Winger Tim Graham on WaPo’s Swayze obit (via Steve Benen):
[T]oday’s Adam Bernstein obituary for Patrick Swayze begins obviously by noting his big hits “Ghost” and “Dirty Dancing,” but doesn’t get to “Red Dawn” until paragraph 23. Even then, Bernstein wrongly suggests he had a supporting role. […]There are clearly no fortysomething Reaganites working in the Washington Post newsroom.
You can’t spoof this stuff.
Adrienne
Would you even want to? They truly live in their own alternate universe.
The Grand Panjandrum
Wow you are way ahead of me. I’m still waiting for WND to give us the real count for the Million Moran March.
Ash
They’re remaking Red Dawn. And there are going to be BLACK PEOPLE in it.
The Grand Panjandrum
I am also looking forward to the wingnut defense of Kanye now that Obama has called him a jackass.
Da Bomb
The man is dead and the only thing they have to complain about is the fact that Red Dawn wasn’t mentioned until further down in the Obit. Really.
They really wouldn’t like the fact that he became a conservationist and environmentalist after he visited the land that Obama… I mean uh Obama’s dad emerged from.
Teh Stoopid, it burns.
cleek
for people who bitch about political correctness so much, they sure have a problem with people who don’t have the right approach to politics.
freelancer
I mentioned this in the last thread, and I’m on the fence about it, seeing as how I’d have to watch the fucking movie again in order to do it, but…
Crashman06
As a fun-loving, surfer/bank robber, let me officially register my disgust at WaPo for not mentioning Point Break.
bogart
I hate that movie so much. Just from a military standpoint, it makes no sense. Ruskies invade Colorado? What? If you invade a country, especially one as big as the United States, you don’t start in the middle and fight a two front war. If they’d set the movie in Alaska, then I might have bought it, at least until “AVENGE ME!!!!!!” Some shit is just to over the top.
DMB
3-I wonder how that’s going to work out, see, there’s no Soviet Union and no Cold war, so the stresses that made the setting work won’t be there to help suspend the Disbelief.
dr. bloor
Where did the WaPo mention “The Verdict” in Paul Newman’s obit? Cuz it would really tell us volumes about their position on tort reform.
Jeez.
jibeaux
I’m just disappointed more people don’t remember the chippendale’s skit with Chris Farley. You know, as a liberal lover of all things sexy, or something like that, and Chris Farley was fat and Michael Moore is fat.
Zifnab
@Ash: Damn you, liberal Hollywood media!
Honestly, if they wanted to remake Red Dawn as a total parody, or even better yet, a Michael Moore documentary, I would be all for that on the basis of lulz alone.
BFR
Ruskies invade Colorado? What? If you invade a country, especially one as big as the United States, you don’t start in the middle and fight a two front war.
I thought that the Russians HAD invaded the whole country. The reason the focus was on CO is because that’s where the resistance started.
LoveMonkey
Heh. Of all the people in the world, you certainly can.
jibeaux
@Zifnab:
Were you an MST 3k fan?
http://www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/red-dawn
The Grand Panjandrum
@Zifnab: It should be set in Erick Erickson basement with him furiously typing away to keep us all safe and free. (Gosh I think I’m tearing up a bit … sniff, sniff … )
Dusty
I think there was a Southern front and a Northern front. Colorado was part of the first wave in that Northern front. Although you’d think Russians would know better than to invade Colorado just before the winter hits. And why send the Cubans there? Why didn’t they leave the Cubans in the South?
gbear
And because of that you can be resonably certain that there will always be some Cheetos left in the WaPo snack machine.
‘Fourtysomething Reaganites’ just screams “I have never ever lived in the present moment, and my hopes and dreams have petrified.”
Morbo
@BFR: Doesn’t really make sense in context. If they had already invaded the country, surely the teacher would have known better than to leave the building to investigate what was happening.
Corner Stone
@Ash:
I thought the original did have black people in it. Wasn’t the son of the mayor, the kid who swallowed the tracking device and ratted everyone out like a sniveling little coward, black?
I thought that’s where the whole “No Snitching” thing started. No?
Citizen_X
I just want to see a little love for Roadhouse.
freelancer
@Zifnab:
I thought Moore did spoof it, and it was called Canadian Bacon.
BFR
And why send the Cubans there? Why didn’t they leave the Cubans in the South?
Yeah, I could never figure out the Cubans either.
