Tag: commando

Favorite Cult Classics (Part The First)

It might be that I’m feeling nostalgic, or it might be that since my wife and I sprung for Netflix, I’ve been finding my way back to several of my favorite old movies. Hard to say exactly. All I know for sure is, I want to talk about the cult classic movies that I like best. You know what I’m talking about! Those rare gems, those diamonds in the rough, the movies that few seem to know about, but those who do always seem to love.

Yes, THOSE movies! Sure, we’ve all seen plenty of big hits, but these movies are the ones that occupy a special place in our hearts. Perhaps it’s because they are not so widely known, like the Star Wars’ and and Indiana Jones‘ of our time. Perhaps it’s because they didn’t get the recognition or the money they deserved, at least in their own time. Or it could be that they were simply the kind of things that got better with time.

In any case, I’ve compiled a list of my top 10 favorite cult classics, movies which I saw during my childhood, teen years and even in my twenties, and keep coming back too. Some were adventurous, some were funny, some were downright cheesy. But all have two things in common: One, none of them are known beyond a select group of appreciators, at least in this country. And two, those who like them, like them a lot! Check out the list below and see if you agree, and feel free to tell me your own favorites as well. I know we all got em!

Akira:
One of the greatest animes I have ever seen, and with a very poignant and intriguing story to boot, Akira starts this list off right! The movie adapted several volumes of manga to screen, and did so in such a way that didn’t skimp on either story or detail. Even shortened, the plot still manages to convey the sense of awe and dread of atomic war, revolution, and evolutionary cataclysm. And the fact that the bulk of it is told from the point of view of disillusioned orphans who are all part of a bier gang only heightens the sense on confusion and angst of little people being thrown into situations far greater than they can handle.

And then there was the quality of the movie itself. Having seen this movie several times now and different versions thereof, I can tell you that no matter what the format, every single frame was animated in such a way as to be saturated. And not with digital effects, mind you, but with hand-drawn animations that really manage to capture the post apocalyptic and cyberpunk feel of Katsuhiro Otomo’s original graphic novel.

All in all, I consider this movie to be compatible in many respects to 2001: A Space Odyssey in that they both deal with grandiose of questions of existence, biological evolution, and both managed to blow my mind! And having first been exposed to both of them in my teen years, they are partly responsible for kindling my love of science fiction.

Army of Darkness:
Here’s a movie I kept being told to see, but did not get around to seeing until I was in university. And truth be told, it took me two viewings to really get the appeal of it. After that, it grew on me until I finally found myself thinking it hilarious, and quoting from it whenever I could. “Come get some!” “Groovy!” “This be my BOOMSTICK!” and “Good? Bad? I’m the one with the gun!” All classic lines!

Yeah, this movie is definitely filed in the guilty pleasure section, the space reserved for movies that are deliberately cheesy, over the top, and have a robust sense of humor about themselves. It’s also one of the many that gave Sam Raimi (director of the Spiderman trilogy) his start, and established Bruce Campbell (who appeared in all three) as a gifted ham actor.

Taking the position that decapitations and flesh-eating demons can be funny, this movie tells the story of a blue-collar, rough and tumble, one-liner spouting man named Ash who’s been sent back in time to fight an army of the undead. Automatically, hijinks ensue as he tries to convince people he’s not a demon himself, but instead chooses to establish who’s boss by demonstrating the power of his chainsaw and “boomstick” (aka. his sawed-off double-barrel shotgun).

But predictably, this anti-hero rises to the challenge and becomes a real hero, and does so with as little grace as possible! And of course, there’s a love story as well, which is similarly graceless thanks to Ash’s lowbrow romantic sensibilities. Nothing is left untouched by the ham and cheese! And all throughout, the gun fights, duels, and confrontations with creepy, evil forces are hilarious, made possible by Campbell’s hammy acting, facial expressions, one-liners and some wonderfully bad cinematography. Think Xena: Warrior Princess, but with guns and foul language!

