Is Mad Max "Sci-Fi"?

It counts for the challenge because IMDb says so, but forget what they say. Dystopian movies aren't always sci-fi, are they? Presented as what-if fantasies, but that doesn't make them part of the 'fantasy' genre. All movies aren't real, but they can't all be labeled as fantasy.

What about Max Max neccessitates the label of "Science Fiction"? What is scientific about the movie? Society does not have technology at this point. What do you say, mate?

Brainscan

When you're a kid, you don't always have control of what you get exposed to. I'd seen this movie when I was like... 6 or 7? Suffice to say, it left an imprint on me at that age. I always thought Eddie Furlong was the coolest. He had that bad-boy teenage drama that I always envied. Girl problems, a misfit way of life, and an otherwise seemingly dope lifestyle.

He plays "Michael", and Michael's room always seemed like a cool place to me. He lived in the attic with a lot of "cutting edge" mid-90s technology, and even his own damn refrigerator up there. I was always kind of fascinated with that aspect of his life. Plus, his dad was never around, so he basically lived by himself. I always thought it would be cool to live in an attic room like that, but in real life, most attics are just cramped spaces with itchy insulation.

A lot of the movie is centered around horror fandom. It's very much a Fangoria-inspired movie, and the horror genre itself is obviously a major part of it. Michael runs a "Horror Club" at school where he would screen splatter flicks. Anyone ever watched horror flicks in school? Let alone on a regular basis? It's got to be a sweet life for Michael.

The writers needed to give Michael a handicap in order to balance the universe, so they gave him a leg injury. I distinctly remember being terrified of that brief scene of knee gore, always fast-forwarding that scene when I watched it on tape. A recorded tape that was borrowed from a neighbor and never given back. Of course, that gore scene is very brief and tame by today's standards, but I still felt unsafe watching it.

This movie is very much a time capsule of the horror culture in the 90s. It isn't necessarily a great movie, but I've always loved it, even if that Trickster guy isn't as cool as he thinks he is. He's like a really ugly version of an 80s glam rocker, but he has his moments. Langella doesn't do much in the movie, but I appreciate his presence nonetheless. And the protagonist's friend "Kyle", I always recognized that guy in a Halloween M&M's commercial. If that's all he ever did, I would count that as a fulfilling life.

IMDb Trivia:

Director John Flynn did not get along with Edward Furlong during filming. He later recalled, "Eddie Furlong was a 15-year-old kid who couldn't act. You had to slap him awake every morning. I don't want to get into knocking people, but I was not a big Eddie Furlong fan."

Edward Furlong's aunt Nancy Tafoya and half brother Sean Furlong lost custody of him to his mother in 1993, after the duo consistently fought with Furlong during the filming of this movie.

#Review

The Boys, season 3

For those who don't know, The Boys is an Amazon series based off a comic series. It's about corrupt superheroes and a handful of pissed off regular folk who want to kill them. What if superman was a narcissistic asshole murderer? What if Aquaman gets molested and realizes how fucking lame he is? Well, it's a pretty ride, and season 2 left off with the best cliffhanger of all time:

Our "superhero" goes on top of a building, looks over the city, and jerks off all over it... to the thought of himself. If that doesn't leave you wondering "What happens next?", then what more do you want?

What's the deal with Zach Braff?

What a little cunt. Seriously, fuck him and his dick nose. Sick of seeing him on that Tubi ad with that other unfunny piece of shit from Scrubs. Makes me wanna watch more Amazon Prime, where there are far less ads.

Blue Steel (1990)

That was a damn good movie. Kathryn Bigelo is one of the few female directors who understands action and tension. With some of that good ol' Eric Red writing, you get a tense and well-paced thriller about a wall street guy who snaps one day and fixates on a beat cop he saw take down a bad guy.

Jamie Lee does a fantastic job here. Nobody believes anything she says except for good ol' Clancy Brown. He usually shines in villain roles, but he goes for a good-cop role this time, and it works. Ron Silver is the wall street guy who slowly descends into madness as he toys with our protagonist cop lady the entire movie, often discrediting her every chance he can get so he can ruin her life in whatever way seems to get him off. You really hate this guy the whole time, and it's great.