Corner Stone
@The Grand Panjandrum: That would be almost as awesome as the Chappelle skit where he’s blind and a Klansmen.
Cat Lady
I’ve been waiting since Swayze’s death was announced for this post – it was just a matter of waiting for which wingnut provided the hook. The only question was whether it was going to be DougJ or Cole’s. Did you flip a coin?
Corner Stone
@Da Bomb:
Fuck! We almost had you that time!
I knew it.
Dork
Never seen Red Dawn.
freelancer
OMG
The Birther Musical Catalog is yet again expanded…
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/15/birther-hip-ho/
Corner Stone
@freelancer: I’ve watched that movie a eleventy dozen times. Don’t get me started on its awesomness.
freelancer
Goddamnit,
Get me out of mod hell!
New Birther Song. It’s a RAP
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/15/birther-hip-ho/
We need tanks and hummers, not hybrid cars!
We need honest politicians, not communist czars!
USA, not the USSR.
We need more Ann Coulter and less Bill Maher.
[…]
I don’t need another lecture from the Sockalistic hypocrite.
Tuesday was your birthday, but where’s your birth certificate?
Corner Stone
@bogart: They nuked key strategic sites first. They wanted to keep the breadbasket intact after several years of bad grain harvests.
jibeaux
@Dusty:
I haven’t ever seen this movie, but descriptions of its plot sound implausible. :)
Dusty
The teacher who gets killed up top is black. That opening sequence is pretty good. It’s all downhill from there.
Svensker
@Citizen_X:
Best movie ever. The whole concept of “the best bouncer in the world” is just too much, and the fact that TBBITW was trained by “best older bouncer in the world with long hair and total coolness” just makes it better. Then the fact that a beautiful brilliant doctor is madly in love with TBBITW is just the icing.
“Pain don’t hurt.”
It took me a while to realize that Roadhouse was a modern version of a classic Western.
de stijl
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Wolverines!
Corner Stone
@Svensker: Including the obligatory body toss through the front swinging doors.
Keith
Why is that not on BigHollywood.com? That’s Breitbart material right there.
Ash Can
I wonder how many of Graham’s readers knew that Swayze was in any other movies besides Red Dawn?
@The Grand Panjandrum:
You’re just imagining the smell.
J.W. Hamner
There was actually some fairly good, if mindless, stuff to come out of the Reagan era War Pr0n genre, so you’d think wingnuts could find something less terrible to latch on to as their Greatest Conservative Movie Ever.
de stijl
Hence, Wayne’s World’s roadie guru
Eric U.
I loved Red Dawn, particularly where they booby-trapped the wounded teenager.
I actually did like it, although it was obviously a wingnut wet dream from the beginning. The Cubans land, and the first thing they do is go down to the sporting goods store to find the gun registrations. The thing is, wingnuts are such slaves to authority that they would be bringing the Cubans home-baked cookies after a week.
Just look at what happened when GWBush took over. All of a sudden the government’s jack booted thugs could do no wrong. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard Obama criticized by wingnuts specifically because he hasn’t reversed some proto-fascist policy of the Bushies. Amazing.
freelancer
@Corner Stone:
You haven’t watched it with your wingnut uncle cracking ‘tarded jokes the whole way through.
The Soviets machine gun a line of civvies and my uncle goes
“CNN reports insurgents fired on troops first”
It makes no sense.
Ash
@Corner Stone: I don’t know, I’ve never watched this stupid movie. I’ve only seen pictures of the main group of high schoolers, Swayze, Leah Thompson etc. All nice and white bread.
Sentient Puddle
@Dusty:
Actually, near as I can tell, Colorado was part of the southern front. The northern front came in through Alaska, which would make it a long-ass ways from Colorado. The southern front came in through Texas, which is closer. But that all said, as I recall it, the Colorado invasion was literally just a paradrop into that podunk town. Which really doesn’t make sense. Yes, let’s drop our invasion force in where they’re surrounded by all sides!
Of course, it doesn’t have to make sense. The only real purpose of the movie was to blow a bunch of conservative dog whistles (and boy, there are tons in there). The rest of us realize that the movie was unrealistic, cringe-inducing, silly, plodding, and unfortunately not quite terrible enough to fall into the “so bad, it’s good” territory. It’s kind of funny to see conservatives act like the movie is one of the most important in a generation or so.
