Rios

Monday Movie night!
Bless me, for I have seen much in the past week. The trip to Portland was a successful one, not only in terms of the education I received, but for the uninterrupted viewing opportunities afforded one who had a hotel room above a bar that did not close until 12:30 am. What better way to spend my time than to finish Battlestar Gallactica, Season 2, 2.5 and Razor? Well, several of you could argue that there were a lot better ways to spend my time, but that water has gone under the bridge.
I earlier wrote about BG, Season 1, and especially its reliance on a lot of God/gods talk. I must say that the picture did not become incredibly clearer by the end of Season 2. Remember, in the artifice of the show, the majority of people - the state religion - is essentially Greek gods, or, what our world might have been without that pesky Jesus fellow. There is a religion planet, there are priestesses who tell of prophesies that are coming true. There is a come to Zeus moment when they finally find what could be earth and there are rocks with the "old gods" names, like Aries, Capricorn, Virgo etc. And so it looks like the Greeks/Romans win. But for the Cylons, who still maintain there is one true God.
These are the robots. Would I be right in being slightly offended? Robots believe in one true God, while the Greeks are right!? Okay, it is science fiction, he wrote nastilly...
But the movies I really want to review are Rio movies, two John Wayne flicks: Rio Bravo and Rio Grande; one is infinitely better than the other. Rio Bravo is a tight Western of the kind later popularized by Clint Eastwood - bad guys besiege a town, good guys rally and outwit bad guys with the help of a few good guns. The surprise in this one are the folks around the stately Wayne (boy, did he exude testosterone): Dean Martin playing a former alcoholic (there is a certain irony there in realizing that your reformed alcoholic character later became a byword for alcoholism. Surprisingly, Dino was awesome in this dramatic role); Ricky Nelson (young, hot gunslinger who can also carry a tune - he and Martin do a nifty duet); Walter Brennan (playing a high-pitched, pre-Red Neck red neck, with his famous limp that he would reprise for the rest of his career); and an incredibly fetching Angie Dickinson (she was already attractive in "Police Woman," when I saw her growing up in the 70s.
Rio Grande was less wonderful, with Wayne opposite Maureen O'Hara and lots of "injuns." That pretty much says it right there. This was more like the classic Wayne Horse Opera, with the highlights being fancy horse riding and crooning by the Sons of the Pioneers.
Pancaked in the middle was Jean Cocteau's Orpheus, which couldn't have been more different. This line was delivered straight:
Hortibeuse: Your wife is dead.
Orpheus: Are you jokng?
Hortibeuse: That would be a very strange joke.
Completely deadpan, but it made me laugh out loud!