The other cast is full of people you'll recognize, and it even has a Brad Fiedel score. If that guy had scored any of the post-T2 sequels, those movies would probably be a lot better. So with all these great ingredients, why haven't I seen this movie sooner?

#Review

A Twilight Zone Episode

Imagine, if you will, a day in the life of a working man. A man who saves every penny so he can enjoy an early retirement. However, a mere day in the life wouldn't reap the rewards of the endgame, thus the working man works for it, and continues to work for it to such an extent that he may work himself into an early grave.


Mr. Smith is on the commute home from the bank after making a hefty withdrawal. His life savings, to be more precise, some odd hundred thousand dollars. He doesn't have a care in the world, but a celebration can only go so far as the vehicle's capacity, and the vehicle needs gas.

As luck would have it, Mr. Smith finds himself in the proximity of a local gas station. The price lists $3.49, which by yesterday's standards is an outrage. Sure, Mr. Smith can afford it, but he elects not to. Just because you can doesn't mean you should, in his miserly opinion. There are far better things to spend one's earnings on, and Mr. Smith thinks about these things regularly, because he's a 66-year-old man, and he just retired.

Enter the runaway vehicle. A plot device that can be substituted by various more plausible scenarios in the immediate vicinity, but for the sake of this tale, the turnabout comes in the form of a school bus. The vehicle collides with Mr. Smith's modest automotive, sending Mr. Smith spiraling into a coma.

"Oh no!" Mr. Smith shouts as he sits up in his hospital bed, "Not my modest automotive!"

The nurses call the doctors and try to calm the disoriented man.

"How long was I out?" he panics as the realization of his accident sets in.

"A week," says the nurse, "It's a miracle you survived. You suffered various injuries, such as..."

Mr. Smith pays no attention to the trivial babblings of a trained professional, opting instead to consider his time frame. "I'm rich!" he cheers, ripping the IV's out and disconnecting himself from the equipment as he sits up and tries to stand. Muscle atrophy has set in, but Mr. Smith disregards this as he crawls out of the hospital room with a big smile on his face, ready to reap the rewards he's worked his whole life for.

After a gradual period of readjustment, Mr. Smith has wobbled his way into the lobby, struck by the notion of an impulse buy. "I sure am hungry," he says, eying the nearby vending machine. He pulls out his wallet. From where, we do not know. As he is about to tender the appropriate amount of cash, he is astounded at the cost. "A 1-ounce bag of chips should never cost this much," he decries, putting his wallet away, "I may be rich, but I'm no sucker!"

Mr. Smith storms out of the lobby in his hospital gown as everyone can see his wallet, tucked tightly between his ass cheeks. Leaving the site of a price gouging would seem therapeutic, though nevertheless, his dilemma was only beginning.

"Hey man," intrudes one of various beggars about the lot, "Gimme a hundred dollars."

"A hundred dollars?" Mr. Smith gasps, "Why, that's outrageous! Maybe ask someone for a dollar at most, but not a chunk of their paycheck!"

"Man," the bum dismisses, "Get outta here..."

Mr. Smith finds this man's rhetoric intolerable, until he sees a sign from above. In the literal sense, gas prices are listed at $349 a gallon. Mr. Smith is in shock, collapsing to his knees. "You maniacs!" he screams, pounding his fist to the ground, "You blew it up! Ah damn you... God damn you all to hell!"

The cityscape is littered with signs of horrendous values. A cheeseburger combo at the local fast food joint: $799. Local produce, apples selling for $299 per pound. A gumball in candy machine: $10. Here he was working his life away, and now his savings totaled less than the new minimum wage. A lot can happen in a week. Even outside of... the Twilight Zone.

I think this episode was cut because it was a rip-off of that other TZ episode about the guy in the future trying to get the gold bars that were now worthless. Also, not sure why that guy was sticking his wallet up his ass, but that might have had something to do with it.

The Next Karate Kid (1994)

I avoided this one for a while because I figured it would be bad. Nobody ever really talks about it, so what gives? I guess Daniel San isn't a kid anymore, so fresh blood was needed. This time, we get Hilary Swank, and you know what? She does a damn fine job.

Julie Pierce is an angry teen. She's been recently orphaned and has a rough time in high school. Violent male stalkers, poor attendance, unsympathetic teachers, the works. However, when Mr. Miyagi is shoe-horned into her life, things start to turn around for her. You know how these movies go.

