All the king's men: the race for lieutenant governor
There are eight candidates running for the office of lieutenant governor this year. That’s a broad field of five Republicans and three Democrats, some career politicians, some political newbies, six men, two women — lots of variables there.
And yet, when The Advocate sent out a Q & A asking what would be the top priority for the next lieutenant gov, all eight gave just about the same answer: crank up the tourism engine. The second question — What is the state’s biggest need right now? — also garnered a unanimous response, fix the budget.
Thank goodness for question number three, “What is the best movie filmed in Louisiana?” We all know the movie question, like the record question and the book question determines if you’re going to even bother going out on a second date.
Our candidates showed a surprising lack of imagination and knowledge of movies filmed in Louisiana. Three of them chose The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, (yawn). Two of them chose sports movies, Glory Road and Everybody’s All American. One chose Steel Magnolias, (oh dear). The other choices are up to movie buff snuff, Blaze, about Earl Long, and one stellar film, Streetcar Named Desire.
There’s a lot of great and notorious films shot in Louisiana over the past century. Take Cadillac Records, Ray, The Apostle, Wild at Heart, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces and Louisiana Story. Or my two favorite awful films, JFK and The Big Easy (you remember that tag line for anything corrupt or sleazy, “It’s the Big Easy, dahlin.” I still use it.)
So, it’s up to you, voters of Louisiana, to decide, based on the silver screen selection, how you’re going to choose the guy or gal who will be one heartbeat away from sitting in state in Huey Long’s capitol.
And just for fun, here’s a list, a bit cobbled together, (where is Shala Carlson when we need her), of the 500 or so films made in Louisiana, counting HBO, since 1908. That would be Faust, and no, I haven’t seen it either.
2010 Imagination Movers Season 3 Colombiana Chasing the Hawk The Fields The Real World Season 24 Killing Karma Billy the Exterminator Revenge of the Bridesmaids Jeff who lives at Home Love, Wedding, Marriage Little Murder If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise Big Red Earthbound Mighty Fine Brawler The Chaperone Red Memphis Beat Season 1 Catch 44 Trespass Shark Night 3D Season of the Witch (Reshoots) Butter The Colony LA Art Show Business of Love Big Ginger The Mortician Brothers Keeper The Gates Treme EarthBound The Hungry Rabbit Jumps Drive Angry Green Lantern 6 Month Rule
2009 Discovery Channel “Mayday, Bering Sea” Mirrors 2 Falling in Love Monster Wolf Clunkers Ticking Clock Knucklehead Secretariat Brothers Keeper The Mechanic The Hungry Rabbit Jumps Discovery Channel Ghost Lab Super Julia X Unearthed Straw Dogs The Exterminators Battle Los Angeles Snatched The Somnambulist Father of Invention Cotton Excalibur Chronicles Punishment Inventing Adam The Wrong Side of Town Part 1 Standoff Kiss the Bride Normal Types Chameleon Punishment Video Girl True Blood Imagination Movers Treme Dead of Night Leonie Jonah Hex The Expendables Cool Dog Youth in Revolt
2008 Drool Cadillac Records Mardi Gras Tribute Midnight Bayou Welcome to the Rileys Night of Demons Bad Lieutenant The Family that Preys Meet the Spartans College The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons My Own Love Song Acceptance Skateland Leaves of Grass Front of Class I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell Disaster Movie W Microwave Park Beyond a Reasonable Doubt I Love You Phillip Morris Righteous Kill Billy the Exterminator Pinks All Out Comeback Soul Men Big Medicine Tekken The Midnight Man Cheerleader Camp Speed Freaks Year One True Blood
2007 Feast 3 Feast 2 Sordid Lives Wonderful World True Blood The Killing Room Major Movie Star Pulse 3 Pulse 2 The Pardon Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins The Great Debaters For Sale by Owner Mad Money Secrets of the Heart The Mist Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay Cleaner The Last Lullaby
2006 Blonde Ambition Homeland Security The Year Without a Santa Claus The Initiation of Sarah Mr. Brooks Not Like Everyone Else Ruffian Premonition
2005 Factory Girl The American Standards Scarlett Thief Road House 2 Dukes of Hazzard All the Kings Men Elvis Just My Luck Pizza Wars Retiremen Campus Confidential Faith of My Fathers Failure to Launch Big Momma’s House 2 Mammoth Stay Alive Bug For One Night The Last Time The Reaping Same As It Never Was Deja Vu The Guardian
