The Last Man

Thought I’d share a personal note on the passing of Charlton Heston.
I grew up watching Hestons’s movies but none of them do I love more than the Omega Man. Yeah I know the guy did some of the most important films in history of film and I end up loving a little picture he did in the mid-70’s between his appreance in Beneath the Planet of the Apes and starring in Soylent Green. (It’s made of people!) I caught Omega Man on NBC in the late 70’s and was terrified when the world ended and those pasty faced Family members chased Chuck around a deserted L.A. I always had a soft spot for end-of-the-world films and even though people think Omega Man isn't a very good one, I ended up loving it very,very much.
I also remember seeing adds for Soyent Green on T.V. and thinking that it sounded pretty cool. My mom and dad took me to see the film Westworld at the Jerry Lewis Theater in Springfield Mass. and while standing in line I looked up at the marquee and saw the artwork for Soylent Green, which was playing in the theater right next door, I turned to my mom and said “Can we see that instead?” (Soylent was rated R I believe) My mother looked at me and said “You certainly may NOT! So I sat though Westworld, which I also enjoyed a great deal, but I knew I wanted to be with Chuck next door, and as I would later find out, exposing what the horrors the Soylent line of products where.
I also saw Midway with my Dad in blazing color and ear shattering sensurround and enjoyed it greatly too. When the film started with footage from Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and their bombs are dropped, blasting the Japenese capital, my Dad turned to me and said “Jesus Christ is that loud!”
The point of this is I loved Charlton Heston 70’s films. Chuck was my hero, a man’s man, a tough guy. So when I found out he had passed last week I broke out my copy of Omega Man and watched it. I still loved it as much as I did when I saw it as a kid. (Though Rosalind Cash grates on me now with her crazyass jive talk, but it WAS the 70’s after all.)

I sat in my home and lamented the death of an icon. No politics, no left or right and no NRA. I was only thinking of the hero of my youth.

You’ll be miss Mr. Heston, and thanks for some of the great films.