There was once a time when seeking out cult movies was a challenge, involving a combination of dedicated effort and luck to hear about them and to actually be able to see them. Even learning what exactly is a cult film was not so common. Today, with internet communities that thrive on niche interests and novelty, most of us have an idea of what they are. For those who don’t there’s always wikipedia, but it used to be knowledge gained mostly through word of mouth or books discovered in stores or libraries like Midnight Movies by Stuart Samuels and Cult Movies by Danny Peary. To watch such films one had to be lucky enough to live near video stores or independent theaters managed by the right kinds of people (weirdos) or be able to visit such places on trips. Obscure or pirated videotapes could sometimes be ordered by mail through catalogs and magazines or found at comic conventions. Sometimes college campuses would also have small screenings organized by student film societies. Once in a blue moon, some of these films would even air on late night network or cable television.
To do my small part to carry on the cult movie tradition I will feature old and new examples of such films every Saturday that can be viewed in their entirety on YouTube. The first is “The Holy Mountain”, which is appropriate because the director, Alejandro Jodorowsky also created “El Topo”, one of the early acknowledged cult classics.
Melissa Melton of Truthstream Media recently posted a story about former wrestler and actor Roddy Piper going public about his Libertarian and pro-Second Amendment beliefs via twitter. Quoting from the tweets:
They can’t have my Guns! Nobody! If you try and take my Gun, I’d be all out of Bubble Gum!
[…]I need to clean something up! When I say you take my gun I’m all out of gum….I’M NOT TRYING TO BE FUNNY!! It’s a FREEDOM STATEMENT!
[…]They Live is a documentary!!
For those who haven’t seen the film They Live, this is the famous “bubblegum scene” Piper is referencing:
They Live is a cult classic sci-fi/action buddy film based on the short story Eight O’Clock in the Morning by Ray Faraday Nelson (who happened to be one of Philip K. Dick’s closest friends). Roddy Piper plays Nada, a drifter searching for work during a recession who accidentally stumbles across an alien plot to take over the world by programming the masses to obey and consume using subliminal messages. Widely considered one of director John Carpenter’s best and smartest films, it was also part of a late 80s sub-genre of films containing as a subtext sharp critiques of U.S. government policies and the Reagan administration in particular. Other films include Wes Craven’s “The People Under the Stairs”, Paul Verhoeven’s “Robocop” and Dan O’Bannon’s “Return of the Living Dead”.
Just this past May, John Carpenter did a Q&A for a 25th anniversary screening of They Live as part of The Hero Complex Film Festival in Los Angeles. He had this to say about the film:
By the end of the ’70s there was a backlash against everything in the ’60s, and that’s what the ’80s were, and Ronald Reagan became president, and Reagonomics came in,” Carpenter told the sold-out theater at the Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood. “So a lot of the ideals that I grew up with were under assault, and something called a yuppie came into existence, and they just wanted money. And so by the late ’80s, I’d had enough, and I decided I had to make a statement, as stupid and banal as it is, but I made one, and that’s ‘They Live.’ … I just love that it was giving the finger to Reagan when nobody else would.
Unfortunately, since the release of They Live, the state of the union has regressed to the point where the systemic criminality of the Reagan era seems mild and quaint in comparison. In certain ways, They Live does seem like a documentary because it contains images and ideas straight out of the headlines. Scenes of the protagonists’ tent city being bulldozed look exactly like the destruction of Occupy Movement encampments and forced closures of tent cities for the homeless across the country. Images of the aliens’ secret surveillance drones are prescient as well.
Melton’s Truthstream Media post also included this analysis of subliminal messages eerily reminiscent of They Live embedded in an old video clip used as nightly “sign-offs” for national television networks:
I found a VHS tape of an odd and prescient 1982 Sean Connery film called Wrong is Right at a yard sale shortly after 9/11 and was planning a review drawing parallels between it and different aspects of the war on terror. However, I just discovered E.R. Torres wrote a post similar to what I had in mind last year at his interesting Random Thoughts blog. excerpt:
So, one wonders, might there be another director out there who, upon looking at the events surrounding 9/11 and the second Iraqi war, might not also look at the myriad tragedies involved, from the thousands upon thousands dead, the loss of national treasure, the inept leadership, the media manipulation, and the very questionable motivations for engaging in the conflict in the first place…and decide that this too might be good material in the creation of a black comedy? Thing is, someone already did, and they did it a whopping 20 years before the events of 9/11 and the subsequent Iraqi War. I’m talking about 1982′s Wrong Is Right. As directed by Richard Brooks, the movie features Sean Connery in the role of Patrick Hale, an intrepid, world famous reporter who, in the process of criss-crossing the globe, comes to realize he’s landed himself smack dab in the middle of machinations involving the CIA, an Arabian leader whose land is filled with oil, a weapons dealer, a terrorist intent on getting his hands on two mysterious suitcases, and a U.S. presidential election. The various parties involved actively try to manipulate the story Hale perceives and tells, and ultimately what may appear “true” becomes a matter of convenience. To go into too much debate about the story’s plot would be a disservice. Having said that, this now 30 year old film is incredibly prescient. With some minor modifications, this could easily be a black comedy “take” on the buildup to the Iraqi War. The most eerie element of the whole thing is that the movie’s climax takes place on the roof of the World Trade Center.
After the Crash 