Midnight Cowboy, part 1

I've just proceeded to watch Midnight Cowboy, and whoa, what the hell was I missing? An X-rated buddy flick? Eat your heart out, Owen Wilson.

To give you the backstory -- not to the movie, mind you, but to how I ended up renting this not-so-new release -- it all began years ago when I decided that letting fast food establishments cook for me was preferable to a long and healthy life. Thus, I found myself last Friday at a local Chipotle restaurant (not the most unhealthy choice imaginable).

While adding up the bill, my cashier pointed out rather matter-of-factly that I resemble a young Dustin Hoffman. Needless to say, this is not the first time I've had to not take that as a compliment, so it must be true to some degree. Being that his most notable role, that of the titular autistic savant in Rain Man, overshadows all his other work, it is a difficult comparison to stomach. The burrito, on the other hand, was very tasty.

Anyway, I came away with yet further circumstantial evidence to back my claim that my real father, Dustin Hoffman, has been denying me access to my trust fund for years. Why, Daddy, why? I sat down to eat my meal in front of a computer screen (the DSL dinner has replaced the TV dinner) and decided to jump on IMDb to troll through the over-abundance of past, present and future movie news, trivia, you name it.

For some reason, Dustin Hoffman came to mind. I looked him up and began to rediscover the wealth of quality movie roles that have been swept under the rug by the rise of Rain Man, memorable as it apparently was. Here, I stumbled upon Midnight Cowboy, neither having been oblivious to it nor fully aware of it ever before.

A few days later, I found myself at Blockbuster. (F%#k Netflix, by the way. Go to the video store. Let the staff laugh at your video selections. It's good for you.) And sure enough, they had a copy of -- care to guess? -- Midnight Cowboy!

Now there's a happy ending, because if you've seen the movie, you know there "ain't" many more to be found. Nevertheless, I was instantly struck by it and, as a native Texan, repulsed by it -- we don't all dress and talk that way. Daddy Hoffman gives a stand-out performance. The themes seem to echo the anxieties that the upheaval of the sixties unleashed, and I'll have to talk about that further next post.

Until then, little dogies.