LITTLE ROCK — The best song on Bob Dylan’s 1986 album Knocked Out Loaded is an 11-minute, 5-second number called “Brownsville Girl,” which Dylan co-wrote with the playwright and actor Sam Shepard.
It’s one of Dylan’s shaggy dog songs in that it’s a discursive, rueful sort of story-song addressed to an old lover.The singer keeps interrupting his version of the peripatetic romance to describe the plot of an old Gregory Peck movie. Details from several of Peck’s ’50s Westerns pop up in the song, but the film in the song has got to be Henry King’s The Gunfighter (1950), a movie that did as much as anything to cement the myth of the gunfighter - the lone shootist reluctantly taking on younger men in deadly sport. Ringo is shot in the back at the end, but he prevails upon the sheriff to let the young glory-seeker go, cursing him with the reputation of “the man who outdrew Jimmy Ringo.”
But Dylan doesn’t talk about the movie the way a film critic might, he imagines himself as playing a part in the movie, having his photo published in the Corpus Christ Tribune over the caption “a man with no alibi.”
Later, he says he’s standing in the rain, in line to see another movie with Gregory Peck:
“He’s got a new one out now, I don’t even know what it’s about,” he sings. “But I’ll see him in anything so I’ll stand in line.”
Most of us probably understand that sort of attachment to a movie star. There are dozens of actors I feel that way about, although most of them aren’t name-above-the title types and some might even verge on obscure.
For instance, I like Andrew Wilson.
Wilson is the older brother of Owen and Luke Wilson, and he often plays bit parts in his more-famous brothers’ films. His most prominent roles have been in Wes Anderson’s 1996 directorial debut Bottle Rocket - he played Future Man - and last year’s Drew Barrymore-directed Whip It. He also has had small roles in Zoolander, The Royal Tenenbaums and both Charlie’s Angels movies. Later this year, he’ll appear as “Relief Pitcher #1” in James L. Brooks’ How Do You Know, which stars his brother Owen, Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon.
Andrew also directed - along with Luke - the charmingly quirky 2005 movie The Wendell Baker Story, which, come to think of it, has some of the same shaggy dog quality as Dylan’s “Brownsville Girl.”
Anyway, while I like all of the Wilson brothers, Andrew is my favorite. But I can’t tell you exactly why, there’s just something in his on-screen persona that I like. I’ll see him in anything.
Most recently I saw him in a little indie comedy called Calvin Marshall, which was just released on DVD. To be absolutely honest, I’m not unhappy that the movie, which had a very limited theatrical release, didn’t make it to local theaters because I couldn’t have given it a glowing review. It’s a sweet little movie, but it has some problems with tone and it almost falls apart in the third act. Yet I liked it, and not just because Andrew Wilson played a fairly substantial supporting role.
It’s a movie about an aspiring junior college baseball player, the self-deluded title character played by Alex Frost (who was remarkable as one of the leads in Gus Van Sant’s Elephant). While Calvin is pretty much a talentless ballplayer, he’s not exactly hopeless.Given his enthusiasm, you can almost understand why he’s allowed to hang around. Even though he’s not good enough to play, his work ethic sets such a good example a coach might want him around as a mascot. Calvin Marshall is smart enough about baseball (and the ways we avoid facing our limitations) that much of it rings true.
It also features Steve Zahn, another one of those actors I’d stand in line to watch, in what may be his best role, that of the alcoholic ex-minor leaguer who coaches Calvin’s team. While Zahn has a couple of over-the-top scene she’s required to play, for the most part he’s terrifically believable as a thwarted soul.
It would have been nice if Calvin Marshall had simply been about the sport, but there’s a romance that gets mixed in too, and while there’s a little bit of resonance - turns out Calvin isn’t ready for his girlfriend’s league either - the story eventually diffuses. The movie ends nicely by foregoing the expected conclusion, but it simply isn’t the poignant underdog story writer-director Gary Lundgren envisioned it as.
On the other hand, it’s not only a real movie, it’s a real movie with some scenes that really sing. It’s not a failure by a long shot, and if, like me, you like Andrew Wilson movies, you could do a lot worse.
You can get more information about Calvin Marshall - and order a T-shirt with Andrew Wilson’s image on it - at calvinmarshall.com.
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Style, Pages 29 on 09/28/2010