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Celluloid Country: Great Balls of Fire Less Than Killer
Today we’ll be looking at the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire, which my handy Comcast guide describes as a look into the Killer’s “unconventional personal relationships.” Well, I guess that’s a nice way of putting it when a fella is a bigamist by age 17 and marries his teenage cousin just a [...]
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Celluloid Country: Payday is a Satisfying, Violent Tale of a Country Outlaw
Payday is probably the best Celluloid Country film to date. Unlike the other CC films, which are generally only nominated for Razzies, Payday was actually up for a Writers Guild of America award for Best Drama. Furthermore, Payday doesn’t feature am actual country musician in the lead role. Coincidence? Probably not. There isn’t actually a [...]
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Dolly Parton’s Straight Talk Features Sages Advice, Montages
I have a confession to make. This month’s film is something of a guilty pleasure for me. I was eight when I first saw it and totally okay with my current musical diet of New Kids on the Block and the classic rock station my mom played in the car. But after viewing Straight [...]
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Hillbillys in a Haunted House Brings Together Scooby Doo, Cold War Spies and Caged Gorillas
This might just be the most awesomely bad movie ever created. Unlike the other films reviewed in Celluloid Country, Hillbillys in a Haunted House (sequel, of course, to The Las Vegas Hillbillies) knows it’s cheesy and never tries to get above its raising. It’s 90 minutes of pure camp, interspersed with country songs.
Hillbillys in a [...] -
Doing Time for Patsy Cline is a Wacky Take on Aussie Country
When it comes down to it, America and Australia have quite a bit in common. Okay, one country was founded by Puritans, the other by criminals…but we have similarities in our rugged terrain, hearty pioneer spirit, and the large indigenous populations we’ve spent centuries oppressing.
Hooray, former colonies of Britain!
If, as music scholar Bill Malone [...]Continue reading "Doing Time for Patsy Cline is a Wacky Take on Aussie Country"
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Celluloid Country: Honeysuckle Rose, Starring Willie Nelson, Dyan Cannon, and Amy Irving
Willie Nelson’s been in a lot of movies. But his second, Honeysuckle Rose, is his best, if only for the music.
Here Nelson plays the alliteratively named Buck Bonham, a goodtime country musician who tours the nation in a school bus painted to resemble the Texas flag. Buck’s got a wife, Viv, (played by Dyan [...] -
Celluloid Country: Pure Country, Starring George Strait & Lesley Ann Warren
George Strait has a lot going for him: stage presence, rugged good looks, and a great voice. So giving him a fake ponytail and making him the star of a country music movie should be a surefire hit, right? Not when you’ve got an average script, average actors, and a plot line that can be [...]
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Celluloid Country: Sweet Dreams, Starring Jessica Lange (The Patsy Cline Biopic)
Patsy Cline has always been a larger than life figure in country music. Bold, brassy, and occasionally raunchy, Patsy (or “The Cline,” as she called herself), fit right into country’s rowdy, male-dominated world, even as Owen Bradley transformed the honky tonk angel into a sultry torch singer. Her rise to stardom and her tragic end [...]
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Celluloid Country: Rhinestone, Starring Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone
I love Dolly Parton with a love that borders on idolatry. But Rhinestone (1984) is just plain bad. It’s certainly not 9 to 5, a film I consider to be Parton’s Citizen Kane. It’s not even cheesy fun like Straight Talk, a film which sees Parton—again in the role of hillbilly sage who delivers bits [...]
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