Post apocalyptic movies are a weird breed.  More often than not, they end up being a production designer’s wet dream.  Style ends up overshadowing any kind of substance, which really sucks because post apocalyptic films look SO awesome, what with all the dirt and grime and slapped together technology.  For every awesome spiked set of shoulder pads, there should be a compelling character wearing them.  But this is usually not the case.  They usually end up as hollow, awesome looking shells of films.  For every Mad Max, Road Warrior, Blade Runner and Escape From New York, there is a Tank Girl, a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and an Escape From LA.

Hardware though, is definitely one of the good ones.   It follows the path of a destroyed robot corpse, from a minefield in the wasteland, into the hands of a radiation-poisoned soldier named Moe (played by Dylan McDermott), who buys the corpse (from a guy who looks exactly like Al Jorgensen) for his artist girlfriend to use in one of her sculptures.  The story takes place in an unnamed post apocalyptic city that was definitely shot on the cheap (the establishing shots are all of an old refinery), but it works, as McDermott and his Astronaut buddy pick through the decaying city, get a ride in a boat-cab driven by Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister (who makes them listen to “Ace of Spades” in the cab!), while a radio DJ named Angry Bob (played by Iggy Pop) shouts about the mounting death tolls in an unseen war, and his “industrial dick”.  Though we don’t see much of the city (due to a ridiculously low budget), director Richard Stanley makes it work and definitely gives the feel of a complete world surrounding what is really a very small story.

After the robot is in the hands of his girl, she gets inspired, and (in an awesome montage set to Ministry’s “Stigmata” and footage of Gwar playing/people being massacred) finishes one of her sculptures, with the robot skull as the centerpiece.  Then she has crazy sex with Moe (the crazy sex scene.  required if you made a horror/sci fi movie in the late 80’s/90’s) while a freaky peeping tom pervert looks on through his crazy Predator-filtered infrared telescope.  That’s another thing I loved about this movie, all the wild color filters Richard Stanley applied in shooting.  Sure they all looked VERY 90’s, but they also worked to complete the “world” of the movie, as if we all had to revert to some dated, thrown together video technology in the wake of the apocalypse.  It gave the world a real “feel”, that I still think about and want to return to.  Brazil and shit.

Then Moe gets a frantic call from a friend who discovers that the robot is actually a highly advanced government killing machine, designed to control the population, capable of rebuilding itself and being generally bad-ass.  He heads out to meet his buddy and get more info, and the movies picks up steam, with the robot slowly rebuilding itself and terrorizing his girlfriend, while Moe struggles to get back to her.  That’s another great thing about this movie, is that the male isn’t necessarily the hero, and the “female victim” (another 80’s/90’s horror/sci-fi movie staple) has to do most of the smart thinking and robot-fighting.

Then, this scene happens.  The robot’s first kill (horror/sci-fi movie staple number three) shows up in a strange form, as the freaky (really freaky) herpe-lipped pervert who has been spying on Moe’s girlfriend for her entire life.  He comes over because he was pissed that she closed the shades…and well…this happens.  This guy is an amazing actor, alternating between freaky as hell and funny, whoever he is.  Awesome death scene ensues.  NSFW.

I won’t spoil much more, but it escalates after that into a film about bigger concepts, and that’s where it unravels, but only slightly.  The fact that Moe is gone and his girl is fighting this murderous robot alone opens up some questions about their relationship, and his eventual return for his “Hero Moment” devolves into an extremely bugged-out (but effective) vision quest that ends in a kind of Last Temptation of Christ/martyr freakout (seriously) – complete with fractals, flashbacks, and acid imagery.  In short, it gets WEIRD, but where the cheese comes through and the music gets a little too dramatic and the concepts get a little too high-minded, the awesome look of the movie and wild cinematography jump in to save it.

I loved it.  I really did.  I didn’t love it so much for the story, but like I said, for the world it created around the story, and for the ways it messed with the genre formula.  Its not traditional, and it definitely kept me guessing the whole time.  Which is HUGE for a movie of its breed, that could have easily been another post-apocalyptic visual thing with a lacking story and a predictable ending.  Nope, it took all the best parts of the genre and fucked with them, creating a totally satisfying experience.

8 year old me would have FLIPPED SHIT over this.  I wouldn’t have understood much of the last 30 minutes (also, its BARELY 90 MINUTES!  I love when movies don’t abuse your attention span), but it probably would have really stuck with me, causing me to go out and tell everyone I knew at daycare about it.  Which means that I haven’t changed much, because here I am, 27 years old, deeply affected by this movie, and telling everyone I know about it…

…and that is awesome.

Up next, Popcorn.

