were speaking Spanish to me and I KNEW THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT MY BALLSACK. I can’t help having one ball. Although, guys, you should know that if you only have one ball it hangs in the middle. But you don’t know what it’s like to have a HEAD WOUND. Also.
The chair really is against the wall..
So,that means only three of the four Former Presidents are still alive, right?
loudmouthredhead: WE CAN BOTH LIVE!!!
I saw Dirty Dancing and Ghost - I’m pretty sure he was a GOPer in those- in Dirty dancing- working class guy whose dad gets him into the plumbers union- but unlike not-Joe not the Plumber- he doesn’t want to do that, GHost- major Wall street guy until killed(and as a ghost still gets involved in the money stuff). Or who the hell carea about politic metaphors
Neilist: For once I agree with you. “Red Dawn” is far and away one of the great bad movies of all time. It deserved a theatrical run consisting of nothing but midnight screenings in grindhouses.
I’m horrified to know it is being remade. And with Tom Cruise’s adopted son playing Daryl, no less.
sagebrush: “or a cross-dressing conservative?”
I’m not sure. Was his real name J. Edgar Hoover?
WadISay: They have names?
sezme: ” in heaven”
This totally unrelated, but wtf, it’s a slow news day. I give Xmas ornaments to all the kiddies at church–in December–and use a Catholic catalog because they have cheap, bulk rate ornaments. Sooo . . .
These two interesting tidbits, the second one related to the above quote. Did you know there are pull-apart or breakaway rosaries? “Perfect for Prison Ministries.” I guess so they can’t kill each other with them.
Second, they’ve got some crappy ornaments with text printed on them. One says, “Merry Christmas from Heaven.” It goes on to have a message from God, or something, but at first blush–doesn’t it sound like something from a dead person? I’m thinking about buying some, putting them in a special box in the Safety Deposit Box and instructing the heirs to open the box only my death. Then tie any pennies I’m able to leave them to their completion of this task: Distribute them to the kiddies at church. “Merry Xmas from Heaven, kids.” That could traumatize some child so completely, I could be creating little Jack the Rippers.
I do hope their parents don’t read wonkette.
When I first saw that I thought it said Jedi, not Jed. And the typeface looked a bit Star Wars like (but not as close as “Its a TARP”
Anyway, I’m drunk on duty free scotch and I smoked heavily (its the only way to celebrate Eid). More wasted commenting to come!
imissopus: “I’m horrified to know ["Red Dawn"] is being remade.”
Imissopus: Please, PLEASE tell me that you’re making a sick, twisted joke at my expense. PLEASE, FOR GOD’S SAKE.
I know I’m a asshole. But you don’t have to get THAT nasty to get even.
But if you’re telling the truth: That’s about the Stupidest Idea In Showbizness since the television series of “Casablanca,” starring (if that is proper term), David Soul as Rick Blaine:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084994/
[Hell. Just the memory of it caused me to start Projectile Vomiting.]
WOLVERINESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
“Yeah. That’s right. Infiltrators came up illegal from Mexico. Cubans mostly. They managed to infiltrate SAC bases in the Midwest, several down in Texas and wreaked a helluva lot of havoc, I’m here to tell you. They opened up the door down here, and the whole Cuban & Nicaraguan armies come walking right through, rolled right up here through the Great Plains.”
IT WAS FORETOLD BY JOHN MILIUS!
“A completely shocking product coming out of a Hollywood:”
Indeed, a Cold War masturbation fantasy coming out during the height of the Reagan era was quite the shock of my young life. Ever since I was 12 years old, my hair has been white as the driven snow.
Here’s a sign that Tim Graham is a Cheeto-dicked clowntard.
hobospacejunkie: That’s how I’ll always remember Patrick…
iantenna: Oh, sorry! I didn’t notice that seat was taken.
Something about this thread reminded me of the old borscht belt movie joke that ends, “I’m not sure what it is, but it’s eating my popcorn.”
Neilist: Try to be strong: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234719/
Hey, if WaPo is liberal, does that mean they can fire all those frothingatthemouth, unfactchecked right wingers they have as columnists?
I also love how it the other main point about the movie (how totally sucky it is to live under occupation and how crazy people will get to toss out the invaders) completely sails over a rightee’s head.
Ironically this guy’s not getting even 1/10th media coverage, than that gloved kiddy fiddler…though being atleast 10 times more talented…R.I.P. buddy…
CaiteeCruelle: Both of them.
Darkness: Yep. None of them can imagine some Iraqi saying to his friend, “Because we *LIVE* here!”?
Oh, the irony.
The most vitriol I ever received was over a YouTube comment, in a nest of ‘wingers, when I said something like “You guys aren’t the Wolverines. The *Iraqis* are the Wolverines!”
Apparently, I blasphemed.
In the words of his character from Roadhouse, “Pain don’t hurt… but reading the thoughts of a reactionary media critic shithead sure does.”
zhubajie: that wasnt patrick swazye that was what’s his name …the one who looks like nicloson and had his spy series c anceled. oh yeah christian slater.
“And three, be nice.”
I still say “Road House” was Patrick’s best work.
is it wrong that I’m only thinking of Patrick Swayze in Road House..you know for the gratious Buns of steel shot. And Remember all the controversy with his swimming pool pic the one the enquirer or was it People Magazine that swore you could see his penis tipping over the edge of his speedo..and he said it was just a string?
And yeah To Wong Foo Was a good movie…but was it me or did he just look like Deidre Hall
Neilist: Where is “Killer Klowns From Outer Space” on your list?
I’m proud to say my avatar is an unused still from Red Dawn that shows Commies posing for a picture beneath the Golden Arches. Red Dawn summed up the Cold War perfectly in 114 minutes (thanks IMDb!). The Russians and Spanish-speaking Commies would parachute into your school and massacre your history teacher before your very eyes. Then, you’d head for the mountains to wait it out, but you become terrorists/insurgents/freedom fighters against the occupying foreigners when they start killing your family and townspeople. Come to think of it, it also sums up a couple of conflicts we’re involved in — except Americans are playing the role of the Commies. Man was that movie ahead of its time!
iolanthe: I made the exact same comparison on my blog several years ago. The irony never seems to impress wingnuts I talk to. I still want the Farsi remake rights to the movie.
Chain Tattoo: When Jack Nicholson dies, his WaPo obituary will appear under a still of him as POTUS in “Mars Attacks!!!” Any mention of “Little Shop of Horrors” will have to wait until at least the 20th paragraph (but it will be welcome just the same).
“Red Dawn” is being remade as a musical, starring Tommy Tune, Nathan Lane, Harvey Fierstein, Anne Heche, Rosie O’Donnell, Clay Aiken, Ellen DeGeneres, John Goodman, Jean Claude Von Damme, Steven Segal, Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, and Chuck Norris. The book and score are by Elton John and Tim Rice. The film is being directed by Roger Moore.
I thought his best role was in Donnie Darko. Seems to go with the Republican theme…
Wasn’t Red Dawn a comedy? I know I laughed.