meow

my top ten favorite burt reynolds movies

by john ryan gallagher  

i find it very enjoyable to sit around, either alone or with company, and watch this mustached man with a wig, laugh like a db, drive fast cars, and bed hot chicks. these are my favorites:

photo by http://scottchasse.com/

heat

this, like so many classic burt joints, boasts a classic one-worded title which exemplifies the film’s aura and attributes. there’s stick, malone, hustle, deliverance, hooper, shamus, fuzz, nickelodeon, and so many others. i’m particularly fond of heat because burt’s so raw that he scares the villain into killing himself rather than step up to the plate and face burt. not so ironically, a very similar ending was featured in burt’s near-masterpiece, sharky’s machine. it’s carried off better in this b-movie bombshell because, for starters, burt has a better fucking wig. sharky’s didn’t make this list because i hate his closely cropped toup in that shit. malone is considered the unrecognized sequel to heat, hitting theaters 14 months afterwards, with burt cast as nearly the exact same character. interestingly enough, robert altman was set to direct this but dropped out because his cameraman couldn’t get a visa to work in the united states. we can only fantasize about how awesome that would have been.

rent-a-cop

burt in a santa suit! if you were to compare burt’s work to that of the beatles, one might, or an idiot like me might, consider this to be his abbey road. it’s a later work that flows  nicely and features some great lines and chemistry. i’d rank and in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make, to life was so much easier in the 50’s; all you had to do was walk around and worry about getting laid. i’ve borrowed that line about the 50’s for twitter and substituted the 90’s with 50’s. burt and liza are cool together. they had worked earlier on a film in the 70’s called lucky lady with gene hackman.

smokey and the bandit

i remember the first time i watched this like it was yesterday. my grandmother, stepbrother, and i rented this at our beach house in 1989. this shit blew my mind. this began my love for the great car chase films of the 70’s. burt doesn’t get any better than he is here. my favorite scene is when sally and burt switch seats without stopping the trans am. it’s weirdly erotic. i’m pretty sure sally field still hates and blames burt reynolds for ruining her life and career. in his autobiography, burt talks about the night she won the academy award (for places in the heart) and how he saw her interviewed afterwards, and when she was asked what she was thinking as she walked to the podium, she responded with, i was thinking, fuck you, burt reynolds. ouch. such a firecracker. i see her on tv a lot talking about her bowels. that’s not so erotic. the night after we watched smokey and the bandit, my stepbrother insisted we watch stallone’s cobra. it made my grandmother cry. my stepbrother went on to leave his wife for her mother once he impregnated her.  

shamus

people drool all over the long goodbye, and rightfully so—it’s cinema. that same year, 1973, burt took a stab at playing a modernized philip marlowe as well. i actually prefer shamus to the long goodbye. it’s burt being burt before he completely over-exposed himself a few years later. he might not even be wearing a wig in this movie.  

the best little whorehouse in texas

br sang and starred in two musicals, this one, and peter bogdanovich’s stinker, at long last love. burt and dolly are excellent together, and dom deluise offers his best performance. something about dom always kinda creeps me out, but he’s totally cool and enjoyable here. the songs are great and there’s a lot of fun to be had with this, even if you hate country and western music. in burt’s book he says, without saying, that he and dolly made sweet love before they began filming. he said it was her idea to get the screwing over beforehand. i like that story. she’s so wise. more people should do that. i’ve always wanted to go to her theme park.

paternity

the advertisements for this led me to believe that burt was pregnant in this film like arnold in junior, or billy crystal in rabbit test. i was both relieved and disappointed when i found out i was wrong. i’ll totally drop comparing burt’s work to beatles albums after this, but this one would be the one where they are all indoors with umbrellas (beatles ‘65). that’s when people said/thought, okay, they’re starting to get weird now. i find this movie very relaxing and amusing. burt pursues different women to be the surrogate mother to his spawn. beverly d’angelo is smoking hot. this movie, like a number of burt flicks, has never seen the light of dvd. it’s a shame because this is classic burt.

cop and a half 

perhaps i like this movie because it is completely INSANE. this is definitely along the lines of stallone’s stop, or my mom will shoot, maybe even worse. it’s like a bi-racial problem child, but with burt reynolds! the sad thing is, burt’s made WAY worse movies than this and acted even stranger. if you want to see burt really stray from his usual persona, check out (the straight-to-video, 90’s horror flick) the maddening. it’s one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen. burt plays a maniac killer. it makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time. he really should have fired his hairstylist once he looked at the daily during this one. you would think this would be unintentionally funny, but it’s not. it’s really disturbing. it’s like seeing one of your parents naked or shitting.  

physical evidence

i like this movie for two reasons: it takes place in boston and because theresa fucking russell is in it. i don’t know why i’ve always had such a thing for her. the video store i go to has a boston film’s section. sadly, this movie is not included. i’m assuming this is because the workers at the store are unaware of the film’s location. i’ve thought about telling them, but i can’t bring myself to. ned beatty is in this movie and i wonder what it was like for him and burt to get together again after all of those years. squeal, bitch.  

gator

it was difficult for me to decide between this and stroker ace. my mom saw stroker ace in the theater. gator is burt at his coolest and most badass. if you want to get into burt, i recommend starting here. it’s actually a sequel to white lightning, but fuck that shit. start here.

it goes without saying that boogie nights and deliverance should be on this list. they aren’t included because i don’t consider them to be your typical burt vehicles the way that a hooper or semi-tough are. in this same category i’d place, nickelodeon, which offers a terrific performance from burt. i love that movie!   i tip my hat off to this man for entertaining me throughout my life.
note: the top image is by http://scottchasse.com/ he is one of my best friends. check out his work. he has a lot of great stuff going on right now.