1.  The Horror/Sci-Fi Section at the movie store.  My Dad loved movies, so he spent a lot of time in movie stores (Panorama Video in Bloomington stand up!), so I would always tag along.  I wandered the aisles looking at awesome VHS movie boxes.   Comedy was OK, Drama was LAME, but the Horror and Sci-Fi sections, holy shit I would spend a good hour in there (in Kid Time, thats basically three days), looking at the back of literally EVERY box, reading the plots, looking at the crazy ass pictures and awesome covers.  Like this one, because it was nuts (and it was all in relief…the cover was textured!), and the back had a freaky-ass picture of a dude getting a fist rammed down his throat:

2.  The Pay-Per-View previews channel.  For a few years, Pay-Per-View used to run trailers for all the stuff they had on Pay-Per-View that week on a free channel that everyone would watch.  I would watch this channel for hours at a time…and I don’t recall seeing previews for anything BUT horror and sci-fi movies.  Maybe I blocked all the others out.  Chief among these were the first five Nightmare on Elm Streets, Popcorn, Body Parts, and the craziest of all… Hardware.

Until recently, this movie was impossible to get on DVD.  Which is fine with me, because it took me 18 years to get over the horror of the trailer I saw on that channel…channel 10 I think it was.

It wasn’t that it was scary, it was that I didn’t understand what I was seeing.  It all looked so wigged-out and nihilistic, and it was horrifying to see something with so little rhyme or reason.  Everything was red and bad-ass looking so I was definitely intrigued, but still scared out of my wits. I avoided the movie on VHS until recently when it was finally released on DVD.  It was directed by Richard Stanley, who went on to do Dust Devil, which was another post-apocalyptic thing…watched that one with my Dad as a 12 year old.  All I remember was that it got really awkward when the first graphic sex scene came on…10 minutes into the movie.

Anyway, I just got Hardware on the Netflix, and I am unbelievably excited to watch it…finally.  I’m going to turn this into a quick thing…tracking down the movies that stood out in those aisles, or on that channel, and re-visiting them.  I’ll post some reviews here, for whatever they’re worth.  I can’t wait.

Alright, so I watched it sober.

It’s not a goddamn Wes Anderson film, but its hilarious.  Seriously, lowered expectations can turn your life around.  I loved watching this movie, even if my non-high brain got a little impatient at times.  The plot was stupid, there was a forced loved interest, and not all the jokes were funny, but who gives a damn, I laughed.  A lot.  Mostly at all the random ass lines in the script…like…

Babs Merrick: If he pulls this one off, I’ll eat my own pussy.

Ben Selleck: Look, I may be old fashioned, but when a man tells me to wear my boner pants I wear my boner pants.

DJ Request: Nobody tells DJ Request what to play!

Dick Lewiston: I never cared much for Jews, queers, or fuckin’ Eskimos. It was just the way I was raised.
Brent Gage: Is that it?
Dick Lewiston: Yeah! I thought we were opening up here!

Don Ready: I had to take my pants off and nibble my Old Spice down to three ounces just to get on the plane, Stacey!
Stewardess Stacey: They made me throw out my mouthwash.
Brent Gage: I had to give up my bath jellies.
Babs Merrick: They made me breast feed some old man.

“They made me breast feed some old man”.  Awesome.  Actually most of the best lines in this movie come from Kathryn Hahn, who plays Babs.

So, it wasn’t the best movie ever, but I will say I only laughed about 5 percent more at The Hangover, and The Goods at least had the decency to skip the montages set to T.I. or Kanye or Wolfmother or whatever so they could fit in some more jokes.  They might not have all landed, but I respect the effort.

In short, this movie deserves another chance, world.  So while you are waiting to get The Hangover from Netflix, get ripped and watch The Goods, because I GUARANTEE there is no “short wait” on that one.

Even shorter, I am basically this kid… (at 1:48)

Thus concludes this whole damn experiment.  Give this movie another chance y’allz.  That means you, Joey.

Seriously, sitting down to a movie while faded out of your mind RULEZ (especially in a theater…that isn’t too crowded…where you have no chance of seeing anyone you know).  You should try it.  Just make sure you cite your source (me) because I’m pretty sure I came up with the whole thing.

The only problem with this little pastime is that my usually mediocre taste in movies gets downgraded to downright shitty taste.  I once proclaimed Chris Rock’s Masterpiece Down To Earth to be the “Best Movie I’ve Ever Seen”…because it fuckin’ was (Ae can vouch for me) at the time.  Because of my heightened sensitivities, I get WAY into things like plot (even bad plots) and character development, so when Chris Rock dies and goes to Joe-Mantegna-Heaven with Eugene Levy, I am right there with them… and going to heaven with Joe Mantegna and Eugene Levy is THE SHIT.

I usually have this issue with comedies (I almost left a theater because I was laughing too hard at the Don’t Mess With The Zohan trailer) but it also applies to intensely emotional and scary movies.  Like the time I watched 21 Grams (ugh) and figured out THE WHOLE MEANING OF THE WORLD when Sean Penn asked at the end…

Sean Penn:  “They say everyone loses exactly 21 Grams at the moment of death…the question is… how much is 21 Grams?”

Me:  “Too Much.”

