They Live

1988 science fiction movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: An unemployed former wrestler exchanges his kilt for jeans and looks for a construction job. While crashing at an urban campground for the homeless, he stumbles onto a sort of rebellion centered in a small church. The government comes with powerful bulldozers, and the former wrestler finds a nifty pair of sunglasses that enable him to see the truth. He runs out of bubblegum.

The famous "I'm all out of bubblegum," "You know, you look like your head fell on the cheese dip back in 1957" (I rewound to hear this one three times to make sure I caught it correctly), "Mama don't like tattletales," and "And who are you, little fellow" are all lines that show what happens when you let Roddy Roddy Piper write his own dialogue. And no, I do not mean that as a criticism! It's taking the whole 1980's action movie one-liner thing, something I've always blamed on Arnold Schwarzennegar, to its logical crux. I just love what John Carpenter does with a limited budget here. The glasses effects are eerily fantastic, the switch to black and white and those expressionless alien faces combined with the subliminal messages make for some classic sci-fi horror with, more than likely, some heavy-handed satire. Personally, I don't mind heavy-handed satire. What does annoy me are action movie cliches, and this has more than a few of them as well as what is probably the longest and most absurd scene of extended fisticuffs in science fiction movie history. I think the fight between Piper and the black guy was probably longer than most of Roddy Roddy's wrestling matches though not, if I'm remembering correctly from back when I watched WWF wrestling (its golden age, in my opinion), nearly as long as some of his speeches. Piper, to be honest, makes the transition from ring to movie role much more smoothly than I expected. He plays Average Joe just fine and his action hero chops are as good as any other 80's superstar they would have thrown in there. Pretty cool sci-fi flick with several great scenes and a few that need to be reconsidered or completely removed before they do a remake of this in a few years, probably with Vin Diesel.

Escape from New York

1981 action movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: It's the future, and New York City is a walled maximum security prison. Actually, it's the past if you're watching this in the future and not in the past that was 1981. And I just took some of those words straight from the poster which is just the sort of thing that keeps people from following this blog. What? He plagiarizes from movie posters? That guy's got no credibility. Back to the movie--the president has crash-landed in Manhattan, a problem since he's carrying Samuel L. Jackson's briefcase and all. An ex-Marine (or something) and current criminal named Snake Plissken is coerced into flying in to save him. And the world!

Dang, this movie looks so good. The Big Apple's all oily and moody in the early flyover scenes, and it's impossible not to think about September 11th when the plane's heading for the city. And maybe--just maybe--that's where Osama bin Laden and his gang got the idea for this movie. And if that's true, we should blame John Carpenter for 9/11. Or Snake Plissken. Snake Plissken. What a name. You almost have to give bonus points just because the hero's name is Snake Plissken. And you're just not a true American if you don't give bonus points to the movie for having a hero who sports an eyepatch and a pair of Zubaz. It's like they looked at Kurt Russell and said, "I don't know about this guy. He can flex his cheek muscles and all, but does he really look tough enough?" before somebody suggested, "I got it! Let's get him an eyepatch!" and somebody else suggested, "And a pair of Zubaz!" Pretty cool supporting cast here--Harry Dean Stanton, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes. None of them rock the Zubaz though which actually might make them slightly less ridiculous than the hero. And yes, I'm fully aware that my mentioning of Zubaz and especially the providing of a link to the Zubaz website is as bad or worse than product placement and that that could be another reason why I don't have more people wanting to read this blog. But hey, if the people who make those idiotic pants decide to throw a little money my way? It'll all be worth it.

Zubaz--best pants ever! Dare to be different! Buy some today! Better yet--buy some tomorrow! If you don't, I will more than likely blame you for the 9/11 attacks.