Tag: Time Warp Drive-In

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Experience the Special Effects Genius of Ray Harryhausen at the Time Warp Drive-In

Monster on the rampage! Ymir, the star of 20 Million Miles to Earth, hits the town.

The special effects extravaganzas that have dominated big-budget moviemaking over the last few decades could never have existed without Ray Harryhausen. He was a pioneer of not only stop motion animation, in which models are manipulated one frame at a time to create the illusion of movement, but also the aesthetic of the monster movie. Along with Ray Bradbury and Forrest Ackerman, he helped define American science fiction and fantasy during its formative years.

There’s no better way to experience Harryhausen’s genius than in the arena where they debuted: the drive-in. The monthly Time Warp Drive-In, put on at the Malco Summer Drive-In by Black Lodge Video, Mike McCarthy, and Piano Man Pictures, will celebrate Harryhausen’s genius on Saturday with two classic films from the heyday of the drive-in, the 1950s.

The first film marked the debut of the color version of Dynamation, the system Harryhausen invented for integrating live action and special effects shots. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad takes inspiration from stories in Arabian Nights, but like all Harryhausen-related mythological films, plays fast and loose with the source material. It contains not only the incredible giant horned cyclops, but also the prototype for what became Harryhausen’s most famous sequence, the skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts. Take a look at this delightfully retro trailer.
 

Experience the Special Effects Genius of Ray Harryhausen at the Time Warp Drive-In

The second film of the night is 20 Million Miles to Earth from 1957. The first spaceship to visit Venus crash lands with a deadly cargo: a monster that can double in size every day. Naturally, it gets loose from the scientists trying to study it, and carnage ensues. Coming the same year as Godzilla hit American theaters, it’s the most seminal film in the kaiju genre not made in Japan. Like King Kong, which inspired Harryhausen to get into filmmaking, the monster turns out to be the story’s most sympathetic character. I’m just loving these 50s-era trailers:

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Gates open for the Time Warp Drive-In at 6 PM, and the films start at 7 PM. Tickets available at the Malco website. 

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They’re Back From The Grave and Ready to Party! Zombies Take the Time Warp Drive-In

Return of the Living Dead

In a year when so much has gone away, there’s one thing you can count on: Horror movies at the drive-in! The Time Warp Drive-In, brought to you by Black Lodge, Guerilla Monster Films, Holtermonster Designs, Piano Man Pictures, and Malco Theatres, had its origins in a Halloween program, and October remains the screening series’ most popular edition. This year’s theme is zombies. Who doesn’t like zombies? Maybe people have a little burnout after a decade of The Walking Dead and its spinoffs, but we’re not talking to them right now. We’re talking to the fans of shuffling doom, of which there are hoardes.

The first film on the docket originated about the same time as The Walking Dead. 2009’s Zombieland is the best kind of horror comedy: one that pokes fun at the genre while also delivering genuinely good action scenes. The cast is absolutely stacked: Jesse Eisenberg, appearing the year before he defined Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network; Academy Award-winner Emma Stone, in her breakthrough role; future tabloid superstar Amber Heard; and a pair of absolute legends in Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray. The self-aware gorefest has held up over the years, if for no other reason than its timeless advice to not skip your cardio workout.

They’re Back From The Grave and Ready to Party! Zombies Take the Time Warp Drive-In

1985 was a great year for zombie pictures, as the Warps’ next two selections attest. Re-Animator was a pioneer in the horror-comedy subgenre. Loosely based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, Re-Animator was the gory debut of filmmaker Stuart Gordon, who would go on to a two-decade career, including writing Honey I Shrunk The Kids. This film, though, is decidedly not family friendly.

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The third film, also from 1985, is a collaboration between a pair of horror legends. Dan O’Bannon got his start on John Carpenter’s debut Dark Star, and wrote a screenplay that would eventually become Alien. His directorial debut is The Return of the Living Dead, based on a concept by Night of the Living Dead co-creator John Russo. Made at the height of the west coast hardcore punk movement, the soundtrack features music by T.S.O.L, Roky Erickson, 45 Grave, The Damned, and The Cramps. It’s most significant contribution to zombie-dom is the introduction of the concept that zombies love to eat brains. For my money, Return of the Living Dead has the best tagline ever: “They’re back from the grave, and ready to party!”

