Friday, July 25, 2008

Stripes, the movie


"We're Americans with a capital A. You know what that means? It means our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world."
-- Bill Murray as John Winger in Stripes

I can't believe I never came across this movie before. It's really funny, and it has several top names, Murray, Sean Young, John Candy... All were unknowns, save for Murray, who was barely known.
Kim Basinger almost got in the movie, but she was unknown yet, and her agent had priced her at $250,000. How stupid is that? I'm guessing she changed agents, seeing as she actually got a career.

In the director's commentary they refer to movies of thirty years ago often have a lot of casual nudity or at least toplessness, and how that went away since. Generally I much prefer now to the seventies, but I admit that this free-spiritedness getting buried was a step back. Let's hope it turns again soon. Not just because it's stimulating, but because it seems to me that nudity is an expression of openness and freedom, and it's just a healthy sign psychologically. And so also a healthy influence psychologically and socially. You don't see nudists wage war. (In fact I find it interesting that those people most opposed to nudity are often also much in favor of war.)

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