Leelee for Obama
@BFR: They were more evil looking I think! Dark, you know. Whistle, whistle, whistle.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@Svensker: Roadhouse contains bar-none the best ever comment between two guys getting ready to fight to the death. Just as Swayze is getting ready to take on the main thug of the bad guys, the thug says to Swayze… well I can’t even repeat it here.
Ann B. Nonymous
Fortysomething Reaganites. That’s a sad demographic. Too young for “I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines,” and too old (but probably not too immature) for Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of a Canadian art teacher.
Or do they imagine themselves with special mutant powers? Their mythology is so confusing! If they did, I bet we’d read more police reports about Republicans trying to insert retractable blades in their hands or crush Democrats with their minds. Why is the MSM not covering this?
mai naem
I would have thought the wingnuts would be more upset that the WaPo piece didn’t mention Swayze playing the Southerner, Orry Main, in North and South.
Dusty
I’m not sure that’s right, but you could still leave your Cubans in the South and just move the Russians north, since it was a mixed unit, as I recall.
He’s not a bouncer, he’s a cooler, dammit! God, I love that movie.
joes527
@freelancer: Actually, I remember watching red dawn on cable a few years after it came out.
This was the mid 80’s. Reagan was President. We were propping up the Contras to take out the Sandinistas.
And the Cuban Colonel in Red Dawn, who is clearly depicted as a tragic hero has this amazing soliloquy. It is all about how true revolution was noble but this invasion was sordid.
Of course, subtlety is lost on most Red Dawn fans so …
WOLVERINES!
Morbo
I loved those snow uniforms the Cubans wore, for what it’s worth.
someguy
Several possibilities.
– they’d feel more at home fighting in a region where the healthcare is better, there’s less racial discrimination, and everybody can read.
– they didn’t have any weapons effective against hangin’ ropes, angry Springer Show Fans, and 3.2 beer.
– they thought it only fair to return the favor and boycott the home states of senators who were so keen on boycotting Cuba. Take that, Jesse Helms!
joes527
@Eric U.:
That’s “suicide bomber” to you, mister.
Martin
We need to borrow the Scott Beauchamp Commemorative Sandbox from Eric to test this out.
Morbo
@J.W. Hamner: I loved Firefox. That is my reply to that statement.
asiangrrlMN
@Ash: If so, I bet they die first.
I’ve never seen this movie, either, but now I’m almost tempted. Almost.
OT: I have finished reading Watchmen, which was fucking brilliant except for the ending, and I really want to see the movie. I know that people either loved or hated it. Should I see it?
MikeJ
It wasn’t the ruskies that had invaded Colorado. It was Cuban paratroopers.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@asiangrrlMN: you’ll be disappointed, although funnily enough, the ending was the one thing the movie improved!
RSA
But Red Dawn is ranked #401 on Amazon! How could they wait until paragraph 23? (To be honest, I was surprised that the Swayze love fest has already begun: Ghost is currently at #5, Dirty Dancing #6.)
Bubblegum Tate
@asiangrrlMN:
The descriptions you’re getting in this thread are beter than the actual movie. I saw it back in the day and liked it for the simple fact that it had stuff going all ‘splodey and army guys being all “p’choo p’choo ‘pchoo, eh-eh-eh-eh-eh” (that’s onomatopoeic gunfire, in case you couldn’t tell) and those high-schoolers totally fucked up those army guys! I paid no attention to the plot (plot just gets in the way of gunfights!) and therefore didn’t realize it’s a total wingnut fapfest until well after the fact.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BFR:
I watched an extended version of Red Dawn a few weeks ago on the MGM channel and the Powers Booth character explains that the east and west coasts were nuked.
joe from Lowell
Box office revenues:
Ghost: $64 million
Dirty Dancing: $217 million
Red Dawn: $36 million
Just thought I’d throw that out there.
Crashman06
@asiangrrlMN: The movie wasn’t bad. In all honesty, I think they actually did the ending BETTER in the movie, than in the comic. That usually doesn’t happen.
Zifnab
@MikeJ: Which, you know, makes perfect sense. First they invade Florida, then straight on to Colorado. I mean, they obviously had the numbers advantage.
Besides, if you’ve ever played Axis and Allies, you know that the entire USA can be occupied via three neat strips running from Canada to the Mexican Border/Gulf Coast.
The Grand Panjandrum
I’m still trying to get over the NY Times not mentioning Charlton Heston’s greatest performance in the original Planet of the Apes until paragraph sixteen. That lingering pain … well it lingers. I doubt they could pry it from my cold dead hand. Also.
burnspbesq
@Svensker:
“I thought you’d be bigger.”
the number one guilty pleasure movie in the history of American cinema.
