Rowan-Morrison’s Guide To Home Video
(Just because I don’t review claymation snuff films doesn’t mean you can’t send them in)
Due to the crappy bunch of current sci-fi releases, Lollipop wanted me to rehash some of my favorite cyber/horror films. There was this one movie with a heinous creature that the audiences wanted to see dead, but I don’t know if Cool As Ice can realistically be grouped in with the genre. Oh well, there are plenty of others worth documenting.
The Thing. No, this isn’t Swamp Thing, so all of you guys hoping for an accompanying still of Adrienne Barbeau’s jiggle in the bog are out of luck. The Thing is a John Carpenter film with a parasitic alien that mindjacks some Arctic researchers and then uses their bodies as hosts for an array of creepy organisms. Because you don’t know which members of the ensemble cast are contaminated and which aren’t, the tension is worse than reaching into a jar full of cookies and cactus.
City of Lost Children. From the maker of Delicatessen and the director of the fourth outing of the Alien franchise, hails this visual masterpiece. Granted, there are more ugly mugs and misfits than an episode of Dance Party USA or Degrassi High, but it’s just as infectious. The surrealistic and dark comical premise revolves around a bunch of clones, kids, blind guys, mutants, and a flea. This Terry Gilliam-conjuring film is stunning enough to be more memorable than that episode of Blossom where she finds the dead hooker in the hamper.
Brazil. If you like happy endings, don’t rent this film (or make the same mistake I did by writing an unauthorized biography on Facts of Life‘s Mindy Cohn). Brazil is essentially Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World, meshed with the darker side of Monty Python. Grim, yet entertaining, like watching an autopsy on Grimace after a McDonaldland drive-by.
Logan’s Run. Okay, this wasn’t a great film like the aforementioned titles, but it’s an epic compared to America’s greatest tragedy since the O.J. trial – Independence Day. Logan’s Run takes place in the future. Society lives inside a protective bubble and people at the age of 30 enter a laser-blasting arena to be “renewed” (i.e. incinerated).
Rollerball. Made back in ’75, one year before Logan’s Run, Rollerball delves into a futuristic vision that turns rollerskating into a competitive deathsport with motorcycles, spiked gloves, enthusiastic crowds, and James Caan. Even if you’re not into futuristic films, how can you not laugh watching a guy on skates get clobbered?
Dishonorable Mention: Tron. This was really cool when it came out, but so were Micronauts and Simon.
Notes from Rowan-Morrison’s significant other: I wanted him to include E.T., my favorite alien movie, but he protested. So, hoping I could convince him of its merit, we watched it together. What kind of callous monster did I marry?!? I tell you, nothing warms the heart like watching your man have a giggle fit when the raccoon gropes a petrified E.T. as he’s minutes away from carcassville.
