Oh boy. This holds up. Roddy Piper plays Nada, a drifter looking for work in LA and gets onto a construction crew. He finds some glasses that allow him to see aliens disguised as humans as well as the subliminal messages that they have on signs, in magazines, and on money. Meg Foster knocks him out of a window, he has a long fight with Keith David, then they team up and join the resistance ultimately working their way to the alien’s headquarters where they learn that the aliens are taking over and some humans are in cahoots with them. They fight their way through a TV station to destroy the transmitter that disguises the alien, sacrificing themselves along the way. Keith David’s death is shocking (spoiler!) but shouldn’t be unexpected, and Piper gives a defiant middle finger when he is finally brought down. Director John Carpenter was making commentary about Reaganomics but, like I said, it still rings true now. Some of the action is a little goofy and Piper and David’s fight goes a little too long, but otherwise this is a fine piece of sci fi satire.
The Ramones – The True Story (Tubi)
I’ve seen this a couple times before and it’s a decent recap of the beginning of The Ramones’ career and their influence on Punk culture. Tommy Ramone, Ramones tour manager Monte Melnick, CBGB’s owner Hilly Kristal, and Ramones logo artist Arturo Vega do talking head segments interspersed with archival footage of the band playing and interviews. It doesn’t quite give the whole story (it whiffs on the acrimony between Joey and Johnny as well as the last years of the band) but despite its incompleteness, serves as a good introduction to the band for anyone who’s heard their songs and wants to know more.
Saw Runner today, interesting premise. Given the number of movies with plot holes an aircraft carrier could sail through or ridiculously contrived coincidences, this film went the extra mile to set up why the premise and how it played out was logical. I give it a thumbs up.
End of the Century, I think, is a more complete story and has more from the members of the band themselves as well as other interview subjects talking about them. Now I have to watch that one again as well!
Certain Prey 2011 Mark Harmon, Tatiana Maslany, Lola Glaudini
I’m a big fan of John Sanford’s Prey books. I also liked Mark Harmon in NCIS.
I was excited to watch this tv movie on Peacock. I feel disappointed. It’s not a good adaption of the book. Harmon’s portrayal is not anything like Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport. Did he bother to read several books to learn the character?
The two actresses playing the killers weren’t suitable for the role. They didn’t capture the craziness of psychopaths.
It’s not a bad movie. Mediocre is a better word. But fans of the books probably won’t like it.
I’ve wondered why there aren’t more movies based on Sanford’s Prey books?
Lucas Davenport is a great character for the right actor.
…the author’s mental image of Lucas looks a lot like Pat Riley, current coach of the Miami Heat basketball team, as he was twenty years or so ago. He had the face, the build, and — importantly — the suits. But Riley isn’t an actor, and he’s aged twenty years since his prime “Looks like Lucas” days, so it’s not going to happen.
Mark Harmon is, physically, quite close to Lucas in height, build, style, and a bunch of other things. If you thought that he was physically way, way off, then I honestly don’t know what you expect. This isn’t a Tom Cruise / Jack Reacher situation.
Interesting. Pat Riley is definitely closer to what I was thinking. including having a certain rough edge.
I remember seeing this when I was a teenager at a sleepover with cousins but I don’t think I have seen it since. James Woods plays Max Renn, the president of a Toronto UHF station showing sensationalize programming, his engineer Harlan shows him a pirated video showing victims being tortured and murdered; Woods becomes intrigued and asks his engineer to find more.
Debbie Harry plays Nicki Brand, a sadomasochistic radio host who becomes sexually involved with Renn. Originally thinking that Videodrome comes from Malaysia, they learn that it actually originates from Pittsburg and she goes there to audition but never returns.
Renn sets off to find it as well and discovers that the broadcast gives malignant brain tumors that cause hallucinations, like abdomens opening and accepting pistols into them. As he dives deeper into Videodrome, he finds the producer, Barry Convex, whose plan is to use the broadcasts to kill anyone too obsessed with sex and violence, with Harlan as an associate. Renn kills Harlan and Convex in gruesome Cronenbergian ways, finds his way to an old boat where Brand talks to him through a television set. She tells him that he must leave the old flesh to defeat Videodrome. Renn says “Long live the new flesh” and shoots himself.
Kind of disturbing and kind of gruesome with some fun body horror. The effects hold up for the most part – the opening abdomen and the gun-fused on the hand look creepy though there are some spots that don’t quite look realistic. This was 1983 though and it’s fun to see the grisly practical effects.
I was baffled by the casting of Branagh as an old Russian guy until I realized that at no point is any of the film meant to be taken seriously and that the whole thing is a light parody of Top Gun and other 1980’s action comedies.
It’s very much in the style of lots of other Ryan Reynolds films, so if you didn’t like them you probably won’t like this. That said, there were some genuinely funny moments in there, so I managed to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy it (although the car chase at the end really strained credulity).