so this is christmas.

Let's brainstorm, ya'll. I had a lot of fun doing a month of horror films in October for Halloween. I want to try something similar but less ambitious for Christmas: seven films for the week of Jesus Day: Birth Edition. I have five that I am absolutely going to do. There are two others that I'm on the fence about, so I wanted to reach out for idears. Send me an e-mail at pelonej1@gmail.com and help me pick two pretty awful, kinda hilarious Christmas films.

Braindead / Dead Alive (1992)

Tagline: Some things won’t stay down... even after they die.

Curiosity: Peter Jackson may have a bunch of Oscars on his mantelpiece now, but he was once a pretty gross horror/cult icon.

Plot: Set in 1957, Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) leads a fairly sheltered life under his mum’s (Elizabeth Moody) oppressive thumb when he Latin meets love interest Paquita (Diana Peñalver). They go on a date to the local New Zealand zoo, where Lionel’s mum is bitten by a Sumatran Rat-Monkey. The alleged product of a rat raping a monkey, the Rat-Monkey infects Mrs. Cosgrove, effectively turning her into a zombie. Ever the momma’s boy, Lionel tries to keep her condition hidden, but as her infection spreads to more people, that becomes a lonely, grisly goal.

Thoughts: Holy fucking shit. Jackson lets viewers know early on that he’s gonna go for gore, but that didn’t prepare me for this [skip to the six-minute mark if you want]:

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa he gets just the right mix of puss and blood. And that’s not even the grossest part! The film’s final 15 minutes or so are a symphony of bad taste (not to be confused with Jackson’s 1987 film, Bad Taste), not that I’d want to spoil anything. Braindead needs to be spoken of sparingly so as to preserve its shock value, but I will throw out some tidbits: “I kick ass for the Lord,” zombie sex, and the weirdest day in a park with a baby I’ve ever seen. I’m intentionally leaving out one particularly gross gag at the end, but surely the phrase “zombie sex” has already piqued you? Remember, once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

It’s because of the film’s ridiculously traumatic imagery that I found myself loving Balme in the lead role, though. As insane as the story gets, dude’s reactions during what must be the shittiest week in his life seem pretty plausible to me. And really, when this happens:

Wouldn’t you be making faces like this:

Reflection: My dad almost walked in on the zombie sex scene. So, that was fun.

Beverly Hills Ninja (1997)

Tagline: Kung fool! Ha ha get it?!

Curiosity: I’m still trying to figure out why people love Chris Farley. Also, Mortal Kombat star Robin Shou has a supporting role. Mortal freaking Kombat, with the fatalities and the techno and the punching Goro in the balls.

Plot: As a baby, Haru (Farley) was rescued by a ninja clan. While they initially suspect that he might fulfill an ancient prophecy about a foreigner who goes on to become a master ninja, time reveals Haru to be a clumsy, obese, and poor student. Still, his sensei, named Sensei (Soon-Tek Oh), tries to take care of Haru as best he can. So, when Haru leaves for Beverly Hills to investigate a murder mystery at the behest of buxom beauty Sally Jones (Nicollette Sheridan), Sensei sends his best pupil, Gobei (Shou), to look after him. Given that A) Haru is not a good ninja and B) Sally Jones may or may not be bullshitting about her name. Will Haru ever become a ninja master? Will he be able to stop Sally’s baddie boyfriend Martin Tanley (Nathaniel Parker)? Will fattie fall down go boom?

Thoughts: At this point, I’ve logged about 70 films for SNC. All of them were of questionable taste in one way or another, but some were just so got-damned hilarious or action-packed that I would have watched them whether or not I meant to comment on them. Not so with Beverly Hills Ninja, a film that I struggled through entirely because of this blog. I know Tommy Boy is revered in some circles, but Jesus Christ on Hot Cross Buns, who the hell thinks Farley’s shtick is amusing 24/7? Don’t get me wrong; he could be funny in small doses. But his reliance on lame site gags and physical comedy could never sustain a leading role in a full-length film. He was never exactly Peter Sellers.