Corner Stone
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine: I think it was:
“You simply *must* tell me where you get your fab hair products!”
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@asiangrrlMN:
I enjoyed the Watchmen movie. There are two versions, theatrical and director’s cut. The ending has been, ahem, modified from the graphic novel.
Malin Ackerman is teh hawt!
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@MikeJ: Also – i think in the prologue when the movies opens, there is some back story provided (text on screen) where they basically state that America stands alone. Mexico has gone commie and Europe is soft etc. The Russians/Cubans invaded from Mexico.
I also seem to remember that when the teenagers find the downed pilot he says the Russians had used a few nukes and an EMP to disable us (SAC in Omaha gets nuked) and that kept us from launching a massive nuclear counterattack.
Funny what you remember. I was 13 when this movie came out and thought it as pretty cool at the time!
Corner Stone
@asiangrrlMN: Not just No, but Hell No!.
An emphatic thumbs down from me, fwiw.
If you do decide to watch it you may want to leave a note at BJ so people won’t wonder where you’ve been for the last two weeks.
The Grand Panjandrum
@The Grand Panjandrum: Shucks! I linked to the wrong page. It’s here at this link.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@Corner Stone: Go to the IMDB page.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098206/quotes
The character Jimmy has the line.
Shawn in ShowMe
@asiangrrlMN
If you haven’t already, check out V for Vendetta. When we look back at the Alan Moore movie adaptations twenty years later, I think that will be the one with more staying power.
Corner Stone
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Along with some 3 billion screaming Chinee.
jibeaux
Whatever NewsBusters is, it still doesn’t haunt my sleep the way those NewsBusted canned-laughter internet-only shorts do. One day I shall have my revenge on S, N! for linking to those horrific things.
mellowjohn
well of course “red dawn” is a wingnut wet dream. it was written (and i think directed) by wingnut john milius.
as far as scary black people in a proposed remake, i think it will be obama’s private acorn army replacing the russians as the heavies.
and, for me anyway, the abso-fucking-lutely best part of “roadhouse” was the fact that dalton (the cooler played by swayze) lived in a condo right out of “architectural digest” that was on the 2nd floor of a working horse barn.
Corner Stone
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine: Sir and/or madam – I will thank you kindly to never, ever again insult my knowledge of cheesy 80’s action movies with a minor in Swayze movies.
I am aware of the scene. The fact that they both had simply gorgeous doo’s was too good to pass up.
Shawn in ShowMe
You’re lucky you got that much. That ending is the ultimate indictment of a warmongering press.
Corner Stone
@Shawn in ShowMe: And you have just clearly demarcated something very clearly for me, thank you.
Note to self – stay the *hell* away from any movie Shawn recommends.
marrus
Red Staters are smarter than us.
At least that’s the premise of the novel I’m working on: “So Long and Thanks for All the Cheetos”.
Da Bomb
@de stijl: Nope that whole movie promotes teh gay agenda. And there are too many coloreds.
asiangrrlMN
@Bubblegum Tate: See, now you’re just making me want to see it more with your amusing description.
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine: Curious. Now, I gotta see it!
Svensker
@Corner Stone:
I haz a happy.
Joshua Norton
Did the big butch wingnutz miss where he wore a dress in “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar “?
That was a much better role.
D
Anybody else remember Rambo III – one of the great Reagan-era action films? That’s the one where Rambo helps out those poor devout Muslim Mujahiddin in Afghanistan in their valiant fight against the Godless Communists.
I wonder why they never show that one on TV anymore?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Corner Stone: @Corner Stone:
Yup. I think one of the guys says, “I thought there were 6 billion Chinese?”
Almost as bad/good as Red Dawn is Rocky IV for Dolph Lundgren and Brigitte Nielsen.
I must break you!
Dream On
The best seen in Roadhouse is when we first see Swayze, “feeling” the bar music and tapping his boot, while tossing his semi-mullet back.
celebrate the goofiness!
Shawn in ShowMe
Damn, there goes my idea for a Gattaca thread.
joe from Lowell
Whoops, flip-flopped Dirty Dancing and Ghost.
Da Bomb
@Corner Stone: Don’t tell anyone I almost slipped.
