GRIP & RIP WEEKEND: The Castaway Cowboy

On Saturday afternoon we moseyed over to Quentin Tarantino's New Beverly Cinema in West Hollywood for a kiddie matinee of James Garner starring Disney flick, The Castaway Cowboy from 1974. I've never seen the film or even heard of it so what better way to enjoy some Garner than on the big screen? The New Bev's kid friendly day shows are great because they're $6 and include popcorn. I kind of wondered how many youngins would really be here and figured you'd get more western enthusiasts and James Garner completists attending. I was right. Not a single child in the audience, fools! With our popcorn, ice cream sammich and Reese's Pieces in hand, we sat down for the pre-show of Disney cartoons and vintage trailers. The print for The Castaway Cowboy has seen better days but it's a fun flick that finds Garner's shanghaied Lincoln Costain washed up on the shores of an island in Hawaii. Found by young Booton MacAvoy (Eric Shea), who lives on a 10,000 acre potato farm with his widowed mom Henrietta (Vera Miles), the MacAvoy's are having trouble staying afloat as land owner and suitor Calvin Bryson (Robert Culp) waits to snatch up the land and the lady.

As Costain mends, he meets the lovable but simple minded farm staff who deal with wild cattle trampling and grazing the plot. Ol' Costain figures you'd get $20 a head stateside but no one has figured out how to get the animals off the island. Cue montage and Garner looking oh so brawny and manly in his hat and button up shirts riding a horse and swinging a lasso. The film incorporates Garner's macho yet easygoing charm as he constantly calls Booton the wrong name, compares marriage to smallpox, warns young Booton no one is going to pin a rose on his shirt for doing his job and in addition to being a cowboy from Texas is a crack poker player that brings back memories of his hit western show Maverick. The flick is a strange mish mash of fish out of water, cowboy action and island living but somehow works as a funny and enjoyable 91 minutes. There's a crazy segue into black magic complete with a fight inside a haunted cave then a nice barroom brawl style fight that results in a dude getting punched out a window. Directed by Disney lifer Vincent McEveety with a script from Don Tait, Richard M. Bluel and Hugh Benson, Castaway Cowboy would be Garner's second family western with Disney but his last film for 6 years.

By 1974, Garner had already achieved big and small screen success with memorable turns in Maverick, The Great Escape, Grand Prix, Support Your Local Sheriff and more. Never one to accept things as they were, Garner sued studios and opened his own production shingle. In the same year, The Rockford Files debuted on television and ran for 6 seasons. By the 80's, Garner returned to films and racked up his sole Academy Award nomination for 1986's Murphy's Romance opposite Sally Field. Before his death in 2014, Garner continued to work regularly in film and television, returning to The Rockford Files as TV movies and recurring on sitcoms along with playing the elder Maverick in the Mel Gibson/Richard Donner hit, teaming with pal Clint Eastwood for Space Cowboys and epic love flick The Notebook. Sitting in the dark theater I couldn't help but chuckle at Garner's old school cool and "telling it like it is" charm.

GRIP & RIP WEEKEND: Working Out

You can't Grip & Rip without forearm strength so of course I hit the gym on Friday and Saturday morning between movies, meals and multiple episodes of Fuller House. I've been feeling a little dumpy this week, think it's time to clean up my eating habits again and stay consistent as physical training will only take you so far. Friday at 5:00 AM was Chest and Biceps:

Incline Push Ups/Preacher Curls
Decline Flys/Spider Curls
Incline Dumbbell Press/Reverse Curl
DB Pullover/Zottman Curl

Each superset was repeated 3 times and I lightened my weights to go for higher reps, shooting for 15/12/10 before tackling forearms, neck and a mile on the Rowing Machine.

Saturday at 7:00 AM it was cardio centric:
5 3 minute rounds of Bas Rutten Thai Boxing
5 2 minute rounds of hitting the bag followed by 300 rope skips, 200 meters of rowing and 100 feet of Versa Climbing or Jacob's Ladder
Abs and trunk twists

GRIP & RIP WEEKEND: Room and Spotlight

Some weekends are for chilling, others are for GRIPPING IT AND RIPPING IT! Know what I mean? And by gripping it and ripping it, running and gunning, doing the Damme thing, on and on, I mean seeing 3 movies in 24 hours, working out, happy hours, checking out the new Fuller House on Netflix, going to a convention and watching a few minutes of the Oscars! The lady is into the awards stuff, so we upped our Best Picture viewings starting with Room over at the Cinemark Howard Hughes. Happy Hour at Dave & Busters came first where the kind of crappy service is ok because it's so cheap during HH. Followed by some racing and shooting games like Daytona and Aliens.

I knew nothing about Room going in besides Brie Larson from Scott Pilgrim VS The World was in it and it was about a mom and her kid, in you know, a room. Based on her novel, Emma Donoghue scripts and Frank's Lenny Abrahamson directs a sad but not depressing look at protecting your family and being reintroduced to the whole wide world when you've only known a small piece of it. Larson is fine as the mother but it's young Jacob Tremblay as her 5 year old son Jack who steals the show just by acting like a precious and precocious kid. I hadn't even watched the trailer for Room before we saw it so I had no clue what the outside world was going to be. Was it post-apocalyptic? Were they in another time? No, it totally wasn't but that was fine. I did find small issue with the fact that the "held against their will" film was shot in Canada yet set in Ohio. Why's it gotta be like that? Oh yeah, we used some Raincheck passes from the Expendables Marathon debacle to see the flick for free.

On Saturday it over to Culver City for drinks and grub at City Tavern, a chill, stylish joint with wood decor for cider, mac n' cheese, a burger and fries. Downtown Culver City has a nice feel, lots of impressive architecture, clean storefronts and you can feel the history. After City Tavern we stopped in for a quick drink at The Culver Hotel, who also does Saturday Happy Hour. James Dean starring East of Eden was being projected on the wall which I thought was Burt Lancaster classic Elmer Gantry at first. Damme. Then it was across the courtyard to The somewhat new Arclight Cinema for Spotlight. The true story of how Boston Globe reporters uncovered the city and worldwide scandal and cover up of Catholic priests abusing children. This is a total Oscars flick, true story, fighting the system, sad sexual overtones, etc. But it's solidly put together by director Tom McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer along with a heavy hitting cast that includes Michael Keaton and standout (a lot coming from me) Mark Ruffalo who looks like Antonio Banderas here with his 2000's Julius Caesar haircut.

A few minutes in, I leaned over and asked the lady if the picture seemed dark and flickering to her, she agreed so I went to find a staff member. He told me straight up that Theater 8 is dark for some reason, something to do with the projector. But the flickering was new, he came in and watched a few minutes and agreed, making a call to someone but the issues remained. After the film I approached some crew to ask what the problem was, they apologized and we got some free tix. It's funny because I used some comp tickets to see it in the first place, mwa ha! Watching a bunch of people jot down notes and talk on phones in offices isn't exactly a visual feast so it was annoying but not worth any additional rage and retribution.