Tag: aliens

Predator and The Most Dangerous Game

 

PREDATOR (1987) & THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932)

It’s been duly noted over the years that PREDATOR combines elements from ALIENS and RAMBO into one blockbuster.

Until only recently, I did not realize PREDATOR also updated a 1932 horror movie named THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME for modern times and weaponry. That relatively unknown classic centers around the concept of a big game hunter (Leslie Banks) who moved on from animals to humans on his own island reserve. The big game hunter finally meets his match in another legendary hunter (Joel McCrea) shipwrecked on the island, due to the big game hunter’s dastardly design of sabotaging ships and hosting then hunting the shipwrecked survivors. The two great hunters contest their most dangerous game on the same jungle sets as KING KONG. Ernest B. Schoedsack co-directed both MOST DANGEROUS GAME and KING KONG, films released several months apart. Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong appeared in both. I say go check out THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME.

In a two-star review for THE PREDATOR, I summed up the difference between the 1987 original and the 2018 retread.

“PREDATOR ‘87 does not have perfunctory dialogue and dead weight, and it does not drag. It plays like ‘a lean, mean fighting machine’ (in the great words from STRIPES) and it’s a streamlined entertainment that moves faster than this, er, last year’s model (an Elvis Costello reference following STRIPES).

“The cast of the original PREDATOR amounted to 16 actors.

“By comparison, THE PREDATOR features approximately 50 credited and 20 uncredited cast members.

“Favorite character: ‘Sobbing veterinarian.’ Second favorite: ‘Cantina bartender.’ Show: ‘Halloween mom.’”

Let’s face it: PREDATOR star Arnold Schwarzenegger could do very little wrong at this stage in his career and he’s a presence missing from the PREDATOR movies that have followed. This is a different Schwarzenegger film in one key aspect: When his Dutch faces off against the title character in the final act, it’s an incredibly tense final showdown because, for a change, we are not sure Schwarzenegger’s character will make it out alive. Kevin Peter Hall’s Predator knocks Schwarzenegger around real good, something that we just don’t see every day. Hall stood at 7-foot-2 and he towers over everybody, including Schwarzenegger.

The film’s marketing campaign proved to be misleading, since Schwarzenegger is not the predator, he’s the prey.

The supporting cast around Schwarzenegger forms one of the most macho in history, with such luminaries as Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, and Bill Duke around to chew the scenery. Their machismo ultimately descends into terror as the title character begins systematically eliminating them. They sure do make great trophies for the intergalactic hunter. They’re the best of the best, at least on this planet.

PREDATOR director John McTiernan (DIE HARD) and crew made the film in the real jungles of Mexico rather than some back lot. Like PLATOON, PREDATOR turns the jungle into another character and it exerts a force seemingly every bit as potent as the title character. If that intergalactic hunter don’t kill you, then the damn jungle will for sure.

Like JAWS, behind-the-scenes difficulties benefited the finished product. Originally, Jean-Claude Van Damme signed on to play the Predator, but was fired during production for reasons that nobody has ever been able to agree on. Apparently, some of his footage survived and made the final cut. The 5-foot-10 Van Damme would have made a radically different Predator, one definitely not quite as imposing and intimidating and one more ninja-like than Hall, who played the role in the first two PREDATOR movies before his 1991 death.

The first Predator suit failed, so the filmmakers called on special effects guru Stan Winston (1946-2008) to solve the problem. Winston is another one of those behind-the-scenes figures who developed a legendary reputation and just reading some of his credits justify the legend: PREDATOR, ALIENS, THE TERMINATOR and TERMINATOR 2, STARMAN, A.I., FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III (uncredited), THE THING, and PUMPKINHEAD (Winston also made his directorial debut with this 1988 horror feature).

Like a classic horror movie, we have a gradual build-up to the full reveal of the monster in PREDATOR. Characters also build him up in our imaginations with their dialogue. Of course, we see the effects of an escalating body count and this only fuels our anticipation for seeing this predator in his true form. When we do see this intergalactic villain, it’s worth the wait. The final showdown between Schwarzenegger and Predator definitely lives up to our expectations, and it’s on par with the big fights in KING KONG VS. GODZILLA and FREDDY VS. JASON, though PREDATOR is overall a better film than both KING KONG VS. GODZILLA and FREDDY VS. JASON.

You have not lived a full cinematic life until you have seen Schwarzenegger’s Dutch tell the Predator, “You’re one ugly motherfucker,” as he takes off his mask.

PREDATOR (1987) Three-and-a-half stars; THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932) Three-and-a-half stars

They Live (1988)

THEY LIVE

THEY LIVE (1988) Three-and-a-half stars
Back in October 2018, I started writing movie reviews again and sharing them on Facebook so that we could have something else to read other than one more political diatribe or one more unfunny meme taking cheap shots at entire groups of people.

Months later, I will go against the grain and consider THEY LIVE, both an anti-yuppie, anti-Reagan satire and a kick ass 1980s action and science fiction thriller from director John Carpenter.

THEY LIVE came out November 4, 1988 and made $4.8 million during its opening weekend, earning one-third of its box office take.

Four days after THEY LIVE’s opening day, tough-talking and hard-hitting Texan conservative George H.W. Bush crushed soft and elitist Massachusetts liberal Michael Dukakis in the U.S. Presidential Election.

(Though, of course, Bush was born in Massachusetts, attended Yale, and belonged to Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale, he was not one of the elite to his fervent supporters. Bush’s son, George W. Bush, later riffed on similar associations with Texas and Massachusetts in 2004 against John Kerry. I mean, don’t you know that Massachusetts is the exclusive domain of the most “pussy liberals” and “T is for Tough” just like “T is for Texas.” You can have the utmost faith in a Texan against terrorism.)