Then again, I’ve read that Farley wasn’t happy with Beverly Hills Ninja, so I suppose I can cut him a little slack here. After all, he didn’t write the damned thing. He didn’t necessarily come up with the hacky, quasi-racist premise. At the same time, though, it’s hard for me to separate this from any of his other material. Pretty much every Farley role consisted of a “fat guy + job” formula (See: fat cop in Airheads, fat roadie in Wayne’s World 2, fat North American frontiersman looking to best Lewis and Clark in Almost Heroes). Oddly enough, I can only think of one role – his last – where his weight had nothing to do with his character, that being his supporting turn in Dirty Work.

Reflection: There is no reflection. Only hate.

Stargate (1994)

Tagline: It will take you a million light years from home. But will it bring you back?

Curiosity: It’s Kurt Russell in a Roland Emmerich film. Hell. Yes.

Plot: Controversial Egyptologist Daniel Jackson (James Spader with bangs) is on the verge of complete financial ruin when he meets Catherine Langford (Vivica Lindfors), someone who believes his theories about the pyramids being built by aliens. Turns out her father discovered alien technology – a circular construction of some sort dubbed a “stargate” – nearly 70 years prior in Egypt. Langford and a team of scientists suspect it could open a portal to another world, perhaps to the alien civilization that created the pyramids. When Jackson actually does figure out how to use the portal, a military team led by Colonel Jack O’Neil (Russell) travels through it with him. There, they find plenty of constructions and desert surroundings similar to ancient Egypt, as well as a primitive human city. Oh, and then the naked dude from The Crying Game (Jaye Davidson) tries to take their souls or something.

Thoughts: It’s kind of obvious now given that it has spawned four TV shows and counting, but the first time I saw Stargate, I thought it would’ve worked better as a show. The movie is self-contained, but there are so many ideas that I thought could have been expanded upon well beyond the time limits of a movie. I want to know more about the alien planet Spader and Russell land on. I want to know about the alien race Davidson’s character comes from. Hell, I wanna know what else can be done with the stargate technology.

That said, Stargate is one of writer/director Emmerich’s smarter films. The action is slightly lacking, but the plot is solid. Russell doesn’t get enough screen time, in my opinion, although it was fun watching Spader go from being a wiener to a sex symbol in the eyes of the locals. I also enjoyed how Emmerich avoids racist caricatures by inventing a new ethnicity to stereotype as idiotic. While it doesn’t top the wild antics of Independence Day or Universal Soldier, Stargate is still a solid sci-fi picture.

Reflection: True or false: There is no way French Stewart could get cast as a soldier today.

The Cable Guy (1996)

Tagline: There’s no such thing as free cable.

Curiosity: It’s generally regarded as the film that almost ruined Jim Carrey’s career, even though it made over $100 million worldwide.

Plot: Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick) moves into a new apartment after his girlfriend Robin (Leslie Mann) rejects his marriage proposal. Chip Douglas (Carrey) comes to install Steven’s cable… and much more. He quickly forces himself onto Steven, taking him out to exotic locales (a cable satellite! A medieval-themed restaurant!), introducing him to new woman (who are prostitutes!), and even giving him free cable. Steven gets the heebie jeebies something fierce from Chip time and again, but he keeps taking him back, most likely because Chip’s been giving him great romance advice for winning back Robin. Most of said advice comes from The Jerry Springer Show, but it still gets the job done.

But when Steven tries to pull back from Chip in order to focus on other things in his life – Robin, his job, his other friends – Chip makes with the crazy, essentially stealing Steven’s life. He gets the guy fired, then arrested, and even turns his own family, and Robin, against him. How will Steven overcome this lisping maniac?

Thoughts: For an alleged black comedy, The Cable Guy isn’t particularly dark. I mean, Carrey’s character is pretty insane, but after a while, the film settles into a groove of Chip embarrassing Steven over and over. There’s a teensy bit of satire about Americans’ devotion to TV, but it doesn’t go deeper than, “We all watch it! Wowzers!” Even if Chip wasn’t a cable guy, he’d still be a creepy-ass stalker.

The movie was still interesting to me, though, in a retrospective way. Ben Stiller directed the film, and he opted to bring in everyone from The Ben Still Show. Bob Odenkirk and David Cross show up in brief cameos, while Janeane Garofalo and Andy Dick get more sizeable, slightly funnier roles. Owen Wilson and Jack Black show up too, well before their own star-making turns. It’s essentially a pre-Frat Pack movie with dashes of Mr. Show tossed in. Only not very funny.

