They Live, 1988

This is a very good movie in many different aspects. Social critique plus action sequences makes for good entertainment where I come from. There is an interesting thing about this movie, that its showing of immigrants and this whole new world structure is as an important issue today as it was twenty years ago, but two aspects for me make this movie a masterpiece. First is the simple but elegant plot twists, second is the hero. Seriously, in the super-hero age, having a hero who is believable while being just strong, but homeless and not too bright seems like the message I would want to give, as in anyone can make a difference. I guess some people might be tempted to think the story a bit too simplistic and juvenile, but be noted I am trying hard to think how can an intelligent person not like it. It is a provocative movie and it might sort of tick people off, specially the go-getter types, and there is an easy way to dismiss thematic and pick sides, but I guess the movie is not about that. The Manicheism is just a way to show how the simple people see, or should see the world were they to understand what is their place. Me, I'll just keep helping the aliens.

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Heard of Shephard Fairey? You saw his Obama poster everywhere, the one with semi-abstract colors. 18 when this movie came out, Fairey borrowed its theme & exact typography in the movie for his signature "Obey" artworks. (Also lifted a photo for his Obama picture.) No judgments about his cultural expropriations---a long rebel artist tradition---of movies, Soviet propaganda posters & similar sources. Others angrily say plagiarist, but I'm not sure. His iGoogle theme seems original; I used it a while. Now, about the MOVIE: the thing that caught my eye in an otherwise p*ss-poor blurb was that a successful horror movie vet took on consumer culture. Hmm. Social criticism? It's there effectively in first half hour. Hero suddenly can see advertisements' literally simple hidden messages:"Obey! Consume! No Imagination! Watch TV! Marry & Reproduce!" A grab-bag of populist paranoia with perhaps a sterling grain of truth--but its anachronistic throwbacks to its 50s models are evident: a man says that human cops were coerced by being told they were "Commies." About the last year the Reds could be blamed, with the Berlin Wall falling the next year. Later, more up-to-date with attack on transnational new Money Mania: globalism's elites (aliens! including, here, literal ones in flying saucers!) make money & Live while the rest of us merely buy & Sleep (hence the title). Wrapped up in a boom-thwack-boom narrative to please its audience, it has some good stuff. But you can get the gist of it by watching the start & end. In between are boring stretches like an interminable oonf-uhnff five-and-a-half minute fist fight between protagonist & his black friend who thinks he must be crazy to put on special glasses to see the world right. Pointed class & economic observations beneath the exploitation framework. A cult classic of sorts, or deserves to be. Star rating? Kind of beside the point in this sort of polyvalent creation, but call it 3.5 stars. 2.11.09

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I saw this in the theater back in high school. I have seen it several times since and this movie gats better every time I see it. Possibly the greatest, not to mention longest fight scenes ever. In fact there is a SOUTH PARK episode with a shot for shot remake of this fight between Timmy and Jimmy, the classic "cripple fight". Not one of John Carpenters best movies, those honors go to Halloween and Big Trouble in Little China, but B-movie gold just the same!

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