2004 Torn Apart Because of Winn-Dixie Growing Pains 2 Waiting Floor of Fear Nikki and Nora Infidelity Stuck in Suburbs Pop Rocks Searching for David’s Heart Now You See It... Skeleton Key Football Prophets Last Holiday Glory Road Miracle RUn Brooke Ellison Frankenstein Dead Will Tell Backwater Dreamer Canal Street Brothel Heatless Five Fingers Odd Girl Out Make it Funky Thief
2003 Ray Mr. 3000 Deacon Jones Jump Blues A Love Song for Bobby Long Home of Phobia
2002 Evil Remains Runaway Jury
2000 The Riff Stalled
1999 FAQ Tony Bravo Dead Dog Dracula2K Under Surveillance Lush
1998 Any Day Now Crazy in Alabama Scarlett’s Children Heiress of the Bayou Child of New Orleans Double Jeopardy A Lesson Before Dying Madame le Consul Vampire Murders Universal Solider II Bad City Blues Black Jaq Going to Mardi Gras Palmer’s Pick-Up America’s Funniest Home Videos The Great Depression Going WIld with Jeff Corwin Miss Universe Pageant Young Doctors Miss Teen USA America’s Greatest Pets Timescape
1997 Primary Colors Out of Sight Fait Accompli Cypress Edge Letters from a Killer Murder of Crows Lucinda’s Spell To Kill Thy Neighbor Lethal Ladies Cockpros and Microwaves Anne Rice’s Rag & Bone
1996 The Apostle Eve’s Bayou The Old Man Solitude Point Orleans (movie) Orleans (series) Big Easy (series) 13 Bourbon Street Dark Angel La Comptess De Baton Rouge First Love, Last Rites Suspicion/ Baton Rouge Favorite Son Buddys Dirty Rice Bump in the Night Day of the Warrior The Man Next Door Grey’s Anatomy Uncle Sidney & the Mexicans
1995 The Glass Cage Waterfront Cat Calls Dead Man Walking Lolita
1993 Pelican Brief Fatal Justice The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Do or Die Crescent City Skip Tracer The Client Interview with the Vampire French Silk Blue Chip House of Secrets Enemy Gold Stormswept Occhio Pinocchio
1992 Undercover Blues Hard Target The Fire Next Time Passion fish Honor Among Thieves The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag Night Trap
1991 JFK Storyville Love & Curses, & all that Jazz Nert’nerworld The Gate to Nothing A Woman’s Secret Delta Heat Timescape, USA Guests of the Emperor
1990 Hard Hunted Where the Red Fern Grows, II This Gun for Hire Double Crossed Grand Isle The Man in the Moon Hot Steps Scorchers Jailbirds Black Lake, Dry Ice Zandalee Darkness Dangerous Games Maggie May Steel Magnolias
1989 Blaze Convices Wild at Heart Tune in Tomorrow The Pistol False Witness Miller’s Crossing Traveling Man Blue Bayou Eleven Days and Eleven Nights, Part II The Blob Fletch Saved Heartbreak Hotel Johnny Handsome Margaret Bourke-White Outside Woman Sex, lies and videotape Steel Magnolias Elysian Fields Les Discos D’Or
1987 Three on a Match The Unholy Killer Birds Gator Bait 2 In the Heat of the Night Everybody’s All American
1986 No Mercy Avenging Force Steamboats A’Coming Angel Heart Undercover Shy People Sister, Sister Gathering of Old Men Eleven Days & Eleven Nights
1985 Atchafalaya The Long Hot Summer Belizaire, The Cajun Baton Rouge North and South - Part 1 North and South - Part 2 If Tomorrow Comes Dalton Down By Law Big Easy
1984 The Click Stereopticon Hot Pursuit Huey Long Documentary French Quarter Undercover
1983 Louisiana (mini series ~ feature) Hobson’ s Choice Tightrope Streetcar Named Desire (remake) River Rats Horror at Copasaw Bayou
1982 The Toy Dixie Johnny Blue
1981 Southern Comfort Grambling ‘s White Tiger Cat People Cane River
1980 Netchu Jidai Adventures of Professor Mizutani Mississippi Days & Southern Nights Concrete Cowboys The Beyond
1979 The Dark Side of Love The Baltimore Bullet Hardcase
1978 A Woman Called Moses Murder at the Mardi Gras Big Bob Johnson & His Fantastic Speed Circus Night Riders The Evictors
1977 Five Days from Home Pretty Baby Sparrow Superdome Revenge of the Creature
1976 J. D.’s Revenge French Quarter Casey’s Shadow The Savage Bees The Life & Assassination of the Kingfish This Far by Faith Return to Boggy Creek
1975 Sounder - Part ll Dead Man on the Run Deadly Tower Drum Going Home Let’s Do It Again Creature from Black Lake
1974 Been Down So Long Mandingo Hard Times The Drowning Pool Obsession Marianne Crash
1973 Bob Hope~Mardi Gras My Name is Nobody Gator Bait The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
1972 Moon of the Wolf Sounder Live and Let Die Nightmare Honeymoon Fear is Key
1971 The Player Keep Off the Grass Five Easy Pieces Wife’s Habit Dirty Dan Bayou Boy Longstreet
1970 The Beguiled Quadroon
