Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Only now does it occur to me... FAMILY BUSINESS

Boyhood is often populated by absurdist hypotheticals, often involving fantastical one-on-one duels.  For whatever reason, idle chatter of this variety makes waiting in line in the cafeteria or loitering out front before the bell rings in the morning that much more tolerable.  Who would win in a fight between Robocop and Boba Fett?  The Nazi Mechanic from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK or the Monstrous Thugee from INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM?  Superman or Godzilla?  One might assume that these hypotheticals would end in the post-adolescent era, but here I am, decades later, writing about Charles Bronson vs. Clint Eastwood, and Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Sylvester Stallone, and Michael Ironside vs. Bruce Glover, and all of the other important stuff that really matters. 

Anyway, never until this evening did I imagine, even in my wildest dreams, that I would one day see the end result of a cinematic duel betwixt ubiquitous Puerto Rican character actor Luis Guzman and 'the Graduate' himself, Dustin Hoffman.  Go ahead and place your schoolyard bets!






 
YAHHH


 
OOOFUS

 
CEEEERUNCH

I s'pose we'll have to award this round to The Hoffman.  And, hopefully, by now associating Dustin Hoffman with one on one brawling on the internet, it will trickle into someone's subconscious and prompt a rental of KRAMER VS. KRAMER under the mistaken pretense that it's a martial arts tournament epic.

Oh, and about the movie itself– let's just say that if you're seeking out a late 80s, early 90s Sidney Lumet New York crime flick, you'd be better off sticking with Q&A.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Totally agree with you on Q & A. By far the superior film in every way, esp. Nolte's ferocious performance.

Sean Gill said...

Yeah, it's just tonally all over the place, and would probably even smack of 'made-for-TV' if not for all the A-listers. Q&A, however, is lean, mean, and utterly relentless; definitely one of Lumet's most underrated films.

Maurice Mitchell said...

Shawn, I did not see that coming. The dude can brawl.

Sean Gill said...

Maybe he had to learn to defend himself in streetfights in the wake of ISHTAR.

Jonathan Last said...

Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Sylvester Stallone, you say....? :-)

http://moviesfilmsflicks.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/20-rounds-of-schwarzenegger-vs-stallone.html

Sean Gill said...

Very nice. Very hard to pick a winner on JUNIOR VS. JUDGE DREDD.
Then of course, there's the back and forth, what with Arnie making fun of a RAMBO III poster in TWINS, Stallone scoffing at a Schwarzenegger presidency in DEMOLITION MAN, and Stallone as THE TERMINATOR in the video store in LAST ACTION HERO– it's nice to see them finally teamed up for real in THE EXPENDABLES series.