@asiangrrlMN: The coloreds always die first don’t they, considering we run alot. Cedric the Entertainer decribes it best…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNA-jgdXBL0
asiangrrlMN
@Shawn in ShowMe: Should I read it first? Or can I just see the movie?
Dream On
It’s the ’80s! Do a lot of coke and vote for Ronald Reagan!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz6hSlJ3Z6g&feature=fvw
Brachiator
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine:
Jeez. I just remember it because Kelly Lynch was smoking hot in the movie.
bogart – I hate that movie [Red Dawn] so much. Just from a military standpoint, it makes no sense.
Red Dawn is writer-director John Milius’ feverish militaristic wet dream. A couple of tidbits about the film from IMDB:
Tim Graham is a limp-dick fool. God I hate people who need to score ideological gotchas about every goddam thing in the world.
That said, I greatly admire Swayze for the range of roles he took. For some reason, he also brings to mind Robert Urich — also gone too soon, another good actor who I was always happy to see on screen, who did a lot of interesting work, and who seemed like a sweet guy.
de stijl
I loved Firefox. That is my reply to that statement.
Whenever my browser freezes up I have to remind myself to think in Russian.
SpotWeld
The right-wing is going to save so much on heating bills this winter, after all…
..thier hate will keep them warm.
Ash Can
“To Wong Foo” is one of my all-time favorite movies, even though the men who starred in it made me, a straight woman, feel like Homer Simpson in comparison with their superb elegance and refinement. ::turns green with envy::
Ash Can
PS: They all looked better in those dresses than I ever would too. ::turns greener::
asiangrrlMN
@Joshua Norton: Still haven’t seen that! Damn it. Y’all are adding way too many movies to the list of movies I already need to see.
@Da Bomb: Oh my god, that is funnier than hell!
Peter J
@Ash:
The director of the original is also making a computer game.
Not sure how, but it’s all going to be Obama and the democrats fault. I’m guessing part of the game will involve building camps to put the US hating leftists in.
@Ash:
There’s at least one black guy who isn’t an enemy. He’s the first one to get shot.
Dream On
Red Dawn was the first motion picture in film history to be released with a MPAA “PG-13” rating. (The Flamingo Kid (1984) was the first film to be given a PG-13 rating, but sat on the shelves for five months before being released).
————-
Hmm, I thought “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” was the first PG-13 movie…
freelancer
@Dream On:
Temple of Doom would be the correct answer
Mike G
doesn’t get to “Red Dawn” until paragraph 23.
Oh, I’m just sick with outrage.
And the Washington Pest has still not given credit to Billy Ocean’s 1988 album ‘Tear Down These Walls’ for the collapse of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe the following year.
J.
To Patrick Swayze Thanks for Everything, J-TWO-O (yet another little mentioned Swayze vehicle).
For the record, I have yet to see Red Dawn, The Outsiders, Dirty Dancing, or Point Break, though I saw Ghost a couple of times (and it might have inspired me to have taken that pottery class).
de stijl
Brigitte Nielsen
Goddamn, that’s a big bitch!
Shell
“o Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Wolverines!”
Damn, I forgot that flick. And didn’t he look fabulous!
Shawn in ShowMe
asiangrrlMN
I’ve yet to see a comic book adaptation that you actually need to read first. Now, if they ever do an adaptation of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, then yeah. That sucker has a ton of backstory.
Shell
I’ve only seen bits and pieces of ‘Red Dawn.’ To me it came across like, “Hey, kids. Let’s put on a war!”
And it creeps me out that it was Timothy McVeigh’s favorite movie.
J.
@Ash Can: I also enjoyed Swayze in To Wong Foo. In fact it inspired today’s homage to Patrick Swayze. (See the link in my comment, #104).
steve s
“Red Staters are smarter than us.
At least that’s the premise of the novel I’m working on: “So Long and Thanks for All the Cheetos”.
”
Ah right. A reference to when the dolphins Went Galt!
Dusty
@Dream On
From Wikipedia:
Bubblegum Tate
@asiangrrlMN:
If my description of Red Dawn amuses you, then you probably have the proper mentality to enjoy it as the Baseball Game Rainout Theater Classic that it is. If you’ve got some friends who like to give crap movies the MST3K treatment, then you should have yourselves a viewing party.
freelancer
@Bubblegum Tate:
Add “The Room” and “Fast & Furious” to that playlist and you have a shit movie trifecta
de stijl
Bubblegum Tate
@freelancer:
Fast and Furious is an unintentional comedy classic. “I live my life a quarter-mile at a time” is one of the best lines in all of movie-dom.