Reflection: Carrey brings gusto to the title role, and every once in a while, his abrasive silliness got a guffaw out of me:

Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

Tagline: Earth: Out-numbered. Out-monstered. Out-done. It’s great because two of those words don’t need to be hyphenated, and I’m pretty sure I could use “out-monstered” enough to make it a real word. Example: “Man, I’m not sure who is out-monstering who in this healthcare debate.” Topical!

Curiosity: It’s the final Godzilla film… for a while, and Toho tried to cram as many monsters into this sabbatical as possible.

Plot: An international strike force of superhuman soldiers called the Earth Defense Force has been set up to protect the world from monsters. The EDF successfully traps Godzilla in ice in the South Pole and destroys Manda, this giant serpentine dragon thingy, and are about to take out super-lobster Ebirah when aliens (!!!) come from outer space (!!!) and beam Ebirah and all the other planet’s monsters away (???). That was nice of them.

Except it was actually anti-nice! These aliens, called Xiliens, are secretly plotting to eat the human race! And they can control any monsters with the M-gene (pretty much er’rybody but Godzilla, Minilla, and Mothra)! It’s up to the surviving members of the EDF, led by Captain Gordon (Fake Tom Selleck), to stop the aliens and the monsters. But how? Could they…? Would they…? FREE GODZILLA?!

Thoughts: While it’s not a perfect film, Godzilla: Final Wars is pretty dang awesome. Sure, 125 minutes is a long time to put up with the Matrix­-biting fight scenes from the humans, and the monster battles are at times a little too brief, but c’mon – it’s still Godzilla laying down the smack’em yack’em on chumps. Some of the monsters, like Manda and King Caeser, haven’t been seen for like 30 years, so it’s dorktastically delicious to have them back again. Better yet, we get to see Godzilla take on the American Godzilla, a.k.a. GINO (Godzilla in Name Only), a.k.a Zilla here:

Of course, the film is not without its hilariously bad moments. The original Japanese language performance is riddled with random English outbursts – “Sorry, I’m a vegetarian,” “Well, I kind of like this face,” and “Watch it, X-Man” come to mind. Fake Tom Selleck sports an awesome sword (and moustache) that he never uses. My favorite moment is the band redubbing for an American cop. To avoid an R rating, his repeated use of the f-bomb was toned down… with words that don’t synch up with his over-enunciating whatsoever.

While the film doesn’t include every Godzilla monster – Mecha- and SpaceGodzilla are missed; Biolante, not so much – Final Wars is a treat for fans.

Reflection: Were they being sarcastic with that Sum 41 song?

2012 (2009)

Tagline: We were warned...

Curiosity: Roland Emmerich destroys the world… again! Plus, it’s got John Cusack, Danny Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Woody Harrelson.

Plot: Circa 2009 (that’s like now!), Dr. Satnam Tsurutani (Jimi Mistry) discovers that the Earth’s core is gonna melt like buttah. He shows his findings to Dr. Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor), his best, best, most bestest friend in the world, the one guy who so totally would not let him drown in a tsunami (foreshadowing!). Adrian just so happens to work for the U.S. government, so he jets back to Washington, D.C. with the most compelling five-page report ever written. Better than your book report on The Phantom Tollbooth, and that wordplay shit was like three grades above your reading level. So when government stooge Carl Anheuser (Oliver Pratt) takes a look, clearly the only appropriate response is to say “My God,” and then quickly exit the room… for action! Carl meets up with the president (Danny Glover) and they set up a plan to save America from… OUR OWN SUN.

Meanwhile, Jackson Curtis (Cusack) is a terrible father trying to prevent his kids from forgetting him in favor of their new dad, Gordon (Thomas McCarthy), who is both a doctor and an airplane pilot. Also, some minorities and/or old people do some stuff.

Thoughts: Emmerich took an awesomely bad concept and mucked it up. 2012 should have been one of my favorite films of the year, instead all I walked away with was images of every well-known catastrophe from the last decade. It’s kind of hard not to think of 9/11 or the Asian Tsunami from 2004 when you’re watching hundreds of computer-generated people fall out of buildings or get swept up in massive tidal waves. Hell, the entire state of California falls into the fucking ocean.