Blade Runner:
Another personal favorite, and one which I wish I had come to know sooner. But lucky for me I was still a teen when I saw this movie, hence I can say that I saw it while still in my formative years. And today, years later, I still find myself appreciating it and loving it as one can only love a cult hit. It’s just that kind of movie which you can enjoy over and over again, finding new things to notice and appreciate each time.

And once again, my appreciation for this movie is due to two undeniable aspects. On the one hand, Ridley Scott created a very rich and detailed setting, a Los Angeles of the 21st century dominated by megastructures, urban sprawl, pollution and polarized wealth. It was the picture perfect setting of cyberpunk, combining high-tech and low-life.

On the other hand, there was the story. Loosely adapted from PKD’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, this version of a future differed greatly in that the artificial humans, the antagonists of the original story, were about the only sympathetic characters in the story. The result was not a cautionary tale on the dangers of creating life in our own image as much as a commentary about the line between the artificial and the real.

The question it asked was: if you overcome all boundaries, if machines possess memory, feelings and a fear of death, is there anything at all to separate them from the rest of us? Will their lives be worth any less than ours, and what will it even mean to be alive?

Conan The Barbarian:
Here’s a movie which has appeared in some friends “guilty pleasure” list, usually next to Predator, Commando and other Anrie classics. But I am here today to tell you it really doesn’t belong. Unlike many 80’s Arnie movies that were so bad, they were good, this movie had some genuine quality and depth to it.

Examples? Well, for starters, this movie was a faithful adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s original concept, Conan the Cimmerian, which was first published in 1932. This franchise, which went through countless adaptations over the ensuing decades, wove real history and myth together with fantasy to create a tale of a bronze age adventurer who traveled across the ancient world, seeking fortune and glory.

One can see this in the movie as well. To create the setting and the various people that make up the universe, imagery, mythology and even names were borrowed from various real sources. For example, the Cimmerians (Conan’s people) were inspired by Celtic and Norse sources. The followers of Thulsa Doom, black-clad warriors from the East, were meant to resemble the Huns, the Goths, and other Eastern invaders. There are also several scenes showing a warlike people meant to resemble the Mongol Hoards, and much of the setting was made to resemble ancient cities of lore – Babylon, Jerusalem, Antioch, et al.

Add to all this some pretty damn good writing and good storytelling, and you can see why this movie has remained enduringly popular with many people over the years. Arnie excelled as the stone-faced barbarian of few words, but who made them count when he chose to spoke. James Earl Jones was exceptional as the amoral, Nietzschean warlord Thulsa Doom, and the production value was surprisingly good for a low-budget flick.

Serenity:
Yeah, I get the feeling everybody knows what I’m talking about with this one! After losing the wonderful show in the midst of its first season, every fan of Firefly was pleased to know that Joss Whedon would be making a full length movie. And personally, I th0ught he did a pretty good job with it too!

Picking up where the show left off, we are reunited with our favorite characters as they continue to work freelance jobs and try to stay one step ahead of the law and the expanding Alliance. From the outset, it is clear that things are getting desperate, as the jobs are proving more risky, and the Reavers are moving in from the Outer Rim. At the same time, a new threat has been thrown in in the form of an Alliance agent known only as the “Operative”, who has made it his business to bring River in at any cost.

And I personally loved how all these threads came together in a singular way, showing how the Reavers, River’s condition, and the Alliance’s ultimate agenda were all connected. Not only was it a tight and entertaining plot that captured the same sense of loss and desperation as the show, it also gave a sense of closure to the series, which ended before its time.

Yes, for myself and many fans, this movie is a way of commemorating a truly great show and idea that faltered because of insensitive boobs couldn’t see the value in it. But that seemed thematically consistent with the series itself, which was all about rebels in a hopeless fight against an evil empire. Take a lesson from this Fox Network, sooner or late,r the bad guys lose!