There’s also that Steven Seagal/DMX movie, which is hilarious as well. My old roommate and I caught the opening sequence (in which Seagal blows up a helicopter by shotting it with a pistol) and decided on the spot that we had to watch the whole thing. We were not disappointed.
asiangrrlMN
@Shawn in ShowMe: I know, but would it help? I LOVE The Swamp Thing, but I think Hollywood would mess it all up.
Dream On
I had forgotten he was also in “Uncommon Valor” – another Rambo-style desire to re-do the Vietnam war. Frankly, he wasn’t in that many movies that have entered our collective culture.
But hey! Why should I grumble – this clip kicks ass!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn96jR5Geyk
Martin
Why do you think the wingnuts love it so?
Bubblegum Tate
@Bubblegum Tate:
“shotting” = “shooting”
Me no tipe gud twodaye.
freelancer
@Bubblegum Tate:
You should see the Rifftrax of the new one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJPt6KvecDQ
drillfork
I suppose the WaPo obit glossed over “Let’s Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas,” too…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZyJCV_dyug
Brachiator
@freelancer:
Nope.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087469/trivia
Credit to Dusty for the Wikipedia reference on this.
I remember a couple of scenes in “Doom,” one involving a dinner of monkey brains, and another where someone has his heart ripped out of his chest, and thinking, “Ya know, this is a bit intense for a film pitched to kiddies.”
asiangrrlMN
@Bubblegum Tate: Best idea evah! A MST3K party of the worst winger movies in history!
PanAmerican
WAKE UP PEOPLE!
Those dirty Reds are only two days drive from Harlingen, Texas.
Andy K
@Ann B. Nonymous:
This seems more like a misconception about a generation, politics aside, with which I’ve gotta disagree. Thanks to a cool babysitter, I saw the O’Donohughe sketch at 10-years old; I was reading The X-Men a year earlier when Wolverine was introduced, and saw the first X-Men film with my kid.
Steve_in_NC
I’d like to say that if Conservatives really watched “Red Dawn” they would have expected the Iraq insurgency. It should have been a “Known Known”
Dream On
I remember a couple of scenes in “Doom,” involving every character Indiana Jones interacts with, and thinking, “Ya know, this is a bit dumb for a film pitched for adults.”
Not a fan of Short Round or Kate Capshaw. They almost ruined it, though the next film was a whole lot better.
de stijl
Short Round – the asian Stepin Fetchit.
Legalize
I would have thought that the wingers would have mentioned Swayze’s role as the moralizing kiddie porn addict in Donnie Darko.
freelancer
@Brachiator:
Ahh, I am wrong.
I guess that what I get for buying an argument from authority.
I’ve seen interviews where Spielberg basically takes credit for creating the rating, because he also produced Gremlins.
Andy K
@de stijl:
I think Sixteen Candles’ Long Duck Dong beat him to that title.
Martin
Except that white breadbasket Christians are like an entirely different species than brown camel-jockey Moooslims. It’s like watching a lion take down a zebra and expecting a groundhog to do the same thing.
The reason they like Red Dawn is that everyone is the right caricature. The russians and cubans are extra-evil, the Americans extra brave and resolute. Clearly these are like different species – and Iraqis couldn’t possibly have the same motivations as we do. Right?
slag
Speaking of unspoofable material, I’m just catching up on the GW speechwriter revelations. This part made me laugh out loud:
I’m trying to decide if I’ve read anything that encapsulates the GW Bush presidency more completely than this passage, and so far, I’ve got nothing.
Bubblegum Tate
@asiangrrlMN:
Every time they yell, “Wolverines!” in Red Dawn, you at home must respond, “Also!”
burnspbesq
I have this image that I can’t get out of my head, of Rahm Emanuel briefing new White House staff and quoting heavily from Dalton’s instructions to the staff of the Double Deuce.
You know, the “be nice” speech.
Common Sense
That Bitsy ad is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. No forks, please.
Dream On
@burnspbesq, re: be nice
That would be this scene?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rad2pWPaCc4
matoko_chan
I sent this link to my old frenemy AllahP.
I liked the black queen in the confederate slinky the best myself.