Of course, there must be a villain, and it's a bunch of testosterone tough guys led by a hate-mongering Michael Ironside. Was this guy born to play an asshole, or what? Here, he's filling in the need for a Kreese-like character. He's training his male students to seek out revenge over the stupidest transgressions. Try to help someone who got hurt? We'll make him pay for that! Seriously, what a bunch of dumbasses.

It's hard to reboot a franchise without its "main" character, but Swank does a great job, and she's looking fine in this movie. What a tight body. And it's perfectly legal for me to say that, because she was 20 when she made this movie.

As the last known student of Mr. Miyagi, I think it would be a great move to bring her into the show sometime. Hell, maybe even bring Michael Ironside back too (for moral support, I doubt he's very physical these days). And for good measure, they should also bring back Walton Goggins mostly useless side character, because it's Walton Goggins. He'll steal any scene you give him.

Not a bad movie. Don't try to get me to watch the Karate Kid remake though. I'm not that brave.

#Review

What's the deal with shark movies?

Oh no! There's this horrible man eating monster that's killing everybody! How will we ever stop it? How will we ever avoid it? How do you know you won't be the next one to be eaten?!

Oh, I don't know. Maybe just STAY OUT OF THE FUCKING OCEAN? You know, that big wet salty place that you have absolutely no reason to ever go into, ever? Maybe just don't go in there?

I can't thing of any type of attack that is easier to avoid than a shark attack.

FUCKING POINTLESS!

Day of the Triffids (1981 BBC miniseries)

This is available for free on Pluto TV right now. It appears to have six episodes. So far I have watched the first two.

It's pretty scary! It's from 1981, and was filmed in and around London. Anyway, they did a pretty respectable job on it. I think most of us have seen the 1962 film by the same title, at some point in our lives, but just in case not: the idea is that a meteor storm affiliated with a comet has put on a light show that blinded everyone who watched it, which was over 99% of the population. That's bad enough, but then a second problem is that there are these giant venus-flytrap-like plants called Triffids, that have the ability to sort of crawl around, and which have these whip-like appendages that they can snap out at people and poison/kill them with. There is some discussion implying that they even have a sort of crude, rudimentary intelligence, too... there might be more about that in the episodes I have not seen yet. Anyway, there are millions of these Triffids, and they are crawling all over London killing all the helpless blind people. It's pretty scary!

In this miniseries, the Triffids are supposed to be a previously rare species, native to Earth (Ecuador specifically). At some point prior to the action of the miniseries, investors started cultivating Triffids in huge numbers, on "Triffid farms," because they secrete some kind of oil that the investors plan to market as a biofuel. It sounds like a perfectly reasonable, maybe even profitable idea. But, of course, when everybody gets blinded by the meteors, the Triffids start to escape, and just generally run amok, killing everybody they can.

I think there is another version of this story, either in the book, the 1962 film or maybe just some fanfiction I read once, in which the Triffids are supposed to be an alien species that came to Earth as spores, during the meteor shower. Does this sound familiar to anyone? I might be thinking of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, obviously, but I don't think I am.

Anyway, if you watch this, you will be reminded of various scenes from 28 Days Later, Night of the Comet, and maybe even the very first episode of The Walking Dead. And Invasion of the Body Snatchers, of course. It also makes me think of the 1984 BBC TV movie Threads, which I have talked about here before. Threads was directed by Barry Hines, and is about a cataclysmic nuclear war... I am just reminded of it because it is from roughly the same time period, and is also a British production.

Back to DotT.... I just find it creepy and eerie, to see all the blind people staggering around, calling out for help. That alone is scary. At the pont I'm at, the Triffids are just starting to become a problem, and they are scary, but so far they haven't completely taken over the city yet.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, it's a pretty respectable miniseries, and worth a watch. Had to share.

Reading Tommix's post...

Concerning Stephen King, I was thinking about King's films I saw at the cinemas. I remember seeing The Dead Zone, Maximum Overdrive, The Running Man, Pet Semetary, Sleepwalkers and 1408 in theatres. Seeing a film at the cinemas was always a different experience than watching at home imo which made a piece of shit like Sleepwalkers seem alright. Which films adapted from King's writings did you see in theatres?