At the same time, the movie is incredibly ridiculous (It’s still an Emmerich film, after all). There are plenty of chase scenes, by which I mean Cusack and his brood run away from nature. It’s hard to take Glover seriously when he’s lisping through the end of the world. “My fellow Americanth, the thun hath melted the Earttthhhh core, tho now the crutht is shhhifting.” He’s like Sylvester the Cat. Thandie Newtown plays his daughter, and that gal cannot control her face. She always looks like she’s pooping. Always and forever.

But there are moments that shine. Ejiofor’s talents seem wasted here since he gets stuck as the film’s boy scout, but his character’s father, played by Blu Mankuma, is amazing as one half of a jazz duo on a doomed cruise. He and his partner, played by George Segal, bring some seriously affecting emotional weight as two old guys who know their time is up. Harrelson is awesome as the batshit insane, juicy pickle-chomping Charlie Frost, although his part was way too small. Cusack, being Cusack, is pretty great, even though I have no idea why the film is so hard on potential stepfather Gordon. Emmerich pushes the “family values” message pretty hard, but he’s just a straight up dick to Gordon despite A) being a nice guy and B) kind of being important to saving most of the principles.

The same could be said for Platt’s character. The film doesn’t have a villain per say (unless you count that jerkass lamp of Heaven, the sun!!!), but Platt’s Carl comes close, in that he’s the only one who puts zero effort into saving his loved ones. While one could argue that he’s focused on saving the wealthy, I would in turn assert that he subscribes to the notion that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. HE IS LIKE SPOCK. Dude is working on saving the human race, which means that a few people he knows might bite it.

Reflection: A minor European character dedicated to preserving the world’s most famous artistic achievements is named Roland. He dies in an explosion. Coincidence?

Alien Resurrection (1997)

Tagline: Witness the resurrection. It’s like Jesus!

Curiosity: Besides some ill-placed need to write about all of the Alien films? My master Joss Whedon wrote the script. Sigourney Weaver returns, with support from actors Ron Perlman, Winona Ryder, and that guy from The Crow. Plus, AMC was showing this last night, and I really didn’t want to pay to rent this shitfest.

Plot: Set 200 years after Alien³, scientists, as is their amoral way, have successfully cloned Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and an Alien Queen. This has resulted in the two sharing DNA, kina like the frog-dinos in Jurassic Park only not as awesome (VELOCIRAPTORS!!!). Ripley now has super strength, super agility, super b-ball skills, and sort of acidy blood. Also, she’s a lot creepier this time around. A crew of mercenaries arrives with human test subjects for the Queen’s eggs, but they’re actually planning to stop the cloning, too late. The aliens, of course, figure out how to escape their cages and start killin’ and masticatin’ and acting like, well, velociraptors (!!!). The ship they’re on is programmed to head back to home base should anything bad happen. That home base… IS EARTH!

That would be bad, btw.

Thoughts: Each of the Alien sequels starts with a leap of faith, a plot hole that makes you go, “Wait, no, that’s not how it works.” One by one, the rules of Alien get discarded as the series progresses. In this case, the whole cloning procedure seems underwhelming and underexplained, as I fail to see how scientists could recreate an Alien Queen using the original Ripley’s blood. Whatevs. Now, the way the aliens roar like a dinosaur, the way they never did before or ever again, now there’s a bad idea.

Alien Resurrection succeeds in being a black hole, from which some of my favorite actors and filmmakers cannot escape. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s films before and after Alien Resurrection were City of Lost Children and Amélie. I’m not saying he didn’t fuck up Resurrection, but this guy has definitely written/directed enough really good movies for me to know he’s not a hack. While his visuals are the weakest of the four Alien films, his cast is solid. I’m inclined to blame the story, as the dialogue and plot are atrocious. But that means condemning Whedon, the man who gave me Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I also just found out he cowrote Toy Story. Freaking Toy Story! How could I blame him?

"It wasn’t a question of doing everything differently, although they changed the ending; it was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong. They said the lines... mostly... but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do. There’s actually a fascinating lesson in filmmaking, because everything that they did reflects back to the script or looks like something from the script, and people assume that, if I hated it, then they’d changed the script...but it wasn’t so much that they’d changed the script; it’s that they just executed it in such a ghastly fashion as to render it almost unwatchable.” – Joss Whedon.