;)
de stijl
Long Duck Dong vs. Short Round
Both born 1984
LDD has the bigger reach and outweighs SR by a ton (plus he has a sexy American girlfriend)
I’ll take LDD in two rounds for the KO
The Donger needs food and de stijl needs a new p[air of shoes
joe from Lowell
If you’re going to invade the United States, you don’t send fucking paratroopers into Colorado. The United States military is the most advanced fighting force in the world. Using massed paratroopers to seize and hold strategic targets would be suicidal. They’d be used in a purely tactical manner, to establish positions a short way behind enemy lines, to cut off American troops at the front, and to dig in until ground troops break through and relieve them.
What you’d do is land on both sides of the Mississippi, as well as somewhere around Jacksonville. Then, you can send armor up both sides of the river, as well as having a force move along the Gulf of Mexico and inland from the Atlantic, cutting off Florida, which can be reduced at your leisure, either before or in conjunction with a push north to Washington.
But, then, “Pelicans!” would make a really lousy battle cry.
asiangrrlMN
@Bubblegum Tate: And then take a shot (of alcohol!).
nitpicker
According to BoxOfficeMojo.com:
Ghost
Dirty Dancing
Red Dawn
Shouldn’t the wingnuts at least acknowledge that in the (capitalist!) marketplace of ideas, bullshit walks and, it seems, love conquers all?
Bubblegum Tate
@asiangrrlMN:
Yes! Man, I am really liking this idea more and more.
matoko_chan
Martin…..the problem with white xian stereotyping in Red Dawn, is that the protagonists are Y O U N G,
There are no young people left in the conservative movement….<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkeZ2P4SiY8these guys drove them all out.
de stijl
Apparently joe from Lowell has given the invasion of the American mainland a lot of thought.
Leelee for Obama
@Steve_in_NC: If they had studied the American Revolution, they would have known it was coming. We were an insurgency, it’s why we won. We didn’t need to win, we just needed to not lose. We brought the British Empire to its knees by not standing for their shit.
Known known=our own history. Guess that’s not a home-school subject either. Also.
Andy K
So are Wingers planning on claiming Charlie Sheen as one of their own when he does the mortal coil shuffle?
David Hunt
@asiangrrlMN:
In regards to Watchmen, since you said that you enjoyed the graphic novel, I advice that you see the movie. It’s mostly true to it, although the ending has been…tweeked. The ending results are the same, but the ploy the main antagonist uses to achieve that end has been changed. In my opinion that was an improvement. Certain things have been compressed a bit to fit it into a theatric length movie, but they did a pretty good job with that. The thing that stood out the most to me, personally, was that they altered how Rorshock (sp) disposed of the kidnapper/murderer. That was unfortunate but I can see why they did it as Moore stole that bit directly from Mad Max.
Da Bomb
@freelancer: You might wanna add any movie that was ever made by Melvin Van Pebbles or his son Mario Van Pebbles. All of there movies are shit.
Have you ever seen Sweetback Badassssss Song? It’s absolute shit.
Brachiator
@Dream On:
I agree, although one bit of casting was obviously good for Spielberg.
On the other hand:
Credit to IMDB
de stijl
They can have Charlie Sheen, but they shall never – and I mean fucking never – claim Harry Dean Stanton!
polyorchnid octopunch
Here ya go: From Roadhouse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWB0RnxRHOg
The real reason to like this flick… Jeff Healey. Good Canadian boy… also dead of cancer.
charles pierce
Come on, people, expand your minds.
The Cubans got to Colorado on…THE NAFTA SUPERHIGHWAY.
Dream On
@Brachiator
Perhaps the Red Dawn-crowd are afraid of being invaded by something that talks like…. THIS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CM1SH_ybc0
I learned how to scream watching this…
freelancer
@Brachiator:
Whatever, Capshaw was the bomb in Space Camp!
as was Lea Thompson, Kelly Preston, Tom Skerritt, Terry O’Quinn (Locke from Lost), Tate Donovan, and Joaquin Phoenix.
Redshirt
All I knows is C. Thomas Howell was made a man thanks to the Wolverines, and by gum that’s reason enough to like the movie. Also, Harry Dean Stanton in a re-education camp. Good times!
Stefan
They’re remaking Red Dawn.
I thought we already did, and it was called Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Persia
@Citizen_X: 22 comments to get to a Road House reference? I’m not sure you people are real, much less Real Americans.