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For brevity’s sake and the fact that I’m a busy man, I’ve decided to divide this list in half. Stay tuned for entries six through ten, coming up tomorrow! Happy Thanksgiving y’all!

The Predator Franchise

If there were a contest for which alien life form is the most badass in the universe, then Predators would be at the top of the list! Why? Because they’re big, powerful, stealthy, scary-looking, and pack enough artillery to take out an entire city block!

Yes, Predators is one of those franchises that contained some true seeds of genius, but kind of fell flat for a couple of reasons. Chief amongst them, in my opinion, was money and the desire to appeal to the “lowest-common denominator”. How else can you explain the whole AVP cinematic fiasco?

Still, the Predator concept has had some impressive renditions over the years, not the least of which came with the first two movies and a slew of crossover video games, novels and comics. And with the latest movie, there are clear attempts to break them away from their Alien peers. So I thought I’d get right into it and see what makes these badasses just so bad! First off, the movie that started it all…

Predator (1987):
The movie opens with an alien spacecraft flying towards Earth and jettisoning a small pod down into Central America. Cut to the surface, where we see an American base located somewhere in the jungles of Guatemala. A bunch of hooligans are being flown into an Army base and Arny is in the front seat with a massive stogie in his mouth. Very quickly, it is established that this man is elite commando named Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer, the best in the business.

In the course of his briefing, he is told that his team is needed to rescue a Guatemalan cabinet minister and his aides who have been kidnapped by guerrillas. He’s also reunited with old friend George Dillon (Carl Weathers), a former military man who has since joined the CIA. Apparently, he will be acting a liaison during the mission, and stresses to Dutch that this is going to be no cake walk!

We learn all we need to know about the mission from a single exchange, even if we didn’t know it at the time:

Dillon: “How come you passed on Libya?”
Dutch: “Libya’s not my style.”
Dillon: “You aint got no style!”
Dutch: (pause to light a fresh stogie) “We’re a rescue team, not a bunch of assassins.”

We then get to meet the team: Mac Eliot (Bill Duke), Blain Cooper (Jesse Ventura), Billy Sole (Sonny Landham), Jorge “Poncho” Ramirez (Richard Chaves), and Rick Hawkins (Shane Black). Grabbing their heavy artillery, they hop into their choppers and are inserted into the jungle.

What follows is some obvious build-up as the team discovers the crashed chopper which was supposedly holding the minister and his aides and finds a whole bunch of skinned bodies hanging upside down. Assuming the guerrillas did this, the team sets off post-haste for their hideout with payback on their minds. When they find it, they proceed to blow the shit out of it and kill anything that moves, save for one woman named Anna (Elpidia Carrillo).

This scene is something that was surely impressive to audiences in 1987, but which has gone down as one of the cheesiest action sequences ever since. For one, elite commando teams that are on a rescue mission aren’t supposed to blow shit up! That’s how you get the people you’re trying to save killed! Second, these guys were obviously not trained for the role. Basically, they just walk around and shoot people with no effort! Kind of like he did in Commando! Way to research that role guys!

But in the end, Dutch and his team realize that there are no hostages. The base was merely an encampment where some Soviet advisers were known to be. Dutch’s team were thus set up to attack the place and kill everyone as part of some CIA black op. Dutch is pissed and wants to tear Dillon’s head off, but they are forced to beat a retreat since their blowing the shit out of the place couldn’t help to draw attention. They thus take Anna and head on out. Meanwhile, we get some extended (really extended) scenes where the Predator watches them through its thermal vision.

Things start to get interesting shortly thereafter when the Predator begins to do its thing: take down the team one by one.  Naturally, it kills the weakest guy first, the one who carried only small guns and made all the bad jokes. Yeah, he goes down faster than a… I can’t think of a way to finish that sentence. Jesse Ventura, the man with the ridiculous portable minigun is blown apart shortly thereafter too. Luckily, the team learns from these early encounters a few important tidbits. One, the creature can camouflage itself. Two, that it bleeds. And as Arny says: “If it bleeds, we can kill it!”