Bush could have used THEY LIVE’s most famous one-liner for his campaign slogan, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass … and I’m all out of bubblegum.”

In the long run, that might have worked out better for Bush — given his popularity after “Operation Nifty Package” and “Operation Desert Storm” — than “Read my lips: no new taxes,” a mantra written by Peggy Noonan for the 1988 Republican National Convention.

Likewise, THEY LIVE would have worked better for Dukakis than a tank, a photo op the Bush campaign used against Dukakis in a memorable 30-second ad with dramatic narration and subtitles, “He opposed new aircraft carriers. He opposed anti-satellite weapons. He opposed four missile systems, including the Pershing Two Missile deployment. Dukakis opposed the Stealth Bomber and a ground emergency warning system against nuclear attack. He even criticized our rescue mission to Grenada and our strike on Libya. And now he wants to be our Commander-in-Chief. America can’t afford that risk.”

“America can’t afford that risk” pops up on a screen mostly filled with the ridiculous image of a smiling Dukakis in that darn tank, topped off by that even more ridiculous name-tagged helmet “Mike Dukakis.” Dukakis looks like an absolute fool, an absolute tool, even worse than “strategic guest star” Eddie Murphy in BEST DEFENSE. Who would vote for this clown?

The Democrats would have been so much cooler if they had been able to latch on to THEY LIVE for the 1988 presidential campaign.

No, as we all know, they failed.

Just imagine an ad with Dukakis sitting at home watching the Republican National Convention and he puts on the THEY LIVE shades, revealing all the Republicans to be aliens. Their real agenda also shows up on screen: CONSUME — OBEY — SUBMIT — WATCH TV — BUY — MARRY REPRODUCE — DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY — NO THOUGHT — WORK 8 HOURS. (This would also work against the Democrats.)

I bet nobody can remember any negative campaign ad against Bush in the 1988 Election … but we all remember Willie Horton and “Revolving Door” against Dukakis painting him in broad ideological strokes. Again, leftist = wimp, conservative = tough guy.

It worked and still works.

I mean, where would Donald Trump be without such macho, tough guy associations?

You can just chuck any claims on “family values” and “Moral Majority” right out the window.

“I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it.

“I did try and fuck her. She was married.

“And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’ I took her out furniture — I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look. …

“I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Now there’s a campaign slogan for your average Republican or Democrat candidate in an Election coming soon to a screen near you — I CAN DO ANYTHING.

(For the record, I think Trump, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Spike Lee, Ted Nugent, Rush Limbaugh, and Alec Baldwin are flip sides of the same coin.)

So THEY LIVE mixes liberal and radical ideology with, let’s face it, conservative ass kicking or “Rambo Meets The Sandinistas.”

THEY LIVE’s poster: “You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they’re people just like you. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.”

Carpenter, under the name “Frank Armitage,” adapted Ray Nelson’s 1963 short story “Eight O’Clock in the Morning.” Nelson and Philip K. Dick were friends and even co-conspirators on the 1967 alien invasion novel “The Ganymede Takeover.”

On the eve of the 2012 Election, Carpenter talked with “Entertainment Weekly,” “Well, THEY LIVE was a primal scream against Reaganism of the ‘80s. And the ‘80s never went away. They’re still with us. That’s what makes THEY LIVE look so fresh — it’s a document of greed and insanity. It’s about life in the United States then and now. If anything, things have gotten worse.”

In the same interview, Carpenter touched on why aliens should be evil and why professional wrestler — which should be synonymous with “professional actor” — Roddy Piper (1954-2015) landed the gig of the protagonist John Nada.

“First of all, I was a wrestling fan when I was young. Even when I figured out what wrestling was, I was still a fan. To me, Roddy just had a weathered face and looked like he’d been working all his life. He wasn’t a Hollywood star. He had some scars on his face and I thought he would be convincing walking into town with a backpack on his back looking for work. I’d met Roddy at Wrestlemania 3 in Pontiac, Michigan. He was a great heel.”

Piper works his way around one-liners every bit as effectively as both Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Not only the epic “bubblegum,” but also “Either put on these glasses or start eating that trash can,” “It looks like you dipped your face in the cheese dip back in 1957,” “That’s like pouring perfume on a pig,” and “Life’s a bitch, and she’s in heat.”

Piper was one of the all-time great wrestling trash talkers and that served him (and us) well in THEY LIVE.

Keith David plays the character Frank Armitage and we remember David from PLATOON, where he proved a nice counterpoint to Charlie Sheen’s green protagonist, especially in the first part of the film.

For example, in this dialogue, “Shit. You gotta be rich in the first place to think like that. Everybody know the poor are always being fucked over by the rich. Always have, always will.”

Piper and David have one of the memorable fights in THEY LIVE. “South Park” later paid tribute with a Timmy and Jimmy brawl.

Piper and David slug it out for a good six minutes — just because Dada wants Frank to put on the shades and Frank demurs — and in a 2015 article, Vulture starts out, “The fight lasts for six minutes and purportedly serves no purpose; its incomprehensible duration is the joke, and in lieu of a punch line, Carpenter gives us punches.”

Wrong, in that it serves no purpose.

For one, it’s a showcase for the professional wrestler.

Secondly, Piper and David wanted a real brawl, according to info found on IMDb, only faking hits to the face and groin. Apparently, the duo rehearsed their fisticuffs for three weeks. Their final brawl impressed Carpenter so much that he left every single bit of it in the film. The plans had originally been for a 20-second fight.

Finally, viewers have read it as a metaphor for working class people fighting each other rather than fighting their real enemies and that we are wasting our precious time in that fight amongst ourselves.

Six minutes in a movie could symbolize a lifetime in reality.