Yoda
02-18-11, 02:47 PM
Howdy.
As some of you might have heard, most of the fantasy football sub-set of MoFo here made a little wager on this year's season wherein the winner would be sent DVDs by everyone else; 11 of the 14 owners participated, and yay, I won. A fair number have come in by now, and I promised the people sending DVDs that I'd write up some thoughts on what they sent me, since that's half the fun of the thing.
So, I'll be giving some thoughts on each film as they come in and as I manage to sit down and scribble something. It'll all be pretty casual. Dex's suggestion was the first to arrive, so it goes up here first. Some light spoilers follow.
Red Dawn
http://apocalypticmovies.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Red-Dawn-Remake2.jpg
I had never seen Red Dawn before. I knew of it, of course, though primarily I thought of it only as the answer to the trivia question "What was the first film to be released under the PG-13 rating?"
The plot is relatively straightforward: Russia and Cuba band together to actually invade the United States. This happens very, very early in the film. I'd say we get maybe 5-6 minutes of setup before paratroopers start falling from the sky. It's pretty over-the-top, but that's one of the things that makes the film so interesting. And it does make some token attempts to feel grounded in reality. I've read, for example, that the storyline is derived from some threat assessments the government did to determine how vulnerable they would be to such a maneuver, which is a nice touch.
The first thing I thought of while watching it, though, is that the plot is almost identical to a Real Time Strategy computer game I used to play called "Red Alert 2." It's one of the more successful RTS games of all time, and the storyline is basically the same: Russians drop onto American soil and you have to defend it. It even uses the same sort of wide shots of olive green parachutes dotting the sky:
http://www.movieforums.com/community/resize/phpThumb.php?src=http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/red-dawn-opening.png&w=350 http://www.movieforums.com/community/resize/phpThumb.php?src=http://images.wikia.com/cnc/images/1/11/Paratroopers_1972.jpg&w=350
You can see a video of the game's intentionally hammy intro here. The CGI invasion stuff starts at around the 3:00 minute mark. Great, fun game, and I assume some of these shots and ideas are meant as an homage to Red Dawn, or at least were inspired by it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQfH9JNomJY
Anyway, Red Dawn taps into that almost shameful part in most people (particularly young men, I'd imagine) that is kind of thrilled at the idea of a a tragedy, or a war, terrible though it may be on the grand scale. I doubt there's a teenage boy in the world who hasn't fantasized at least once about what he would do if he were suddenly thrust into a life or death situation. That's what happens to the characters in this film, though it doesn't end up looking too glamorous at first.
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4asx7ilAA1qzzh6g.jpg
The most prominent young actors are Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen (in his first feature film). C. Thomas Howell is here as well, and it's funny to see him with these others. It seems mere happenstance that he ended up leading a much more modest career than either of them. Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey join the group later on, as well, as the small band of teenagers holes up in the woods to wait out the invasion. A month or so passes, and they venture out into the town only to find that that America is still being occupied, and that many of their friends and family have been rounded up or eliminated. They hear something about "free America," which lies nearer to the coast, though they display a startling lack of curiosity about the meta situation going on. In alternate histories or grand "what ifs?" I always like to hear about the broader state of the world, but there isn't much of that here. There's a reference to Europe "sitting this one out," with the exception of England, and some explanation as to the invasion force's general strategy, but that's about it.
The hardships the young group has to endure leads them to fight back, and before long they've formed a pretty impressive insurgent force, picking off supply trucks and little units here and there, stealing their stuff, and using it to do even more damage the next time. They start calling themselves the Wolverines, after their local high school mascot.
Eventually the Wolverines meet up with a crashed American pilot (Powers Boothe), who helps focus their efforts a bit more, and they become a steadily larger thorn in the Russians/Cubans' collective side. This is done largely through the best friend of many 1980s films: the montage. "Even Rocky had a montage! Mon-tage!"
http://thefilmstage.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/reddawn.jpg
It's hard to say much more, because I feel like the film's main purpose is just to live out this fantasy of sorts, as well as to impress upon an earlier generation (the film was released in 1984, the year I was born) what war can be like. It both indulges the fantasy and splashes some cold water on it at different points.
Whatever fun is to be had dies along with some of the group. They seem unstoppable right up until the point at which they lose a couple of their own, and they pretty much crumble right after that; paranoia and betrayal unravel the gang quickly.
They win an important victory, and a subplot about a skeptical Cuban commander comes to fruition as he lets Jed (Swayze) go despite having an easy shot at him, but the film appears poised to end on a down-note. That is, until a quick epilogue of sorts wherein we learn that Americans eventually won the war thanks to sacrifices like the band of young people we've been watching. It's my understanding that this was tacked on so the film would be less depressing, and it sure feels that way.
Obviously, Red Dawn has meanings today that it probably never intended, in that the Americans are basically the insurgents here, which may create some complicated emotions for some. But the film is very careful to stress that the heroes are acting, well, heroically, attacking military personnel exclusively (as far as I can recall, at least). There is one moment where a young Russian soldier is humanized before he's executed, though given that the Wolverines could not plausibly keep prisoners at this point, it doesn't feel too morally questionable.
If this film were made today, I expect there'd be some kind of attempt to equivocate them with insurgents in places like Afghanistan or Iraq, with the Wolverines doing increasingly questionable things, testing the audience's loyalty to them as they got further and further away from pure "I want my country back" insurgency, and eventually crossed the line into terrorism. But it was made in a different time, and its line between good and evil stays relatively unblurred.
