Last Ten Films I've Seen---Three with Bruce Dern

Three of the last ten films I've seen, "The Trip" (1967), "Psych-Out" (1968) and "Coming Home" (1978) feature the great character actor Bruce Dern (father of Laura Dern, pictured here) who turned 76 on Friday. Dern recently played Frank Harlow in the hit HBO series "Big Love," which still may not play well in Provo, Utah (since it's about fundamentalist Mormons with lots of wives).

"The Trip" also featured Dennis Hopper, who died last week. He had also just turned 76 some two weeks before his death. "The Trip" which also featured Peter Fonda was a precursor to "Easy Rider."

Even though "Watermelon Man" (1970) was made by a black filmmaker in Melvin Van Peebles (Mario Van Peebles' father), I'm not sure it would get made today as it deals with a racist white man who becomes black overnight. Sadly, the star of the film Godfrey Cambridge died at age 43 in 1976 while on the set of a tv movie with Kirk Douglas in which he was to play Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

Here are the films:

1. "Watermelon Man" (1970. dir-Melvin Van Peebles)
2. "Personal Best" (1982. dir- Robert Towne)
3. "The Trip" (1967 w/Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. dir-Roger Corman)
4. "Psych-Out" (1968 w/Jack Nicholson. dir-Richard Rush)
5. "Friends of Eddie Coyle" (1973. w/Robert Mitchum. dir-Peter Yates)
6. "Coming Home" (1978. w/Jane Fonda and Jon Voight. dir-Hal Ashby)
7. "The Girl Can't Help It!" (1956 w/Jayne Mansfield. dir-Frank Tashlin)
8. "The Special Relationship" (2010. HBO TV movie about Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. dir-Richard Loncraine)
9. "Dog Eat Dog" (Colombia. 2008. dir-Carlos Moreno)
10. "It Happened One Night" (1934 w/Clark Gable. dir-Frank Capra)

SIDEBAR- There is a great blog entry by my good friend Moviezzz about the very short-lived tv show "Tales of the Golden Monkey" (1983-84). At the time, all of us thought it was a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" rip-off, but as it turns out the producers had submitted the idea for the show before the epic film came out in 1981!