But now I see that I had heard it before, because I'd seen the movie "Gran Torino." Twice. In fact, "Gran Torino" is the most important movie in the history of this blog. Click the tag — "Gran Torino" — and start at the bottom, the earliest post, to relive the movie's interweaving with my life story.
Here's the scene:
I've updated the old post now, based on this email from a reader: "In the Clint Eastwood Movie Gran Torino, there is a scene where he is invited to party by the girl he has befriended. The party is next door and everyone (except Eastwood) is Hmong. Eastwood makes a reference to them as 'Fish Heads.'"
Here's the scene:
पोस्ट्स
३८ टिप्पण्या:
Never watched that movie. Is it worthwhile?
I thought “My Dinner with Andre” is the most important movie in the history of this blog.
Guess I’m wrong.
And I would submit that Clint Eastwood is one of the most important artists in American history. He was just an actor but he became a director and producer. He made movies that he wanted to make and then directed them. Complete artistic control. And he also has composed music for his films.
@ Joe Bar. Yes the movie is very worthwhile. The development of Clint Eastwood's character and the other characters during the movie is memorable and emotional. I can't say more because it would ruin the surprise/story line. I watched it first in an actual theater and again on streaming platform and then saw more nuance that I didn't see/get the first time.
Ann Althouse, 2009, “ 9. Driving home, I was thinking: Clint Eastwood is the best Hollywood guy ever.”
Thanks for the pointer to read through the old posts. I particularly enjoyed the Golden Globes live blogging and seeing who is still around from the award winners. And Obama’s 2009 recognition that deficit spending needed to be addressed.
Fish heads and rice…
Althouse has many times stated that "My Dinner with Andre" is her favorite movie.
However, my first thought upon reading today's post was, "Wasn't Gran Torino the flick that Meade asked her to see with him?" During the early Gran Torino blogging Althouse did, I was still active on this blog, at least somewhat.
So I went and checked, and sure enough! There it was, in the comment section of the January 9, 2009 post tagged with "Gran Torino."
The rest, as they say, was history...and therefore Gran Torino did play a big personal role for Althouse and Meade, in addition to all the blogging reference to the movie itself.
In my older years, it's gratifying that my memory still works, lol.
Regards,
Lori (reader_iam -- which how I was known here, at the time)
Should have written "is history," not "was history." It's the present, too, of course. : )
Regards,
Lori (reader_iam)
IIRC, I was the first commenter to guess that she and Meade had gotten married in Colorado when they went on a trip there. It's somewhere on the blog from back in the day. Good times. It's so great that they're still going strong, Althouse + Meade.
Regards,
Lori (reader_aim)
As a racial slur "fish heads" is not as potent as "gooks".
You people will love Gran Torino. It's a feel macho and good all in the same time movie. You'll especially enjoy the scene where Clint saves the fishheads from the crackheads. It's Hmong Eastwood's finest work.
Below I have cued-up the musical portion of the 1980 Saturday Night Live short film "Fish Heads."
Directed by Bill Paxton. Music by (checks notes) Bill Mumy, Will Robinson from "Lost in Space"?
Fish heads, fish heads
Roly-poly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads
Eat them up, yum
Fish heads, fish heads
Roly-poly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads
Eat them up, yum
In the morning, laughing, happy fish heads
In the evening, floating in the soup
Ask a fish head anything you want to
They won't answer, they can't talk
I took a fish head out to see a movie
Didn't have to pay to get it in
They can't play baseball, they don't wear sweaters
They're not good dancers, they don't play drums
Roly-poly fish heads are never seen drinking cappuccino
In Italian restaurants with Oriental women
Yeah
Ask a fish head anything you want to
They won't answer, they can't talk
Ask a fish head anything you want to
They won't answer, they can't talk
Songwriters: Bill Mumy / Robert S. Haimer
Barnes & Barnes were an American musical duo, formed in Los Angeles in 1970. Most commonly associated with novelty music and comedy rock, their music also incorporated elements of new wave, synth-pop, and folk rock.
The duo was formed in 1970 by actor Bill Mumy and Robert Haimer (March 2, 1954 – March 4, 2023), who were high school classmates, originally as a private home recording project. By 1978, Barnes & Barnes had gained public recognition with the radio debut of their novelty song "Fish Heads," on the US nationally syndicated Dr. Demento Show.
Clicking on the links for "Grand Tartino" brings back memories. I'd forgotten who Glen Kenney is, and a 2009 post reminded me what a dishonest libtard he was. Always trying to call other people raciss/sexist/bigot/homophobe so he could claim to be superior.
But then he does/did reviews movies. The toy store of journalism. sports/art writers are always the most leftwing because they want to prove they're "serious".
As GT, I liked it. But too much of it is just a retread of other Eastwood movies.
What's great about that scene (and the movie) is that the Hmong crowd is nasty to the Eastwood character and he is nasty right back (with the appropriate ethnic slur). Like real people and not like Hollywood's usual stereotypes of how people behave.
I've never heard that slur before, or maybe I've heard it, but it didn't register as a slur. Like this one, which is not verbal. All the more surprising to me after after living next to NYC.
