August Osage

Now I have a lot of pride about the Osage and that new movie just did not set well with me.  Don't waste your money.  I would have to say the scenery was great and it was absolutely home.  Even the house and the gravel driveway and out buildings reminded me of growing up in the Osage.  In fact I thought the house looked a lot like Alidane and Carl McConaghy's house.  Sure it was different but it still reminded me of their house and to some extent it reminded me of Jim and Margarett Olsen's house.  The old lady in the movie complaining about the heat and standing in front of the fan reminded me of growing up without air conditioners and just trying to find some air moving somewhere to cool down.  They even sounded a lot like home with the exception of their foul language.  Sure folks use to use words like shit and damn but it was few and far between to find someone using God's name in vain or using the big F word so often.  Their language was absolutely ridiculous and not representative of the Osage.  And in fact if you go to New York City you would find a lot more of the type of language they spoke in the movie.

It just ticked me off that they represented folks in the Osage talk with such disrespect for God and other people.  In fact I never knew any family that was as  dis-functional as what they showed in the movie.  Sure it was fiction but it was a depressing show with exceptional actors but one of the worst plots ever written and totally not representative of Oklahoma and the Osage.

If they (Hollywood) want a great story they could take a few tips from this list:

• The Osage Indian Murders (five books about the tragedies upon Osage Indians)
• The Mulendoor Murder
• The oil industry and how it got its start in the Osage and/or Green Country
• Getty Oil
• Phillips Petroleum
• CitiService
• Conoco
• and there are a long list of how the great oil companies got started in the area
• Famous people of the Osage
• Ben Johnson
• Patty Page
• Opie Taylor's dad 
• The One Arm Bandit (I bet the class of 71 could write a book on this one)
• Head Country 
• Drummand Family
• this list can be really long but you get the point

I don't know about you but I rate the move at 1 on a 1 to 5 scale with 1 being the lowest.  I would have to say that a friend of mine name Alyssa liked it and said it was a girl's movie.  My wife found it bad and empty and depressing just like me but we both agree the actors made a terrible book better.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• there are a lot better things to focus on than a dis-functional family
• the people of the Osage make it one of the best spots in the world to live and raise a family
• if you don't waste your money on Hollywood crap maybe they will stop making crap
• Crap made in the Osage is at least compost-able .. another way to say it is, "our bullshit stinks then goes away, their bullshit stinks forever"

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com