That’s why I can blame him. Dude admits to the film being faithful to the script, albeit in all the wrong ways, and then takes zero responsibility. Dammit, Joss, you still wrote this scene:

Alien Resurrection - Basketball

Alien Resurrection | MySpace Video

I’ll admit Whedon was in a tough bind to write the story – Alien³’s ending was meant to be all-encompassing, and as far as I’m concerned, it still is. But got-damn did he stink it up. Nobody’s perfect, but wow, man. Don’t sell that guy the rights to The Terminator. Still, he did come up with one effective scene. See, Ripley’s clone is called 8. In this scene, we find out why:

Reflection: The only truly essential movie is Alien, although the first two sequels form a decent trilogy.

Alien 3 (1992)

Tagline: The bitch is back.

Curiosity: It’s David Fincher’s first film! It’s the thrilling conclusion to the Alien trilogy (because Alien Resurrection doesn’t count)!

Plot: The survivors from Aliens crash land on a prison planet called Fiorina. Er’rybody dies except for Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). Her escape pod is found and she is nursed back to health, if only physically. She seems a wee bit unstable since A) her friends just met awfully violent ends and B) she’s pretty sure the aliens (or xenomorphs, if you prefer) were behind. Got-damn aliens… Anyhoozle, it turns out her suspicions were correct, as an alien bursts out of a dog, resulting in something that’s a lot faster and angrier than anything Ripley has dealt with before. While she has a few potential allies, like the religious leader Dillon (Charles S. Dutton) and romantic interest Clemens (Charles Dance), Ripley feels she must work on her own to track down this menace and figure out who else might be infected.

Thoughts: I like Alien³ in theory. It’s pretty dark, especially after the hopeful ending of Aliens. I mean, Fincher kills a kid in one of the most awful ways possible, and then forces Ripley to perform an autopsy on her body to make sure she wasn’t impregnated with an alien. That’s messed up. The principle cast is decent. Weaver plays Ripley differently each film, this time making her into a nihilist whose sole goal is to finally wipe out the aliens, without much sense of self-preservation. When you factor in all the time she’s spent in hyper-sleep, for Ripley the events of Alien were only a few weeks ago, so I get why she’s cracking up here. Dutton gives Dillon a bit of a Malcolm X quality, providing a great deal of strength for and from the character. Dance is always welcome because he’s British and very, very dry. With one exception, the rest of the prison planet consists of white dudes who only get a few lines a-piece, so they feel interchangeable.

Alien³ started filming before the script was even finished (the sequel was originally pitched as a vehicle for Hicks and Bishop from Aliens), so I’m willing to go easy on Fincher, who obviously went on to better things. But man does this thing start to suck after a while. The tension goes right out of the movie after Newt’s autopsy, settling for scene after scene of the alien massacring characters I don’t really care about. Elliot Goldenthal’s over-the-top score attempts to highlight tension in scenes that lack it, which just makes me long for Jerry Goldsmith’s reserved score from Alien that much more. Alien is such a quiet, creepy, claustrophobic film. Alien³ gets stuck in Aliens’ “big dumb action movie” setting without enough firepower to ratchet up the excitement. The closing battle is especially dull and confusing – it amounts to a whole lot of running, yelling, and tunnels. My God, the tunnels.

Reflection: Somehow, my DVD copy of the film is the original theatrical cut, which features Bishop (Lance Hentriksen) before he was retconned for Alien vs. Predator, which makes it easier to ignore that series. Oh wait, this is a bad movie blog…

Aliens (1986)

Tagline: This time it’s war.

Curiosity: Father! Bedtime stories! Childhood!

Plot: Having survived the events of the original Alien, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) puts herself into hyper-sleep (a.k.a. suspended animation), hoping to be found by another ship in about six weeks.

She drifts in deep space for 57 years before being discovered. Her daughter, who was 11 when Ripley left for her mining mission, died at 66. The company she worked for refuses to believe in her story about the alien and removes her pilot’s license. Ripley seems stuck in a dead end job without family or friends, only to have Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) offer her a new gig. Turns out that planet Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo landed on in Alien has since been colonized, and said colony has lost contact with Earth. Burke secures a team of Marines and, with Ripley’s help, intends to investigate the situation.