All in all, an interesting flick. It's a nice window into a different time, it features some actors that would go on to fairly strong careers, and it walks right to the brink of ending boldly even if it doesn't quite follow through in the end. Many thanks to Dex for sending it to me. :)
3
As some of you might have heard, most of the fantasy football sub-set of MoFo here made a little wager on this year's season wherein the winner would be sent DVDs by everyone else; 11 of the 14 owners participated, and yay, I won. A fair number have come in by now, and I promised the people sending DVDs that I'd write up some thoughts on what they sent me, since that's half the fun of the thing.
So, I'll be giving some thoughts on each film as they come in and as I manage to sit down and scribble something. It'll all be pretty casual. Dex's suggestion was the first to arrive, so it goes up here first. Some light spoilers follow.
Red Dawn
http://apocalypticmovies.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Red-Dawn-Remake2.jpg
I had never seen Red Dawn before. I knew of it, of course, though primarily I thought of it only as the answer to the trivia question "What was the first film to be released under the PG-13 rating?"
The plot is relatively straightforward: Russia and Cuba band together to actually invade the United States. This happens very, very early in the film. I'd say we get maybe 5-6 minutes of setup before paratroopers start falling from the sky. It's pretty over-the-top, but that's one of the things that makes the film so interesting. And it does make some token attempts to feel grounded in reality. I've read, for example, that the storyline is derived from some threat assessments the government did to determine how vulnerable they would be to such a maneuver, which is a nice touch.
The first thing I thought of while watching it, though, is that the plot is almost identical to a Real Time Strategy computer game I used to play called "Red Alert 2." It's one of the more successful RTS games of all time, and the storyline is basically the same: Russians drop onto American soil and you have to defend it. It even uses the same sort of wide shots of olive green parachutes dotting the sky:
http://www.movieforums.com/community/resize/phpThumb.php?src=http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/red-dawn-opening.png&w=350 http://www.movieforums.com/community/resize/phpThumb.php?src=http://images.wikia.com/cnc/images/1/11/Paratroopers_1972.jpg&w=350
You can see a video of the game's intentionally hammy intro here. The CGI invasion stuff starts at around the 3:00 minute mark. Great, fun game, and I assume some of these shots and ideas are meant as an homage to Red Dawn, or at least were inspired by it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQfH9JNomJY
Anyway, Red Dawn taps into that almost shameful part in most people (particularly young men, I'd imagine) that is kind of thrilled at the idea of a a tragedy, or a war, terrible though it may be on the grand scale. I doubt there's a teenage boy in the world who hasn't fantasized at least once about what he would do if he were suddenly thrust into a life or death situation. That's what happens to the characters in this film, though it doesn't end up looking too glamorous at first.
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4asx7ilAA1qzzh6g.jpg
The most prominent young actors are Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen (in his first feature film). C. Thomas Howell is here as well, and it's funny to see him with these others. It seems mere happenstance that he ended up leading a much more modest career than either of them. Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey join the group later on, as well, as the small band of teenagers holes up in the woods to wait out the invasion. A month or so passes, and they venture out into the town only to find that that America is still being occupied, and that many of their friends and family have been rounded up or eliminated. They hear something about "free America," which lies nearer to the coast, though they display a startling lack of curiosity about the meta situation going on. In alternate histories or grand "what ifs?" I always like to hear about the broader state of the world, but there isn't much of that here. There's a reference to Europe "sitting this one out," with the exception of England, and some explanation as to the invasion force's general strategy, but that's about it.
The hardships the young group has to endure leads them to fight back, and before long they've formed a pretty impressive insurgent force, picking off supply trucks and little units here and there, stealing their stuff, and using it to do even more damage the next time. They start calling themselves the Wolverines, after their local high school mascot.
Eventually the Wolverines meet up with a crashed American pilot (Powers Boothe), who helps focus their efforts a bit more, and they become a steadily larger thorn in the Russians/Cubans' collective side. This is done largely through the best friend of many 1980s films: the montage. "Even Rocky had a montage! Mon-tage!"
http://thefilmstage.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/reddawn.jpg
It's hard to say much more, because I feel like the film's main purpose is just to live out this fantasy of sorts, as well as to impress upon an earlier generation (the film was released in 1984, the year I was born) what war can be like. It both indulges the fantasy and splashes some cold water on it at different points.
Whatever fun is to be had dies along with some of the group. They seem unstoppable right up until the point at which they lose a couple of their own, and they pretty much crumble right after that; paranoia and betrayal unravel the gang quickly.
They win an important victory, and a subplot about a skeptical Cuban commander comes to fruition as he lets Jed (Swayze) go despite having an easy shot at him, but the film appears poised to end on a down-note. That is, until a quick epilogue of sorts wherein we learn that Americans eventually won the war thanks to sacrifices like the band of young people we've been watching. It's my understanding that this was tacked on so the film would be less depressing, and it sure feels that way.
Obviously, Red Dawn has meanings today that it probably never intended, in that the Americans are basically the insurgents here, which may create some complicated emotions for some. But the film is very careful to stress that the heroes are acting, well, heroically, attacking military personnel exclusively (as far as I can recall, at least). There is one moment where a young Russian soldier is humanized before he's executed, though given that the Wolverines could not plausibly keep prisoners at this point, it doesn't feel too morally questionable.
If this film were made today, I expect there'd be some kind of attempt to equivocate them with insurgents in places like Afghanistan or Iraq, with the Wolverines doing increasingly questionable things, testing the audience's loyalty to them as they got further and further away from pure "I want my country back" insurgency, and eventually crossed the line into terrorism. But it was made in a different time, and its line between good and evil stays relatively unblurred.
All in all, an interesting flick. It's a nice window into a different time, it features some actors that would go on to fairly strong careers, and it walks right to the brink of ending boldly even if it doesn't quite follow through in the end. Many thanks to Dex for sending it to me. :)
3