I really hope he gets better. In the meantime I will take you through some of his movies and what I remember of them . I will also take this piece in directions that surprise even me.
1987 Dirty Dancing was huge . I spoke to women who admitted seeing it ten times. Like the feminine equivalent of This is Spinal Tap. It happens to have one of the most ridiculous scenes in any movie. The climax dance scene with the signature song Time of My Life. Song does not even attempt to fit into the era and yet that's what worked. I think at that moment Cecil B. De Mille was rolling in his grave. Some will admit it and some won't but we all know the truth , Patrick Swayze's butt gave this movie the must repeat chick appeal.
Roadhouse. Comical premise . It's almost like everybody knew in 1988 that Cocktail was a dumb premise but somebody out there tried to out dumb it. Guys we need you to make an even dumber premise. Two years later voila. Roadhouse. I can't find proof of this anywhere on the web but his character graduated with a major in Philiosophy from Harvard , drove a Benz and was a bar bouncer. The late Jeff Healey is in it.
The surprise hit Ghost. Something about the notion of Swayze's spirit taking over Whoopi's body kept me awake nights.
Red Dawn. The Soviets take over the US and teenagers resist them . I would have loved to have seen the studio pitch for that one. Charlie Sheen's first movie.
And of course my favorite Uncommon Valor. It's bascially a more realistic version of the Rambo premise and came out two years earlier. Vietnam vets go back in to rescue those still in the camps in the early 80's. There is a scene there I just find very profound. And I am not being sarcastic.
The team is training in preperation. Everybody there all served in the same unit. Except Swayze's character. They all get pissed at him thinking he has some guy who has never been there. They don't take him seriously . Then the Randall Cobb character starts beating him up . But Swayze never gives up. He will never leave the mission. Then it's explained his dad is missing in Vietnam. Then the team takes him in .
Make sure you read the Law of Identity powerpoint based on John Maxwell then watch that scene from Uncommon Valor. You might learn something.
Ed
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080528/lf_nm_life/swayze_dc
http://bostonist.com/2007/07/26/the_tao_of_sway.php
The Tao of Swayze
Roadhouse will screen at the Somerville Theatre at midnight on Friday, July 27, and Saturday, July 29. It will also screen Monday, July 30, at 7:30 pm.
Cult classic Road House, featuring Patrick Swayze as a philosophy-spouting bouncer, is running at the Somerville Theater this weekend. Why is Road House, made in 1989, so much better than other action flicks of the '80s?
Swayze's collected, Zen demeanor in many of his movies led the Onion AV Club to christen him "The Swayze." To reveal why Swayze is a thinker for the modern age, here's a quiz. You pick which line is Swayze, as the bouncer Dalton in Road House, Sun Tzu, or Socrates:
1. "The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim."
2. "People who really want to have a good time won't come to a slaughterhouse."
3. "Nobody ever wins a fight."
4. "Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence."
5. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."
6. "All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. And three, be nice."
7. "To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting."
8. "Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires."
9. "To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know."
10. "I want you to be nice until it's time to not be nice."
Image of Road House poster from Wikipedia. Answers after the jump! Is it Socrates, Sun Tzu, or Swayze?
1. "The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim." – Sun Tzu
2. "People who really want to have a good time won't come to a slaughterhouse."--Swayze
3. "Nobody ever wins a fight." –Swayze
4. "Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence." – Socrates
5. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." – Sun Tzu
6. "All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. And three, be nice." --Swayze
7. "To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting." – Sun Tzu
8. "Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires." – Socrates
9. "To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know." – Socrates
10. "I want you to be nice until it's time to not be nice." –Swayze
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