Let’s go to Luckenbach, Texas. The movie.
The song Waylon Jennings sang back in the 70s about “Let’s go to Luckenbach, Texas” might not be the best premise for a movie. But considering how Hollywood has gone into considerable retread mode, it seems like any idea not relatively fresh might work as the new blockbuster.
I am certain what passes for screenwriters these days could transform something stellar out of the whole concept of getting back “to the basics of life.” (Is Ned Beatty still alive? If so, maybe we can see a new ‘Deliverance.’) For that matter, some screenwriter on autopilot could probably make a major motion picture out of the crappy photo above I took back on a mild January day in Luckenbach.
Is the motion picture industry, and the television industry for that matter, afraid of coming up with some film that might not be a rehash of a 70s television show like “The Dukes of Hazard” or some rehash of a movie such as “The Longest Yard?”
Why things have gone to seed so badly, television is having to rely on REALITY. Yikes. You remember the old saying: Reality is for those people who can’t handle drugs? Reality, for Christ sakes! People are competing against each other to see how obnoxious their realities really are and it really sucks.
With the fixation that everything past is better than present, I think I am going to go back and re-read all of my old books. Maybe I’ll finally tackle that 700-page Merck surgical manual I bought at a flea market. I think it was written when good health care consisted of being bled by leeches. Who knows, maybe medicine will go retro and we can go to doctors for the price of a good hen.
Certainly there is nothing wrong with the past. I happen to like reading about it. It’s called history. And we all know the gems of literature and performance arts from bygone days. But, come on, we’ve seen cinematic remakes of just about every 1970s television show. That’s not to mention the dreadful period of time when movies were being made to fit the name of some song like “When a Man Loves a Woman” or “Pretty Woman.”
So here’s to the past. May it make somebody stinking rich and leave the rest of us wondering where the creative types go bowling these days.