May 28, 2010 4:50pm By Mark Gould and sfsthetik
Bad Boy/Lover Boy
Patrick Swayze on Film: One Bad Ass Dude Patrick Swayze died last year of cancer at age 57, was a dancer and remembered for some of his dance movies, including Dirty Dancing , But Swayze achieved iconic status as one bad ass dude. I’m straight, and this guy was drop dead gorgeous. He became a true on-screen, true-life 80′s pop icon, and his other biggest hit, “Ghost,” was voted to the 100 greatest love stories on film of all time. He has also achieved status as one of the movie stars who either had cool bad ass lines, depending on when in his career you look, or really cheesy cool bad ass lines. Like, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” from Dirty Dancing. That line alone translates in philosophy and modern culture to: You are baby. That’s one big reason people love that line (here’s what they say on Twitter.) You think and act for yourself. Nobody puts you in a corner, Right? Think about it. Nobody’s father puts my girlfriend in a corner. More than just a 80′s pop culture movie moment; words to live by. While other people love that line because it is in the hall of fame of movie cheese. Well, because it was a great line, but it seemed as if Swayze couldn’t exactly figure out the right tempo and mood to deliver it. In fact, it was exactly this ambivalent moment that had some comedian joke about it during one of those 2000 era VH1 “Best of 80′s….” shows. (“Nobody puts Baby in a CORNER!,” “NOBODY puts Baby in a corner,” “Nobody…..”) To me and millions of other filmgoers, Dirty Dancing may have only been eclipsed as their all time favorite love story by the movie “Ghost,” which to this day leaves me a weeping wet mop and has been voted as one of the top 100 love stories on film of all time. Okay film theorists, time to talk about “auras,” literally. 
With Patrick coming back from the dead to hold his beautiful wife, the quite noticeably softer, pre-Ashton Demmi Moore, he stopped her from molding clay (and us too) with both in the award winning lighting of an eery, unreal movie moment designed, and executed as a 3-hanky moment. (I really don’t know if the lighting director won an award for that, but, she/he should have, as should have Swayze, Moore and oh-my-god, Whoopie Goldberg! After Ghost, Swayze returned to a list of films that had him back in bad ass roles, some of which had Patrick back to firing off film-tastic guns and bad-ass movie lines. Others, not so much. In true “Nobody PUTS Baby in a corner” fashion, some of these lines had to look better on script paper than they did on the edit bed. But there were many other cool lines Swayze uttered during his career. And, well, a few that were uttered with, um, less than statue winning on camera presence. Others, like many other of his lines in Dancing, and Ghost weren’t so bad, in fact they were iconic. Some that were, uh, cheeso-conic. Thanks to a very small poll on Movie Forums, when asked who was better at on screen cheese, Patrick Swayze, or Kurt Russell, it was 7-6 in favor of Swayze, with a write in voter claiming the real winner was Chuck Norris. So thanks to Christopher Campbell writing on Spout Blog (part of IndieWIRE) here now a few of, Patrick Swayze Taking Command – 10 Great Lines That Showed He Was the Boss “And you — get me another roll of licorice!” from George and the Dragon (2004) “I can draw faster, shoot straighter, ride harder and drink longer than any man alive…I’m the rip-snortinest cowboy that ever rode north, south, east or west of the Rio Grande.” from Tall Tale (1995) “My way or the highway.” from Road House (1989) “It’s basic dog psychology, brah. If you scare them, get them pissing down their leg, they submit… you control them.” from Point Break (1991) (See the full top ten list at Spout Blog)
