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Sludge 
"Charlie Don't Serf!"
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 Posted - 09/17/2010 : 02:43:13
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quote:
Originally posted by BiggerBoat
quote:
Originally posted by ragingfluff
"They Live" which is so bad it's good ... has the longest, most drawn out fight ever filmed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsZpdUUdd3I
Ha ha! Yeah, I saw this again not long ago, and not only is the fight long and drawn out, but is so incongruous to the story - they were buddies, to a degree. The guy who played the lead had been a wrestler in real life, and it was almost like there must have been something in his contract to say that there had to be a fight scene in there somewhere.
All very stilted,shit John Carpenter synth soundtrack, but a great plot.
I can reconsider Dark Star and hope some will re-think They Live. I view this as a genuine classic. I disagree strongly about the fight scene as it is at the core of the picture, and I don't think it was Carpenter just having the guy get in a fight. If he were exploiting the wrestling thing, the whole movie would be a series of these fight scenes (although Piper takes more than his share of falls and abuse).
Piper's character had been out of work and there's some politics around unemployment, factory closures, corporate bailouts and the Justiceville homeless camp.*
In terms of the fight scene, yeah, it's overdrawn for a fight about putting on glasses, but this is also about one person reaching through another person's denial. It is about society being snowed, sort of a flip side to 'Wag the Dog'. Keith David's refusal isn't about putting on glasses. As he says, "I don't want to get INVOLVED." He is fighting to preserve his blissful ignorance. Once the glasses are on, though, he has no choice but to take a stand against the aliens.
The manipulation of television and advertising make this a nice fictionalization along the lines of "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" and similar works. I've read some recent takes on They Live pointing out that the Money as God mistake seems appropriate to revisit today.
The soundtrack suffers from an extremely repetitive blues riff by John Carpenter. It is also a little self-indulgent of Carpenter to have one of the aliens, disguised as human, on a TV talk show criticizing violence in his films.
But overall, I think it was the right film for its place and time (like The Dude...). The special effects are cheap, yet I think he's weaved them into something worthwhile.
I like this perspective too.
Then there's a this (pulled from wiki):
quote:
Richard Harrington, in his review for the Washington Post wrote, "it's just John Carpenter as usual, trying to dig deep with a toy shovel. The plot for "They Live" is full of black holes, the acting is wretched, the effects are second-rate. In fact, the whole thing is so preposterous it makes V look like Masterpiece Theatre".
I object to the toy shovel line. You could replace "toy shovel" with "hammer". I also disagree with negative assessments of Piper's acting in They Live.
I'm wondering what's going on with the remake. Anyone have IMDB Pro access?
*This was filmed in an open weedy area adjacent to downtown Los Angeles. I believe these were originally oil fields (later it became the biggest boondoggle of the L.A. Unified School District when they got the land, and ignored one bid that had factored in enviro remediation in favor of another that had not... resulting in the most expensive un-occupiable high school ever built). There is a real "Justiceville" a few block south of the movie set. I'm sure Michael Douglas is standing on the same site as Carpenter's encampment, on the DVD cover for "Falling Down".
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Edited by - Sludge on 09/17/2010 03:54:17 |
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The absolute worst film you've ever seen