Unfortunately, this proves more difficult than it sounds. Despite some clever traps and lying in wait, the Predator still manages to get the upper hand on them and continues picking them off one by one. In the end, Arny is wounded and sends his last remaining man with the Anna with instructions to “get to the choppa!” He narrowly escapes death by crawling through some cold mud which masks his thermal signature.

After prepping some more traps, crafting some jungle weapons and smearing himself with warpaint (more mud), Arny lets out a giant bellow to draw the Predators attention. They have their final battle, Arny gets to see exactly what one looks like, and is generally unimpressed. “You’re one ugly motherfucker!” is the way he put it. The Predator must have understood too, because he proceeds to whoop Arny’s ass!

However, Arny still has one trap which he uses to pin the alien hunter under a log and then picks up a rock. However, he hesitates on the verge of delivering the final blow, giving him time to set off his little self-destruct sequence. Arny runs and barely survives the explosions, and the rescue chopper crew find him shortly thereafter looking shell shocked and dirty!

Well, that’s the first movie in a nutshell. Over the top, with lots of explosions, deaths and the constant sense of impending death.

Final Thoughts:
Naturally, this movie had its strong points. For one, the concept of the Predator itself was quite interesting and well illustrated. And I don’t just mean its weapons and active camouflage, even though those were pretty cool too! No, what was most interesting, in my opinion, was the rules that the Predator observed. In the beginning, it chose its arena carefully, being drawn to a region where there was active fighting. Second, it took the time to assess its environment and identify worthy game, and then went about stalking them. Last, it made sure to identify the individual hunters that made up the pack and worked its way through them, leaving the best for last and making sure that fight was hand to hand and one on one.

Oh, and let’s not forget that when faced with capture, it chose to blow itself up rather than let its remains (and technology) fall into its prey’s hands. Smart thinking! From all this, you can tell that these aliens have been doing this a long time and developed rules, tactics and equipment accordingly. Most of this would be further developed and explained in the second movie, but it was apparent from the first that some thought went into the alien development.

Really, the only problem I saw with this movie was the cheese factor. The commandos are way too brawny and brazen, nothing like the stealthy, quick and deadly tactics that actual Special Forces are known for. Second, the ensemble was just a huge bunch of macho stereotypes! Arny is, as with all his 80’s movies, the picture-perfect macho badass – smoking stogies, talking war stories, and flexing his muscles every chance he gets. Similarly, Ventura plays the massive gun-toting, cowboy hat-wearing Texan who chews tobacco and says shit like “he’s burrowed in their deeper than an Alabama tick!” Why didn’t they just call him “Tex” and get it over with already?

Then there’s Mac, the cold crazy dude dry shaves and makes chilling threats, but who naturally goes nuts when the Predator attacks and gets himself killed chasing it. And of course, there’s Billy, the token Native American who is real quite, stoic, and is the first to know they are being hunted. He also figures out that what’s after them is not a man, that they are all going to die, and seems to accept that with fatalistic calm. Oh, and did I mentioned he decides to stay behind and face death, fighting the Predator alone with his knife rather than die? Yeah, that was real “it’s a good day to die” moment there, a final Native warrior stereotype to cap off a blatantly cliched portrayal.

But hey, I already said the movie had signs of quality. It just so happens that they were buried under piles and piles of cheese! And what the hell, the action was pretty cool too. And ultimately, most of these strengths would go on to be developed further by the second movie and other installments in the franchise, culminating in a crossover with the Alien universe in 1989/90. More on that soon enough!

Predator:
Entertainment Value: 7/10 (cheesy but fun)
Plot: 6.5/10
Direction: 7/10
Total: 6.5/10 (Guilty pleasure movie, mainly)

FYI: Cool site to check out for Alien and Predator info, the AVP Wiki: http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page