fine whine

I tell you, everything and everybody's connected. It's merely a matter of figuring out all of the links.

I finally wrapped up watching the first season of Starsky & Hutch this week, and decided to check out what else the titular stars might've done after the show's five year run. I discovered that among other projects, Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) had directed the governors of Minnesota and California in The running man, one of few movies to show Arnold dying on-screen (even if it is a ruse). The movie's watchable and even features Yaphet Kotto, but isn't as remarkable as some would consider it. That said, Artisan's releasing a super special edition DVD of it any day now that seriously tempts me, though I cannot explain why.

No coincidence there, really. None really struck me until I checked out the credits of Happy, Texas with the wholly adequate Ally Walker playing a banker named Jo. She looked familiar but I could not place her, until imdb revealed her varied career, including a spot in Kazaam. Clicking around that Shaq-fest revealed a connection to the 1929 Buster Keaton silent Spite marriage (remade in 1943 as the atrociously titled I dood it). And here I had just a day before chastised a co-worker for not knowing who Buster Keaton was.

He couldn't even get Abbot and Costello and Laurel and Hardy straight.

Anyway, the idea that a movie with Shaq could reference a Buster Keaton film was enough to boggle the mind, let alone its connections to anything else. My mind was boggled, briefly, as could be expected. But that little "whoa" moment passed, and only then did I notice the man who directed Kazaam: the one and only Paul Michael Glaser.

Whoa.