Chuck Norris vs. Cuneyt Arkin_ The Wonder Kick Years

It is 6:30 a.m. in Harare, Zimbabwe, 1:30 p.m. where one might be having sushi for lunch in Tokyo, Japan, and 9:30 a.m. in Karachi, Pakistan; we read an article in "Mental Floss" that said 9:30 a.m. on Mondays was the best time to post a blog entry. The problem is I don't think we get too blog-reader traffic from Pakistan, but perhaps today is that day.

We are looking at the collective careers of American action movie star Chuck Norris, who turned 72 on March 10th, and his Turkish counterpart Cuneyt Arkin, who is now 75. Both actors have right-wing views, well we are not 100-percent sure of Arkin, but since Norris said that the re-election of President Barack Obama would bring 1,000 years of darkness, it is safe to Norris is very conservative. But, he may actually be to the left of the Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan.

In 1977, Norris had a break-out role as a truck-driver hell-bent on finding his missing brother in "Breaker! Breaker!," a film which has been screened on IFC (The Independent Film Channel) here in the states. There was a time when IFC would show arthouse films with indy screen goddess Parker Posey ("House of Yes," "Personal Velocity"), but it appears that Norris films get slightly better ratings.

On a sad note, Norris' co-star in "Breaker! Breaker," veteran actor George Murdock, who also played Testikov in a "Seinfeld" episode in 1994, died this year.

So, we are asking which actor actually won a Best Actor the year Norris made "Breaker! Breaker!," which incidentally has a 3.4 on the Internet Movie Database, in 1997.

Is the answer?:

A) Jack Nicholson

B) Dustin Hoffman

C) Richard Dreyfuss

D) Marlon Brando

E) Jon Voight

As to the answer in our last entry in this series, in 1982,  the year that Cuneyt Arkin was in  "The Turkish Star Wars" the Oscar went to B) Ben Kingsley for the title role in "Gandhi."

http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

 http://www.chucknorris.com

http://www.ifc.com

http://www.imdb.com

http://www.parkerposey.org

http://www.cuneytarkin.com.tr

http://www.mentalfloss.com

Happy Birthday Mom, from Clint Eastwood

I wanted to wish my mom a Happy Birthday, and since we had a similar post with Dolly Parton on our other blog "The Daily Vampire," I thought I'd post a similar 'greeting' from another pinball icon Clint Eastwood.

Pinball machines with the famous Eastwood cinematic detective Dirty Harry (which originated with the 1971 film of the same name) were quite the rage some 25 years ago.

I saw one such machine at a restaurant in the hamlet of New Castle, Va., many years ago. They apparently go for between $2,000-2,300 on the Internet.

The film itself was the subject of considerable controversy. The late film critic Pauline Kael accused it of being a right-wing fascist exploitation piece which Eastwood has denied, citing that the film's director Don Siegel was liberal.

Interestingly enough, we learned from reading a Peter Biskind piece in his book "Gods and Monsters" that Kael also criticized the classic 1953 left-wing film "Salt of the Earth" about labor rights abuses for being mere Marxist propaganda.

Happy Birthday, mom, and thanks for getting me a Slinky for Christmas back in 1976 (when I was six years old). Alas, it is nowhere to be found today!

Top 10 Right-Wing Films of All Time

I must profess to getting a high adrenaline rush while posting a blog entry just minutes before a major tv event (in this the Oscars).

While I have publicly professed my disdain for Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, I do like some right-wing films or at least I find them to be guilty pleasures.

According to an Internet rumor which is probably not too accurate, Eli Roth, the director of one film on this list ("Hostel") and Quentin Tarantino might be gay lovers or just pretending to be to get attention.

Here is our list (my friends are worried that I'm going to boycott this year's Oscars due to my hatred for "Avatar"....but, I do want to see what is the Best Short Animated Feature----go "Logorama!"):

1. Triumph of the Will
2. The Birth of a Nation
3. Saw (pictured)
4. The Passion of the Christ (pictured)
5. Red Dawn (pictured)
6. Invasion USA (memo: Chuck Norris turns 70 next week!)
7. An American Carol
8. Dirty Harry
9. Hostel
10. The Turkish Star Wars/Team America: World Police (tie)