TONTO

I am far from a film critic. In fact... I often tell you my alltime favorite movies are those made for 17 year old teenage boys. Kinda raunchy. Plenty of nonsense. Major profanity. And usually hilarious. KNOCKED UP comes to mind. In fact ANYthing with Seth Rogen or Jonah Hill is a must see in my book. As is normally Vince Vaughan or Jon Favreau, too. I even liked the first HANGOVER, although the other two sorta sucked. WAY over the edge for an old lady like myself. I also love Melissa McCarthy who btw was outta control uproariously funny in THE HEAT with Sandra Bullock. Uh... as you can see... my standards for movie going are pretty minimal. My friends love the high brow stuff. I go for the crap.

What I don't go for is the high action powered testosterone stuff. Nor grizzly murder mysteries. And certainly not thrillers. So... when I went to see THE LONE RANGER I wasn't really sure what to expect. If fact, we only went as a sort of default movie given there wasn't anything else playing that caught my fancy. Besides... Johnny Depp. Need I say more? Man. Staring at him for a couple of hours is totally up my alley. So bingo... I saw the movie.

AND SO SHOULD YOU. It was simply great. I seriously loved every minute of it. And trust me... it was a LONG movie. When I walked out of the film I had the feeling that anyone growing up in the 50s SO had to see this if for nothing else, nostalgia sake. Speaking of nostalgia...

If you think for one minute this movie mimics what we all watched on Saturday mornings while growing up... get that thought out of your head but fast. Granted the main characters are somewhat reminiscent but that's about where it all ends in the similarity department. The film has way more comedy in it and all KINDS of action and/or special effects and a totally different story line. What DOES make you sit up and take notice however is when... finally... you hear the 1812 Overture and when you do, you want to jump up for joy and clap your hands all over the place. You feel like 10 years old once again. It's actually kinda cool.

I totally fell in love with Tonto's headdress, btw. I read recently that Depp apparently saw a painting by Kirby Sattler of an American Indian wearing something akin to the black crow he wears on screen. The portrait's entire look inspired him to recreate something along those lines and in my mind... it worked. He looks pretty much like the painting and there is no question he looked like a realistic Native American. I'm thinking the makeup artist deserves a raise.


I'm pretty glad I got to spend time with Tonto/Depp and maybe you should too. True... there will be no awards given to this film but as I said... if you grew up in the 50s with Sky King, Circus Boy, Superman, Rin Tin Tin, Andy Devine, etc. then you might want to check out The Lone Ranger. Talk about a great way to begin your Saturday mornings. Heigh Yooooooooooooooo Silver! And yes... the experts do in fact tell me: it's not Heigh Ho. It's YO. And no... not as in: Yo Mama.