10.06.16
Eighties Graveyard Delving: The old thing is familiar again
Red Dawn, from 1984, is five stars of utterly awesome Eighties excrement.
America, surrounded by enemies as always, is invaded by the Cuban & Nicaraguan armies (please don’t laugh) plus the Soviets, way out in the Rockies or Vasquez Rocks or Monument Valley, whichever was convenient.
Two girls, great with satchel charges and machine guns — Lea Thompson AND Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing!), who with Pat Swayze (Dirty Dancing!) are half of the Wolverines, a partisan group that brings an armored and airborne regiment to its knees.
The Soviets summon William Smith, the bareknuckle boxer who fought Clint Eastwood in Any Which Way You Can, so you know they’re that tough. Plus, there’s a Cuban colonel leading the occupying force in Love Cattle, ColoradoMontanaWyoming, who really only wants to get back to his warm and sunny homeland.
The occupation installs a Soviet-American Friendship Society in one of the old town’s bars. It features country music every night. So Jennifer Grey blows it up with a satchel charge! That’s my girl! You can see why she got the role in Dirty Dancing three years later.
Powers Boothe stars as a USAF hero who organizes the Wolverines but has to sacrifice himself for the good of the group as ‘Merica lays down a napalm attack on the Soviet/Cuban armor outside Horse Buggy, WyomingMontanaColorado. Lea Thompson, ace machine-gunner, had been picking mountain edelweiss for him and she breaks down: “I’ll never love again!”
If you don’t think this movie is stupendous, even if you’re an ex-Commie or new oligarch, there’s something wrong with you. You’ll love the vistas of pine forest hills covered in snow, too, almost as much as you loved the Battle of the Bulge, which was shot on the plain in Spain.
Harry Dean Stanton gives a corny inspirational speech from behind wire. No crying in war, children! Charlie Sheen (way before Hollywood hookers and blow warped his personality) and C. Thomas Howell are along for the trip, too! Howell even drinks the blood of a deer. You will almost be compelled to stand and sing the national anthem as the final credits roll.
I saw it on Hulu. Watch or steal it now. Thank me later.
Should we stumble into a nuclear war with Russia? The establishment thinks so, apparently.
anon said,
October 7, 2016 at 6:19 pm
Ever notice how the people who are convinced the Invading Communist (or Whomever Else) Hordes Are Coming Soon always live in some desolate and godforsaken place? They always hail from somewhere with lots of dust, lots of tumbleweeds, and not much else.
If you had spent your whole life in the Soviet version of Frostbite Falls, why would you NOT invade some place like the southern coast of California or the Florida Keys? Or, skip the whole trouble with staging an invasion, and just visit your old allies in Cuba.
George Smith said,
October 8, 2016 at 9:38 am
True story — I was working the newspaper in Allentown at the time of the first Gulf War. They actually did a story on what Hussein might attack in the Lehigh Valley.