Thoughts: I’m kind of experiencing a personal backlash against James Cameron, who wrote and directed Aliens. Maybe it’s the craptastic trailer for Avatar. Maybe it’s the hack job he did on Rambo: First Blood Part II (or the fact that he recycled Rambo’s set-up for Aliens). Or maybe it’s just that Aliens, while probably the more popular film among fans, is the weaker, dumber film. The set-up has a huge plot hole – how could the colonists not have noticed the alien ship’s signal like in Alien? The dialogue is way crasser. And Cameron lacks Ridley Scott’s nuance with a camera. Where the monster was in Alien was mostly concealed so as to build suspense, Cameron only does so when he needs to save money, and it shows.

Still, Cameron is a natural action director, and his film has some excellent scenes spread out. The creature effects he got out of Stan Winston’s team, especially on the Alien Queen, are phenomenal. The final battle sequence is both more visually satisfying than the original and a lot less based in science. Ripley starts to come into her own as a heroine. In the original, she was clearly smart, but here she begins to lose her fear of the aliens. As Weaver herself nicknamed the character, she turns into “Rambolina.”

Reflection: God the Queen looks so cool.

Alien (1979)

Tagline: In space no one can hear you scream.

Curiosity: As a youth, my bedtime stories regularly consisted of my dad describing the plots from Alien and Aliens. Oh yeah, my childhood rocked.

Plot: In the gloriously underwhelming future, the spaceship Nostromo is towing mineral ore back to Earth when it receives a transmission of alien origin. The crew’s contracts state that, should they be given the chance to meet intelligent alien life, they must investigate. While they can’t figure out the signal’s meaning – could be an S.O.S. or a warning to stay away – the crew of seven pursues it anyway. They discover an alien craft crashed on a nearby planet. Kane (John Hurt) first discovers the preserved remains of an alien whose chest seems to have exploded. He later finds a room full of , in his words, “leathery eggs.” One of the eggs hatches and the creature inside attacks Kane. While Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) refuses to let Kane back onboard due to a 24-hour quarantine rule, science officer Ash (Ian Holme) defies her. Ash tries to figure out what’s happening to Kane, knowing only the creature is attached to his face, feeding him oxygen, and not particularly inclined to let go. An attempt to cut the thing off reveals that it has acidic blood. The next day, though, it’s found dead and Kane wakes up, seemingly fine.

Except he isn’t.

Thoughts: Having now seen Planet of the Vampires, I wasn’t sure how I would react to Alien. Turns out it doesn’t matter; Riddley Scott’s film is still a masterpiece. The film draws heavily from a lot of sources – obviously Vampire’s set-up, Star Wars’ idea of having futuristic technology still be old and worn-down, and Jaws’ decision to hide the monster as much as possible – to form a unique story. It’s the most claustrophobic of the series. The alien designed by artist H.R. Giger is truly frightening, a brutal killer that blends in with all the grays, blacks, and browns that dominate its mechanical settings. Ash isn’t totally off-base when he calls it “the perfect organism.”

The cast is great. Although Ripley is now known as the heroine of the series, she’s very much a fringe character for the film’s first half, the logical thinker that no one listens to until it’s too late. I’d say the story focuses more on Kane – he makes the important discoveries early in the film. Being a horror film in a sci-fi setting, the film ends up packing surprises by working the Final Girl rule into a stereotypically male-centric futuristic story. Scott tries a little too hard to extend the movie around the third quarter, but he makes up for it with a great ending.

Reflection: Ripley’s cat is not worth the trouble.

Last Action Hero (1993)

Tagline: Did Someone Say Action?

Curiosity: I’m just gonna give you one of the opening lines:

Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzenegger): “You want ta be a farmer? Here’s a couple of acres!” [Kicks cop in the nuts so hard he is lifted off the ground.]

Are you sold yet? ’Cause I is.

Plot: Danny Madigan (Austin O’Brien) is a mentally challenged youth incapable of recognizing the importance of hard work, morality, or empathy. In a way, he’s like a really stupid, lazy psychopath. He frequents an old movie theater in New York City (a very important urban center located in New York state), where he abuses the kindness of the elderly owner/manager Nick (Robert Prosky). In a desperate bid for Danny’s love, Nick invites the boy to a private screening of Jack Slater IV, the latest release in Danny’s favorite action series. After dropping out of school and manipulating his mother’s affection against her, Danny accidentally lets a thief into his family’s apartment and is robbed. Never one to care about his mother, Danny leaves the crime scene so he can watch a movie. His selfishness knows no bounds.