21 Grams is too much for the world to take!  Someone needs to die to set the balance!  Hey Mind, meet This Explosion, because you two are going to be friends for a long time.

Anyway, I’m either over-experiencing profound and intense movies (Oldboy, Devil’s Rejects, District 9) or laughing waaaaay too hard at not-very-good comedies (Down-To-Earth, Bio Dome, Slackers [although that one is debatable]).  So I decided to put myself to a pretty strict test.  My test subject would be The Goods – Live Fast Sell Hard.  Check out the Red Band trailer below.

If the internets are to be believed, this movie is a total piece of shit.  Metacritic has it at 39.  Rotten Tomatoes has it at 26%.  Most of the bad reviews complain about it being too broad, too long, and too weird with a shitty plot.  So, Me being The Guy Who Digests All Kinds of Bullshit Criticism on the Internet and Then Regurgitates it as His Own…well, I went ahead and decided that this movie sucks and there was no reason to watch it.

Then I got stoned and watched it with my friend (name redacted – lets call him “Boner Pants”), who is basically the King of Movies.  Seriously, he knows Uncle Buck by heart and teaches classes based around Koyaanisqatsi.  Thats really all you need to know.

I had a severe moment of crisis in my high-ass brain.  THE WORLD WAS WRONG, more importantly THE INTERNET WAS WRONG.   This movie was fucking hilarious.  5 minutes in, I was laughing my face off, and before long Boner Pants and I were rewinding hilarious lines, making the movie even longer.  There was a plot, but we didn’t care…and I did manage to see the movie for what it was…a small room full of a bunch of hilarious actors riffing off one another.  It was the Soul Plane of movies.  Sure it didn’t always work, but when it did, it was amazing.  And, (the trailer captures a little of this) it was also BATSHIT CRAZY.  Full of non sequitirs and random outbursts of violence and complete insanity.  It was like a 90 minute Monty Python sketch.

“I googled it, it says you fuckin blow.”

Anyway, I could be wrong, but I am this close to declaring The Goods – Live Hard Sell Hard as the Citizen Kane of high-person movies.  Before I do that though, I’m going to watch it tonight, stone sober, with my girlfriend.  We both have wicked colds, so the only medication will be cough medicine and airborne, but I will consider myself sober, so I can see if this movie actually does suck and my high ass brain didn’t realize it…meaning I would watch any movie and think it was great.

The lesson we can learn though is this.  Movie reviewers aren’t you, and you should not trust them.  Make your own opinions (Dur).  Unless they are talking about Legion.  That movie fucking sucked.

To be continued…

A while back I wrote a post about my friend L5D playing live in his parents basement.  To recap, L5D is my friend Colin Swenson.  I’ve known him my whole life, but even if I didn’t know him, I would still dig his music.  L5D is a moniker he made music as for a long time.  Now he goes as Omnii.  Think broken tapes, half-functioning equipment, sun drenched home movies, Boards of Canada, and microphones hanging from trees…that kind of thing.  Ever since I posted his old L5D music, we’ve been reconnecting on the music front, which has been amazing.  He recently sent me three old L5D albums, and they are all fucking great.

Before we go any further though, if you are in Minnesota, he’s playing a show as Dollar Store Keyboard (a brand new project) at The Rock in Maplewood on January 22nd at 9 pm.  Click here for more info.

(1) L5D – Neppodosia EP.

6 tracks, all great.  These are the songs he played live that night in his parents basement.  They are gloriously broken, sounding like J Dilla tracks that have been dubbed 400x on a boombox by someone’s little brother until the tape has broken down into a new world entirely.  He calls this his “favorite moment in L5D history”.

(2) L5D – Partehtpacse.

Read it backwards.  This first song is brilliant, I love how it builds on its own and then starts decomposing until only a shred of itself is left.  Thats my favorite part actually.  At the end of the track, through all the chaos and noise, you can hear snatches of the original samples.  Awesome.  Click here to download the entire album.

I also cut together a little “nothing” video to one of the tracks on the album.  Nothing huge, but I think it works on some weird level.

(3) L5D – Peace EP.

Higher production values on this one, making it “colder” than the more analog stuff, but also thicker, more complex.  According to Colin, it “goes well with percocet”.  And I agree.  Darker, druggier, crazier.  This track comes together around the 2 minute mark.  Makes me feel like running into traffic…in a good way?  Seriously.

After all of these releases, he went to an island in Norway to make his next (and final) album as L5D.  Stay tuned for that, and go to that show damn you.

This time, since I’ve been doing a lot of video junk lately, we shot a video in two parts called Optronics.  There is absolutely no rhyme or reason here.  I was either drunk/half asleep or hungover during the editing process, and I think it PERFECTLY captures the madness of the evening.  Part two is on the way.  For now, enjoy part one.  Ben makes music as Oceans In Space.  Check out Oceans in Space on myspace here. And for Gods sake, don’t take this seriously.  We didn’t.