1969 Easy Rider WUSA Goodbye Uncle Tom Last of the Mobile Hotshots Undefeated The Family
1968 The Slaves Number One Again, A Love Story Night of the Bloody Horror Blood Kin
1967 The Pill
1966 Hotel Hurry Sundown Lassie
1965 Alvarez Kelly Nevada Smith This Property is Condemned The Cincinnati Kid
1964 Bayous of Louisiana The American Wife Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte
1963 Toys in the Attic
1960 Poor White Trash Desire in the Dust
1959 The Sound And the Fury
1958 Buccaneer King Creole Wake of the Drunken Soldier Horse Soldiers Mardi Gras Louisiana Hussy
1957 Bayou Long Hot Summer Big Fat Black Pussycat Sing You Sinners Durango Band of Angels Damn Citizen Swamp Women
1956 Thunder Bay
1950 Panic in the Street Streetcar Named Desire
1948 Louisiana Story
1946 New Orleans
1945 Enchanted Voyage
1941 The Flame of New Orleans
1940 Kidnapper’s Foil
1938 The Buccaneer Jezebel
1929 Evangeline
1924 Youth’s Romance Prohibition 1918 Way Up in Society Revelation
1917 Tarzan of the Apes
1912 The Belle of New Orleans Girl Strikers The Pilgrimage Mardi Gras Mixup Buck Town Romance Darling of the C.S.A.
MAY 22 This post was written the day after the second line shooting in NOLA, by Brentin Mock. Mock is a friend of Deb "Big Red" Cotton, a blogger who was shot in the back and was seriously injured. It is a raw, emotional piece of writing, something the writer obviously felt he needed to get off his chest. But it raises questions that can't be easily dismissed, and might give some insight into where the source of these events truly is.
MAY 22 In this Baton Rouge Business Report post, Rolfe McCollister considers the privatization of bus service in Baton Rouge. After decades of under-funding, it is a mess, and although a tax (partially) passed last year, improvement hasn't happened yet. McCollister apparently feels it is time to let private business get in on the transit business.
MAY 22 This post on Bayou Buzz by Jeff Crouere urges the defeat of a bill that would grant modest pay increases over the next several years to the state's judges and clerks of court. The state is in no position to fund pay hikes, Crouere argues, with the pay increases costing a total of $9 million over several years. It sends the wrong message to the (proverbial) hard-working people of Louisiana, he says.
MAY 22 The Advocate reports here that State Treasurer John Kennedy is complaining about a meeting of the corporation that oversees the state's tobacco settlement. The Governor wanted it restructured, and he has some support, but not a lot. The corporation agreed with his plan, but Kennedy didn't, and it appears that the meeting was noticed in a manner completely different than that of all previous meetings. Kennedy's given to hyperbole, but in this case the fish don't smell too fresh.
MAY 22 In this Advocate story, Carencro Police Chief Carlos Stout says the recent federal indictment of a strip club owner is all wrong. The indictment alleges that drugs and prostitution went on with impunity because club staff made arrangements with "local" police. Stout says it never happened, and while his cops do work security in the parking lot, they're not allowed inside.
MAY 22 This amusing post in DIG Baton Rouge recounts an ad that ran on Craig's List recently; the advertiser was seeking tenants for a Beauregard Town house. He knew his market, and wrote an ad that the most ironical hipster couldn't resist. Apparently, he really did know his market, because the ad worked like a charm.
MAY 22 In this post in The Lens, Mark Moseley comments on the rhetoric Gov. Jindal employed in trying to save his tax "reform" package. One interesting point concerns Jindal's use of his brother, Nikesh, in a little story. Nikesh left Louisiana because of his inability to get a decent job, the story goes, but the story won't hold water: Nikesh lives in DC, which has an income tax level comparable to Louisiana, Moseley says. If income taxes caused the dismal situation, it should exist in DC too. Right?
MAY 22 This post by columnist John Maginnis traces the trajectory of the bill that would fund construction at community and technical colleges -- and bypass the Board of Regents and traditional higher ed funding mechanisms. Sure, it will bust the legislature's self-imposed debt limit, but some leges feel that there's more need (because there is more growth) in the community and technical college area than in the university area, he says.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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