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A Wasted Old Fartknocker

posted 22 years ago by trafficwastedfilm
2 replies | jump to latest

I have a sad announcement to make. An unsettling fact has been brought to my attention and I must, even though I hate to do so, disclose the following statement:

HARRISON FORD HAS BECOME A WASTED OLD FARTKNOCKER.

Alas, I know. It is hard to believe. Many of you are gasping in shock and surprise. How can this revelation be true? Han Solo? Indiana Jones? A wasted old fartknocker? Noooooooo!

I too was not a believer. I turned my eyes away and pretended not to see when I saw his pasty, sagging image in the audience at the Academy Awards this year. I hoped it was only the comparison to his skeletal companion Calista “Get Her a Hamburger” Flockhart that the man of action looked so antiqued. And the occasional shot of him in the tabloids? Hah, we all know those are tainted with airbrushes in Adobe. Harrison Ford – the legend – couldn’t possibly be so worn out and run down that he resembles a pair of Gramma’s sagging knee highs!

But then I watched it. The recent DVD release – K-19: The Widowmaker (2002). The first Ford movie made that even resembled an action film since he made Air Force One (1997). And Chewie, I was very, very disappointed. What has happened to this man!?! The number of people he shot, punched, bullwhipped or told to "Get off his submarine" in this movie? Zero. Zip. Nada. Instead he bumbled around the sets trying to look stern and spewed lines in a horrible fricking Russian accent!

Which leads me to another side point – why do filmmakers insist on having actors do lame accents for no reason? In K-19, the guys are all Russian and hence would normally be speaking in Russian – right? At no point would the guys be speaking in English with Russian accents! I hate that *beep*. As I see it, if you’re going to do a film with people who would in reality be speaking in a language other than English, you got two choices – have the actors actually SPEAK the other language (i.e. Russian) and do subtitles OR have the guys all speak normal English and spare us the bad attempts at sounding worldly. Really - although Hollywood thinks the audiences are filled with morons, we’re really quite astute and can figure out that the actors in the Russian uniforms on the Russian submarine are, in fact, Russian! Trust me!

Back to Harrison Ford. Sure, sure, so the guy’s getting ready to turn sixty-one. Fine. I say - time to kick back and enjoy all the good things you’ve earned in life. But don’t go making stupid movies! Think about it – is this really the way we want to remember that cool as hell dude from American Graffiti (1973)? Hell no. Do we want to remember Ford as some pasty old geriatric who’s not got the sense to stop making lame romantic films called things like Random Hearts (1999)? Please STOP! The only good news is that Ford’s next film is an action-comedy where he plays a tired, old cop. Hollywood Homicide (2003). Could work. The bad news is he’s also penciled in to do a “thriller” in 2004 called A Walk Among the Tombstones. A thriller? Right. That will depend on if he does the scenes with or without the walker. Hey, at least the title seems appropriate.

~Traffic
www.wastedfilm.com

[–] TheDoobster 22 years ago

It's actually pretty sad. He is starting to look REALLY old.

:-/

We ignore the ones who adore us, and adore the ones who ignore us.

[–] archer1949 22 years ago

I must take exception to at least one aspect of your (overall) rather accurate assessment of Ford's career. Your curt dissmssal of Walk Among the Tombstones as a last ditch effort on Ford's part to regain what he once had. I respectfully disagree.

As someone familiar with the source material (a kickass novel by Lawrence Block) I think that, if done write A Walk Among the Tombstones can be perfect for thsi stage in his career. The role calls for a busted down late-middle aged guy way past his prime. If he's smart, he will fight for this role with everything he has. It's perfect for him.