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Posted by
zacharythax June 11, 2009 -
666 views
Sometimes I feel like a creature from another time, especially when I talk to younger people. For decades I never knew anybody who was younger than me. I was always the youngest. All my gang in the old stoner days was into these old shows like Star Trek, which was too talky and not enough monsters for me as a kid, and...
KUNG FU The late great David Carradine had no matrial arts training when he got the role in Kung Fu. But the show was so important because it bridged the early 70's gap between eastern religious cop out and
Clint Eastwood-esque standing up to bullies ass whuppin'.
Kwai Chaing Kane is a superhero who can kick any round-eye's ass, but he's quiet and humble and doesn't posture or stick his chest out. The plots are pretty easy to follow which has the effect of zen-like simplicity making this the kind of story especially adaptable to television. The music and visual style is right of EL TOPO but it's great because it tries to be a non-violent western that explores the true nature of power, which does not always necessarily come from the barrel of a gun.
Indeed it became what a lot of nerdy kids in the 70's wanted to be, while raised with hippie parents or older sibling and taught to be peaceful, not tough and then going to school where this morally high minded but rather naive world view comes slamming up against the realities of intimidation and cruelty. In other words, it would be great to kick the crap out of all these redneck jocks without turning into one of them.
NURSE JACKIE stars the marginally bonable Edie Falco who we all know from The #$@##% Sopranos and 30 Rock who snorts downs, bangs the pharmacist, knows more than the cocky young doctor and tells him off good after a patient dies and flushes a foreign diplomat's severed ear down the toilet after he stabs a girls and gets away scott-free. Lots of moral dilemmas and conflicts. Showtime's good at keeping it edgy. Plus it doesn't have a whole lot of laughs, but when a funny moment comes, it comes after a long buildup and its REALLY funny, which is a refreshing pace to black comedy.
Finally there's MENTAL about an unorthodox psychiatrist who first arrives to run a high-volume urban mental ward who takes off all his clothes to get a naked guy freaking out to trust him. Then the whole thing becomes like a detective story as they investigate this patient and find out his background and...well it's just not believable and the possible interesting angles are glossed over.
If you want a really good super-hard-boiled medical story read the novel BEAT THE REAPER (2009) which actually combines both martial arts, realistic medical drama, mobsters and Nazi death camps. Mike Hammer is a sissy pansy compared to the main character who starts out by using his medical knowledge to snap the joints of a would be mugger, pops pills during a brutal emergency room shift, goes on a mob hit, gets trapped in a shark tank, goes to jail and ends...well I don't want to spoil it for ya, dear reader but it's UNBELIEVABLE but so great you won't care.
