Lou Diamond Phillips is a landmark in American film. Starting out his young career playing Richie Valens in La Bamba, moving on to roles like “peyote smoking native American” in the Young Guns saga, and “suicidal Gulf War veteran” in Courage Under Fire and “isn’t that Lou Diamond Phillips” in a few episodes of 24.

So it comes as a great disappointment to see that a man whose career is nothing short of brilliant has pled guilty to domestic assault and is now on probation for 3 years and has to do 200 hours of community service.

How did this happen? I have tried to explore this and these are some of the reasons I have thought of:

1) The recent death of Jack Palance, a co-star in Young Guns 1, drove LDP over the edge.

2) He was training for his newest role of E True Hollywood Story star.

3) Dancing With the Stars rejected him saying, we already have our douchebag quota filled for the next 2 years, thanks to Mario Lopez.

4) In my opinion this is the strongest theory: Seeing that Esai Morales, who so memorably played his drunk, wife abusing half-brother “Bob” in La Bamba, had had a career resurgence, playing a captain on NYPD BLUE before it went off the air, LDP realized that perhaps beating up your girlfriend could be a good career move. No doubt he probably blamed some sort of crippling alcohol addiction for his abusive behavior.

Or perhaps he is just a piece of sh-t and realized that La Bamaba is good only if you are 12 years old and doing nothing but watching TV on a rainy Sunday. A little less than a year ago I saw La Bamba for the first time in a while (but my Esai Morales impersonation (most obscure one in my repertoire) is still sick – it is like riding a bicycle). It was like being told there is no Santa Claus. You mean this movie that I loved as a 12 year old… sucks? And now, not only does Santa not exist, but the guy pretending to be Santa at Macy’s beats Mrs. Claus when he goes home. What’s next? Are you going to tell me that Three Amigos is awful? That Steve Guttenburg molests children? For shame LDP. You may have hurt that poor woman, but you have done something even worse through your bad acting and bad actions: you have robbed me of a pleasant childhood memory.

But on to more pleasant movie thoughts. Going to try and see 4 movies in the next week, so expect to see some more reviews. Movies on the horizon:

1) Blood Diamond. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. And an impoverished African’s worst nightmare. 2) Apocalypto. Reviewers today have been saying that Mel Gibson is a gifted filmmaker and that he loves suffering and blood. My only question watching this film about a war among ancient Mayan tribes is this: How did the Jews start that war? 3) Happy Feet – I love animated movies. 4) The Last King of Scotland – I hate Forrest Whitaker and his droopy eye, but it is supposed to be the best performance of the year (although I think Collin Farrell and Jaime Foxx might beg to differ with a little film called Miami Vice).