Mike: The kids all made fun of you, huh?
Archie: Yeah, they all made fun of me. Except for this one little black kid named Winston.
Mike: A black kid liked you?
Archie: No, the black kid beat the hell out of me.
Mike: Why? He must have had a reason.
Archie: Well he said that I said he was a "n*gger".
Mike: Did you?
Archie: Sure. That's what all them people were called in them days. Everybody we knew called them people n*ggers. It's all my old man called'em there. What the hell was I supposed to do? I didn't know what to call them. I couldn't call him a W*p. I couldn't call him W*p, 'cause W*p is what we called the D*gos.
"Fish heads" reminds me of the phrase "a fish rots from the head." I learned this phrase at my former workplace. From my search: The phrase "a fish rots from the head" means that the leadership of an organization is responsible for its failures or problems. So in a roundabout way, fish heads could be a compliment. Just don't rot.
The head is the best part of the fish. Cheek meat is the most flavorable.
Of course, most people buy fish that has been cleaned by someone else.
I gave it a B+ in my movie book.
1587 Gran Torino (2008) One of the things that surprised me about this movie is how racist it is. It's startling, shocking, made me laugh. I don't say things like Eastwood's character does, in part because I'm not a racist--or at least I try not to be a racist--but also because talking like that leads to strife and violence. So that's an interesting aspect to this character. He's looking for a war. He's inviting a war. He wants to die.
The film defines a multi-racial universe, with races vying for supremacy. Eastwood's character is completely at home with white people, and is annoyed with white people who have moved away--who give up the turf--or are now working for the enemy (Toyota). Eastwood lives in a bad neighborhood, one with a lot of gangs--all separated along racial lines--but he has no interest in moving away. He's not looking for a fight, but he welcomes it when it shows up at his door. And it's just funny as he debates with himself if he's going to rescue the Hmong girl. It's not the fight that he's worried about--he likes war, and scaring people, plus he's got that death wish. He hesitates because if he saves her, all those damn Hmongs will be over at his house, with their gook food, and he'll never get rid of them.
Sometimes I think the racism is just a pose the character puts up to start a fight. "What do you want, old man?" "Just checking up on the spooks." Other times you feel his racism, and his isolation. "What happened to my (white) doctor?" It's a very brave film. Eastwood is vile for maybe half of it, and he's drawing on reservoirs of good will established over decades of work. The racial insults are inventive, creative, shockingly funny. But the character is a mean old crank, and scary evil. He's suspicious of all other cultures and annoyed at any white person who gives up the fight. He is redeemed, yes, and we get a peek at his self-hatred. He wants absolution, but not from the priest. It would be glib coming from the priest. He wants absolution from the boy. It's an ugly, funny, humanizing little movie, provocative and a little scary.
So if “Gran Torino” was the first date of Althouse and Meade then it is, in fact, the most important movie in Althouse blog history.
Don't you mean "the FH-phrase"?
And something tells me that part of the reason Rana dreamed up his insane accusations is that he used to sit in meetings thinking "Damn! My little Asian fish-head wife hasn't got those cannons!"
The obsession with "Racism" and shocking language was boring me by 2008. But Eastwood knew it would sell tickets. Dirty Harry in a new disguise with some updated ethnic insults. But like Harry Callahan, Eastwood's character is actually color-blind, he's just rough around the edges.
Cannons? Bazookas? Who knew?
One of the relatively unsung muscle cars (barely) of the early 1970s. They were already losing HP due to emissions and mileage requirements.
I really liked Gran Torino. I could really relate to the kind of person who would feel the desire to fix the levelers of a washing machine at someone else's house.
Like "Blazing Saddles" it's a movie that could never be made today.
Wondering ... if all the ingenuity that guy put into making up that story had been better used, could have actually been able to bed his lady boss with the Big Bertha cannons?
They used to call a kid "zipperhead." It wasn't until years later I found out it was a Vietnam War slur. The kid wasn't Asian. His eyes were a little slanted and he did have z's in his name so ... Kids are cruel like that.
I skipped Gran Torino. It seemed too much like a "message" movie.
Indo-chinese refugees were often called "boat people"* by the media and in polite society as well but were referred to as "snakeheads" in private. Neither of those terms survived past the 70's though.
* Migrants used homemade boots and rafts to set out to sea and hope a passing ship would rescue them similar to how Afrikan migrants are cross8ng into Spain, Italy. England on small boats today.
That's one movie I'll stop to watch any time I'm switching channels.
Never watched that movie. Is it worthwhile?
Yes. More than once.
Gran Torino isn’t a message movie. It’s a movie about individuals. A man at the end of his life befriends a young man at the beginning of his.
I'd suggest it's also a movie about redemption and the ultimate sacrifice.
@Wince that's exactly where my mind went too!
Actor-turned-musician Bill Mumy was hugely successful as a child, even before starring on "Lost in Space." He appeared in three episodes of "The Twilight Zone" -- including "It's a Good Life," in which he played the spooky psychic kid who would send people he didn't like "into the cornfield."
Now all we need is a reference that includes VP Chick calling her titties "cannons" and it will be game on.
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