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Reviews
Red Dawn (1984)
It did make me ponder
I was surprised by this movie being classified as an action movie. I suppose that it does have a lot of explosions and gunfire and dying, but I have always thought of action movies as ones where the "action" is.. glorified, if not glorious. When an explosion happens, there should be someone flying through the air in a tuxedo, when buildings fall down someone should be yelling "SHIIIIIT!" and when people die it should be after they've choked out their dying threat or quip. This movie's explosions and gunfire just make people fall down and die, and it's always expressed how much they don't want to, and often what it does to the psyche of the person who did the exploding or gunfiring.
I'm not American and I wasn't alive in 1984, so there might well be a lot of contextual meaning that I missed. I don't particularly like war movies as a genre, because I can imagine well enough for myself that it's horrible. Setting the movie in a fictional war made me keep watching because I didn't know what the outcome would be. There was also enough personal story to keep me watching to find out how the characters, as well as the war, would go.
"They fought here alone; and gave up their lives, so that this nation shall not perish from the earth.
I did wonder, several times, is it really worth all that? The kids just kept killing people, and more people got killed because of that, and by the end most of the Wolverines were dead too. To keep America America. Now I missed the start so I don't know if the invading forces were planning to do terrible things with the country. But I could not see that the idea of "america" was worth all of the violent deaths that I saw in this movie. I also didn't want to write off the story that the Wolverines had lived through. So I thought again, and now I wonder if maybe the idea of many differently-ideal-ed nations are necessary, and that it is worth death-fighting to keep a variety of governments in the world.
I suppose fighting for ideals rather than lives is one of those great heroic issues. I find it a bit interesting that a movie whose characters really don't seem to know (or address) what purpose on earth they're fighting for seems to end up having that message of nationality.
Actually, scratch that. They DO address that question. Patrick Swayze's character shouts (at the execution of the Russian and the turncoat) "THEY DON'T LIVE HERE", or something similar. The instinct of "you're on me, get off" is the strongest motivation for partisan fighting on offer in this movie. That it's expressed in so few words and with such simplicity, and that there's no treatise on American ideals spoken or read, makes the ending rather hollow to me now. It leaves "this nation" as not a people unified under whatever bill or constitution or dream it is that's supposed to make America American, but as a load of people who just happen to be there, who've been there for some time, and don't want no- one on their land, y'hear? And that is unfortunate, seeing as how modern America has the history that it does. It maybe also makes the story as a whole more understandable and relatable.
I did find Red Dawn rather watchable. And setting a non-fantastic genre movie in a fictional war is very endearing, to me.
Alien from L.A. (1988)
It's not a very good title.
I watched the MST3K version, but if I saw the full version on DVD or video for £7 or less, i'd definitely buy it. That price isn't a reflection on the quality of the movie either, I just don't like buying movies much.
Alien from L.A. is watchable in two ways. I thought the design of the production was, for the most part, excellent. I liked the cramped, fuzzy-smoky-steamy atmosphere and lighting, and I liked the costumes. I'm a sucker for "futuristic" dystopias, and one set of villains looked like Fat Sam's gang from Bugsy Malone grown up and glammed up. I like Bugsy, I like glam. I also like Flash Gordon and Dune, and the governmental bad guys(though some of them weren't..) would've fitted right into either. The world design of "Atlantis" made me happy.
The second reason I couldn't look away from this movie was that I just couldn't *believe* Wanda (the main character). She starts the movie as such an unbelievable drip and the way she reacts to the letter that tells her her father is dead.. a mildly interested "O my gaahd~". NO KATHY IRELAND, THAT IS NOT HOW.
Other people have mentioned her lack of sensible character development, but not the fact that when her glasses get smashed, she looks around for them from a distance, seems to SEE them, and shrug it off never needing them again. Maybe she's long sighted I guess, but that's never suggested by the movie.
It is also not a good move to use an actress with a voice like that. Coupled with her bizarre reactionless acting it makes Wanda seem a complete space case and fairly impossible to sympathise with (as well as confusingly young before close-ups), and if you feel the need to hang a lampshade on a personal quirk three times in a film then you should just take the damn thing out somehow.
