Sleep eludes me...

It’s 3:00 and I can’t sleep. For past half hour I’ve been watching an old favorite movie of mine. It’s not a blockbuster. It’s a low-key affair called the Friends of Eddie Coyle. It stars Robert Mitchum (an actor who has never been afraid to play his age—you have to give him credit for that. It also stars Peter Boyle, an actor who has never been afraid to be bald. Again, credit where it’s due. Another great supporting player is Robert Jordon. He’s always been one of my favorite B or C-list players. I first noticed him as Logan’s pal Francis 7 in 1976’s Logan Run. He also had a great role in 1985’s The Mean Season.

Yesterday I was paging through a magazine and came across a crossword puzzle. I don’t watch a lot of new shows, especially shows like Dawson’s’ Creek or the OC or shows like that. I could rock on a puzzle set in the 70s. Anyway, one of the questions was the name of the robot in Logan’s Run. I know the robot was modeled after and the voice was provided by Roscoe Lee Brown, but for the life of me I couldn’t recall the name. Until now. It was Box. I’ve heard for a few years that Brian Singer wants to remake Logan’s run. I would like that. I would pay nine bucks to see that.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is the story of a bottom rung crook who must have screwed up his parole or something, and tries to stay out of prison by providing info to the cops. It was shot in and around Boston, probably on a shoestring budget, with lots of local flavor. It probably never won any awards, but it tells a good story and gets the job done.

The movie is over now and I’ve switched over to 1988’s The Lady in White. This is a movie that I’ve always wanted to watch. I still remember reading Roger Ebert’s review in the Chicago Sun times and checking the show times. The premise is that a little kid, played by Lukas Haas (who held his own against Harrison Ford in 1985’s Witness) sees the ghosts of kids molested and killed twenty years earlier. I guess he tries to find out who did the nasty deeds. I’m going to change channels. I want to eventually see it from the start.

I switched over to 1987’s Someone to Watch Over Me. It stars Tom Berenger and Mimi Rogers and was directed by Ridley Scott. I always thought this was a weird choice for Scott. I mean, the guy directs Alien, Blade Runner, Legend and then this?

Back in 1987 I decided to give it a go anyway. Besides, Tom Berenger was up and coming and he reminded me of a young Paul Newman. Plus, there was the Mimi Rogers factor in the equation. At time I hadn’t seen her in anything before, but even so, she had the ‘it’ factor, the factor that both intrigued me and made me feel fancy in my pants.

I always wondered about Tom Berenger. It was in a lot of high profile films in the 80s and I think he was poised to become someone big, but that never happened.

In 1988 I went to see a Tom Berenger movie called Betrayed, with my friend Jim Higgins. It was in a dumpy little theater in Staten Island. Debra Winger co-starred in the film, which happily took me by surprise and turned out to be something that I wasn’t expecting it to be. I’m surprised that it never turns up on cable, but if you ever see it, I suggest that you do.

Years earlier when I worked at a commercial print shop in Chicago I used to walk three or four blocks over to the bank to cash my check on payday. I forget the name of the bank, but it was a relic from the 1930s and it was a beauty. At one point in the movie The Betrayed, a bank robbery goes down in a familiar looking bank. It was my bank! I don’t know what came over me, but I actually stood up and shouted, “Hey, I know that bank! That’s my bank!” Jim Higgins pulled me back down to my seat and shushed me. Luckily the theater was mostly empty.

Anyway, I should try and get some sleep. I don’t think Mimi is going to be getting named anytime soon. She did that plenty in other movies, in later years. I think it must be in her contract to be naked in every movie she makes—except for Lost in Space. She wasn’t nude it that but here were plenty of robots, so that makes up for it.

And hey, don’t judge me because I like seeing attractive movie stars naked. Don’t you judge me.