The character: Rocky Gravo The actor: Gig Young The movie: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969) I’m not an expert on shooting things, nor on euthanasia, so I went to the Internet to find out why we shoot horses when they break a leg. First off, we don’t shoot horses anymore, but we use one… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Villain #32
The character: Ethan Edwards The actor: John Wayne The movie: The Searchers (1956) I know. He’s not a hero. At least not in 2026 he’s not a hero. (To think he was some kind of cut-and-dried hero in 1956 is naive, but whatever.) A Confederate veteran, a proud racist who never comes close to recanting… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Hero #32
The character: Candyman The actor: Tony Todd The movie: Candyman (1992) “Hurt people hurt people” suffers from its brevity. I don’t think the phrase, if used honestly, is meant to excuse the abuse that the abused do to others. It’s axiomatic, in my home, to say that just because we feel bad doesn’t mean we… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Villain #33
The character: Ernst Toller The actor: Ethan Hawke The movie: First Reformed (2017) In 2019, Joker came out and quickly won the title of “most obviously plagiaristic movie of the decade.” Who can forget the flood of reviews of the film which pointed out that it was clearly borrowing from The King of Comedy, as… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Hero #33
The character: Old Scratch The actor: Walter Huston The movie: The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) Within ten minutes of Faust, F.W. Murnau puts the image of Mephistopheles above and around an unsuspecting, celebrating town, with one wing rising to blot out the sun itself. It is, quite possibly, the most spellbinding film image of… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Villain #34
The character: Son of the Hunter The actor: Francis Kee Teller The movie: Navajo (1952) Navajo was sold to audiences as a documentary when it was released in 1952, and it was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 25th Academy Awards. It is not a documentary, and it’s weird that anyone was willing to… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Hero #34
The character: Julianne Potter The actor: Julia Roberts The movie: My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997) Given that my last two posts have been about a guy I accuse of genocide and a guy who collaborates with Nazis and then tries to kill someone else in order to hide that fact, I’ll grant that it’s a… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Villain #35
The character: Mary Kate Danaher The actor: Maureen O’Hara The movie: The Quiet Man (1952) Scott Eyman, in his biography of John Ford, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford, makes a nifty little observation about The Quiet Man and its heroine. For those of us who have survived the era of… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Hero #35
The character: Frank Enley The actor: Van Heflin The movie: Act of Violence (1949) In modern movietalk, you can put any three movies together that have similar themes and the same director and call it a trilogy. Forgive me for being similarly tiresome. At least there’s a little novelty for me in applying that framework… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Villain #36
The character: Barney Greenwald The actor: Jose Ferrer The movie: The Caine Mutiny (1954) In December 2018, a man who “attempted to spark an open discussion” on Twitter asked something very important. Sadiq posed the question, “Why do we bash ‘dead-beat’ dads for not being there for their kids but we never question if the… Read More Better than AFI’s Heroes and Villains: Hero #36
Seeing Things Secondhand 