Europeans…

… are these guys cooler than us? There is a trend developing that everyone thinks Europeans are better than Americans. I understand that the Euro actually has value, they have “free healthcare”, the get to take naps every day, they get to wear capris, and Eric Levine doesn’t live there. I still think we are better.

First, David Hasselhoff is popular in Europe. I think I read that that guy was like #1 on the European charts for a while. No matter how shitty Americans can be, at least we all know that that guy sucks bad.

Second, Melissa knows this European guy, and he eats sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner – and claims that that is normal in Europe. I like a good sandbo as much as the next guy, but that’s kind of wierd, isn’t it?

Third, from what I can tell, there arn’t very many skyscrapers in Europe.

Fourth, all good movies are made in America. I haven’t actually seen any foreign films, but it seems like they suck.

Fifth, I read in a history textbook once that one of the reasons we were successful in the Revolutionary war is that Americans are actually significantly bigger/more powerful than English people. I think we all respect the fact that power=cool? Greenberg?

Sixth, I believe www.beasttube.com was created in America.

I am a pretty generic American guy, and I am pretty sure that I am quite a bit sweeter than a generic piece of European trash.

Corey – feel free to make your post right on top of mine b/c I don’t know if this one is really going anywhere.

Easy Rider

 

(Hopper, Fonda, Nicholson)

Easy Rider (1969)

I have been meaning to watch this movie for awhile and I finally did last weekend. If you’ve seen it then you’ll agree it is the classic road movie. Dennis Hopper produced and wrote the movie with Peter Fonda, who directed it. Basically the movie films them in a series of towns visited in between road trippin interludes with classic 60’s music.

 

The plot is that Dennis Hopper’s character Billy (a crazy hippie) and his friend he calls ‘Captain America’(Peter Fonda) smuggle drugs from Mexico, sell them once they are back in the US, and head to Florida (via Mardi Gras) to retire. They pick up Jack Nicholson along the way who delivers what turned out to be his career break out role. Unfortunately the movie ends before they make it all the way to Florida. Without giving anything away I will just say that the thesis of the movie is that red-necks are pieces of shit, which I whole-heartedly agree with.

 

I was talking about how much I liked Dennis Hopper the other day to Kevin, who said that he can only remember him as the bad guy in Speed. Though I couldn’t argue with him at the time, a little more research confirms what I expected. His work is bad ass – see:

 

Rebel Without a Cause, Cool Hand Luke, Apocalypse Now, some low budget Neil Young film, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Waterworld, and he read for the Gorillaz last album Demon Days on a little track called “Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head”

 

I can only conclude that Dennis Hopper is my favorite actor and I’m not sure what took me so long to realize this. Of course, this takes the spot away from current placeholder Edward Norton, who reigned there for about 8 years, but has been somewhat disappointing as of late. Seriously he goes from American History X and Fight Club, to what, The Illusionist. No thanks. Not that Dennis Hopper’s Ameriprise Financial commercials have been kicking that much ass lately, but still, I don’t feel like his body of work gets enough credit.