Having said that though, if you took Wanda's weirdness and lack of expectable human qualities out of Alien From L.A, you'd have to replace it with something really amazing. The confusion that her character causes in the watcher is compelling. You might call it car- crash-watchable, but I think it's something rarer. There's almost no substance to the part at all, though she does things and goes places, changes clothes and follows a plot of a sort. It's like watching tightrope walkers; you think to yourself "can that really be happening?"-- but it is.
Watching Alien From L.A. felt like watching a lot of other movies I've seen all at once. It reminded me of Tank Girl and The City of Lost Children and Garuda and The Worst Witch (the one with Tim Curry), Total Recall, 1984, there are these cool, kinda noir-y bits..
This movie basically confuses me on a base level. The main character, performance and story are not good; perhaps just the average for some romantic/empowering made-for-TV. But they somehow found their way into another movie. A movie we never see the characters or plot of, a movie which takes place in an 80s-future city state that's averaged out from various previously existing sci-fi but which nevertheless carries it, adds a little of its own zing, and ends up workin' for me. Maybe that movie is about Gus's girl, or why the city is run by a revolving man, or why anybody listens to that guy on all the TVs, or why everybody is so interested in bones.
I just really want someone to make that other movie. I really, really do. But until then, I am satisfied with Alien From L.A.
Getting Even with Dad (1994)
Summary
I've enjoyed this movie as easy watching for years since I accidentally recorded it off the TV. My sister and I've always assumed it was called "Paying Back Dad", because.. that's clearly a better title. :]
And that's my only complaint, beyond the occasional overly stupid pratfall.
Ted Danson plays a macho ex-con cake decorator who throws a plant out a window and falls over while ice-skating and still gets the lady, and Macaulay Culkin gets a musical segment. Also it opens with a heist, and the heart-warming climax happens on a bus. If you do not like these things, you are wrong!
Tokusou sentai Dekarenjâ (2004)
Actually entirely fabulous.
This movie is a thirty-eight (or nine. The director says both) minute ball of crime-fighting, love-finding, justice-promoting spandex-wearing marvelousness.
The Special Police Dekarangers are (obviously) a team of law-enforcers. They are lead by Doggy Kruger, an 'Anuboid'(read: guy with a blue dog's head), and all have charming "type" personalities, and save the world/other worlds from evil alien criminals. This is the series that became Power Rangers SPD. It is MUCH BETTER.
In this movie Ban(n), the leader and Deka Red, meets and falls in love with Marie who sings in an alien-filled club where he is staking out villains. The sequence where he spots her and she sings for him is adorable. Seriously adorable. He picks up a drink and swallows it all down, he's terribly nervous, he jitters - he's like a basement nerd who's never seen a girl before. If it were done in an American movie, it would be horrible. Ashton Kutcher would crucify this scene. But Ryuuji Sainei just makes it incredibly endearing.
So she turns out to be a SPD ranger from another planet which has been infected with a virus that turns everyone into robots and the earth rangers decide to help her fight the villains. Of course! And the fight for justice ensues. Also a two-girls-in-a-bath scene.
(You don't SEE anything, and they just sit there. It isn't the rude sort of bathing.) I really do think that Mr Sainei is a good actor. His character is quite extreme of emotions and there are three really showcase moments for this. One is the afore-mentioned meeting, one is a how-could-you-betray-me/us/the world anguished anger scene, and one involves the line, "if you die, I won't forgive you". Bann is brilliant! The rest of the characters don't really get that much screen time in Tokusou sentai Dekarenjâ, but what you do see is enough. THEY ARE ALL AWESOME. This is my considered opinion.
As well as all this, there is are two nice, sparks filled, expected Sentai/Power Rangers battle scene. Both Human-sized and Giant Mecha involving. Actually one of these included the only moment I found fault with - can two people really stand six feet away from each other firing a gun from each had and *keep missing*? Deka Yellow and Deka Pink team up to fight one of three monsters and I think they work well together - it's a nice nod to how police have partners as well as their having some cool moves.
It all ends fairly happily, of course, with play-fighting and holding hands and a romantic time-stop (writing this reminds me of another moment in the die and I won't forgive you scene. I won't spoil it, just because. But it is lovely.). And then come the credits.
The credits alone are worth seeing this movie for.
All films should end with the cast doing that.
Entirely fabulous.