Nick, in a final attempt to make Danny actually care about him, offers him a precious collector’s item: a “magic” gold ticket from magician Harry Houdini, which turns out to really be magical. It pulls Danny into Jack Slater IV and he shares a zany, annoying adventure with his favorite action hero.

Thoughts: In case you didn’t pick up on it in the plot summary, I fucking hate Danny. That kid is such a shitbag. The only reason I even tolerate him is because without him there’s no movie. So, much like a jilted co-worker, I put up with his bullshit because I want to get paid. Only instead of money, my check consists of EXPLOSIONS!

Last Action Hero is a love letter to cinema, both of the action variety and of the medium in general. There are plenty of Schwarzenegger references, sure, but the movie also brings up Hamelt, Amadeus, and The Seventh Seal. It consistently makes light of how much disbelief people are willing to suspend for a good popcorn picture. It has Tom Noonan being the best kind of creepy, as only Tom Noonan can be. And it has Ah-nold dropping bad puns and bad guys 24/7. When he knocks a henchman into an ice cream truck, it instantly explodes, killing another bad guy… with ice cream. Quoth the ’Schwarzen, “Iced that guy, to cone a phrase.” Gold!

In the wrong hands, Last Action Hero could’ve ended up too self-aware. Thanks to director John McTiernan (Predator, Die Hard), the film instead balances action, betrayal, love, and morality with a fine cartoonish smirk. It asks some big questions of its viewers – What does it mean to be good? Does your world meet that criteria? – but I love it all the more for it.

Reflection: Seriously, Danny sucks.

The Omega Man (1971)

Tagline: Pray for the last man alive. Because he’s not alone.

Curiosity: It’s Charlton Heston in an adaptation of I Am Legend. Surely this should be the best thing ever.

Plot: In the not-too-distant future (1975), China and the Soviet Union kill er’rybody. Not only that, they did it with somewhat questionable biological weapons. The kind of weapons that turns people into homicidal albinos. The effects of this fallout have reached the whole dang world. In Los Angeles, California, there lives one last man (the Omega Man, if you will). His name is Dr. Robert Neville (Heston) and he is a military scientist. While he’s developed a vaccine to prevent/reverse the albinozation, there’s no one left to immunize. And he sure ain’t sharing it with Matthias (Anthony Zerbe) and his bloodthirsty, technology-averse cult called the Family. Neville settles into a life of killing hyper-whitey, when he meets Lisa (Rosalind Cash), a totally-not-albino person. Could there be survivors? Is there a portion of the human population that isn’t thoroughly crazy? Can an Omega Man and an Omega Woman Omega Do It?

Thoughts: SPOILER ALERT: Heston ain’t the Omega Man. There are several men in this movie, so I call shenanigans. That said, The Omega Man is a solid post-apocalyptic movie once it gets going, although it has a few hurtles to clear before that point. For starters, the Family always knows where Neville lives. but never does much with that information They refuse to use anything more technologically advanced than a catapult (literally), although they are huge fans of fire. Clearly, the easiest way to kill Neville would be to set his fucking house on fire and then walk away. Apparently, that never occurs to anyone, so they try way more complicated, way less successful methods. Also, the soundtrack could double as ’70s porn music. So, there that is.

Once the film gets beyond its introductory elements, though, The Omega Man shines. Given that it and Will Smith’s I Am Legend share source material, it’s obvious to compare the two. Smith’s Neville is a bit more unhinged, whereas Heston plays him as a cantankerous, yet humorous, survivor. He’s aware of his crappy situation, but even though he talks to himself a ton and occasionally hallucinates, he still cracks wise even though no one can hear him. I suppose that helps him stay sane.

No filmmaker has been able to perfectly adapt Richard Matheson’s original novel, and The Omega Man is no exception. Vampires are replaced with… white people. The ending is softened considerably, although at least these filmmakers had the good sense to change the title. As much as I enjoyed Smith’s performance in I Am Legend, changing the story’s ending renders the title useless.

Reflection: Heston’s hairy, non-muscular chest totally built up my self-esteem. I would have been a real lady killer in the ’70s. That’s assuming sweatiness is proportional to sexiness, if not a downright contributor to it.