Midnight Marauder
@David Hunt:
In regards to Watchmen, since you said that you enjoyed the graphic novel, I advice that you see the movie. It’s mostly true to it, although the ending has been…tweeked. The ending results are the same, but the ploy the main antagonist uses to achieve that end has been changed. In my opinion that was an improvement. Certain things have been compressed a bit to fit it into a theatric length movie, but they did a pretty good job with that. The thing that stood out the most to me, personally, was that they altered how Rorshock (sp) disposed of the kidnapper/murderer. That was unfortunate but I can see why they did it as Moore stole that bit directly from Mad Max.
That movie is an abomination to a fantastic novel. And that especially concerns the “tweaked” ending. There’s almost no way to stay true to the entire point of the novel by changing the ending, and that’s pretty much what happened.
It was a fucking joke.
Brachiator
@freelancer:
Ya know, I’ve seen a lot of movies, I mean really a lot, but I’ve never seen “Space Camp.” The cast sounds interesting, not the least because of what many of them would go on to do later.
But Capshaw never did much for me. I mentioned earlier in this thread the luscious Kelly Lynch. Part of it is that Capshaw does not have much screen presence. One of the local channels recently ran her film, “The Love Letter,” and she was good, but bland.
Chris Dowd
I’m not surprised by this. “Red Dawn” occupies a central place in the cinematic favorites of all wingers. Never mind that the conventional invasion of the continental USA that is depicted in the movie could NEVER HAPPEN- not then or now- the movie was an instant favorite with “conservatives”.
All those trillions in cold war slop fed to the MIC was justified by one stupid movie!
But at least- at least the antagonist in Red Dawn – Soviet Russia- was a modern industrial state with a large conventional army and huge nuclear arsenal. And even though a military invasion and occupation of the US by any overseas foreign power is impossible (see General Butler’s lessor known speech on this subject) it was at least imaginable.
Nowadays- we spend even more on our military with an enemy even more absurd- “Islam”. The wingers are right about one thing- education in this country has produced a legion of idiots so stupid that they actually fear “Islam” taking over the US.
David Hunt
@Midnight Marauder:
Well, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. In my opinion, the Squid was the part of Watchmen that I miss the least. Replacing it with another external threat was fine by me. The Black Freighter was greater loss.
I’m not going to talk about this anymore. The movie is new enough that I don’t want to post spoilers. Once again; agree to disagree.
Julie
@Dream On: MST3K and Hobgoblins for the win!
Shell
” remember a couple of scenes in “Doom,” involving every character Indiana Jones ”
The only good part of ‘Doom’ is seeing ‘Anything Goes’ performed in Chinese.
Dream On
@Julie
I see you are part of our secret society – Zap Rowsdower…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131550/
Mike in NC
Flamingos!
Midnight Marauder
@David Hunt:
Touche. As a final point, I would just say that the replacement external threat in the movie lacked the immediacy (for lack of a better word) than the one depicted in the novel.
But agree to disagree.
Cyrus
@Midnight Marauder: This is trolling, right?
Re: the original question, I’d agree with most people here; if you liked the book, you’ll probably like the movie. It was impressive how closely the movie sticks to the book, actually. There have been a dozen comic book movies made over the past 10 years or so, and not one of them followed the plot as closely as this. (Admittedly, Watchmen was written as a limited series from the start, unlike the source material of most if not all the other movies. But still.) But I actually thought that all the stuff they added in from the movie was good: Rorschach’s parting quip in the jail, some not-at-all-heavy-handed exposition by Dr. Manhattan early on, etc.
Woody
It occurs to me it’d work just as well if you let the “Nicaraguans” be the original Spanish Conquistadors, and the “good guys” be the Pueblo resistance…
Fencedude
@Cyrus:
I have not read nor watched Watchman (its on my list of things to do eventually), but that post is textbook “purist”. You could take that post and apply it to the adaption of almost anything, in the eyes of the “true fans”.
Fuck the true fans!
Midnight Marauder
@Cyrus:
Nope. And not a “purist,” either. Just someone who thought the movie was incredibly disappointing.
joe from Lowell
Mike in NC
Flamingos!
*facepalm*
Recruit, what is it that made you want to join the Corps? (hands Mike in NC a pamphlet from the Navy)
Mike in NC
@ joe from Lowell
Well, that apparently worked. I joined the Navy in 1980 and will retire next year. PS: Have you seen my deadbeat brother in Lowell? He owes college tuition and child support.
joe from Lowell
my deadbeat brother in Lowell
You’re gonna have to narrow that down a bit.
Congrats on your impending parole!