In honor of the remake of Road House, I’d like to talk about Patrick Swayze for a minute. In particular, where are all the movie stars doing it like him?
If you got the free edition of this newsletter on Monday, you know that I just rewatched 1989’s Road House, a true masterpiece of trash action. The main reason, in my opinion, that Road House works so well is that every single actor is playing it without an ounce of irony – and no one is taking it more seriously than Patrick Swayze himself. It’s such a different style of action than we usually get nowadays, where everyone has to let you know every five seconds that “yes, of course we know how silly this is.” I blame Ryan Reynolds – the Deadpool-ification of movies has ruined us as a culture.