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And finally, the film that started the modern zombie genre: Night of the Living Dead is one of the most significant indie films ever made. It inspired generations of plucky filmmakers to pursue their dreams, no matter how messed up those dreams may be. George Romero was making industrial training films in Pittsburgh when he got a motley crew together to create an all-time classic. Ironically, many of the crew on Night of the Living Dead went on to help create Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Star Duane Jones, a theater actor who would later become the executive director of the Black Theatre Alliance, was cast because he was just the best guy to come in the door on audition day. But his portrayal of Ben, an unflappable Black protagonist in a day when the screen was dominated by White actors, is now hailed as a major milestone. In the Black Lives Matter era, the ending, which sees Ben surviving the zombie onslaught only to be killed by police, takes on new meaning. Don’t miss your opportunity to see this timeless classic as it was intended to be seen: at the drive-in.

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Showtime starts at sundown at the Malco Summer Drive-In. 

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Time Warp: Zombies Take the Drive-In this Saturday

CREDIT: Facebook/Time Warp Drive-In

This dusk-till-dawn Halloween horrorthon movie event features four beloved flicks of undead insanity, including Zombieland, Re-Animator, Night of the Living Dead, and Return of the Living Dead.

Most of us are zombied-out after what seems like a decade of TWD. Oh, wait. It has been 10 years. Those jerks are no better off, and the series should have been canceled when (spoilers) Negan lost Lucille and became a wuss. But let’s stay on topic.

The films that will be showing at this edition of the Time Warp Drive-In are classics. You might have piled your friends in the trunk of your 1968 Dodge Charger to see cult classic gore at the drive-in for an original showing of Night of the Living Dead in the late ’60s. A quick internet search reveals that the Dodge Charger still has the roomiest trunk. Pile them in again for a night at the drive-in starting with Zombieland, the 2009 zom-com starring Woody Harrelson. These films are pure undead brain gold.

Facebook/Time Warp Drive-In

Braaaaaaaains!

Shout-out to former Contemporary Media co-worker Celeste Dixon who is part of the art and film collective Piano Man Pictures, which is offering “vintage intermission insanity between all films.” It’s nonstop horror, y’all.

We’re all pretty happy that the Time Warp is back after a COVID intermission. Just a reminder to wear your mask when outside your car or going to the snack bar so we can continue to enjoy future warped events.

Night of the Living Time Warp: Zombies Take the Drive-In, Malco Summer 4 Drive-In, 5310 Summer, Saturday, Oct. 17, 7:15 p.m., $10.

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You Have 20 Seconds To Comply With RoboCop at the Time Warp Drive-In

Peter Weller as RoboCop.

If there’s one thing that science fiction has been warning us about for a century, it’s giving robots guns. Ninety-nine years ago, playwright Karel Capek coined the term “robot” with his play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). By the end of Act Three, the robots, which were created as a source of cheap labor, have armed themselves and are hunting humans to extinction. R.U.R. was set in the year 2000. Here in the 21st Century, we actually have the technology to make robots, and what’s the first thing we do? Give them guns.

Paul Verhoeven knew this was not going to end well in 1987, when he made RoboCop. Like most of Verhoeven’s output in the 80s and 90s, the film was dismissed as trash at the time, but is now held up as a classic. This Saturday, at the first Time Warp Drive-In of 2020, you can see both RoboCop and RoboCop 2 on the big screen.

In the future Detroit of RoboCop, corporations and government have merged. (Sound familiar?) In this clip, Omni Consumer Products (OCP) CEO Dick Jones (Ronny Cox, in a career defining role) demonstrates the latest in autonomous law enforcement technology:

You Have 20 Seconds To Comply With RoboCop at the Time Warp Drive-In

The ED-209 model was made by Craig Hayes, who used a microphone to create the body, and animated by Phil Tippet, the stop motion animation legend behind the holochess sequence in Star Wars: A New Hope. Since it was clearly not ready for full deployment, OCP went with their plan B: a cyborg police officer created from the dead body of Alex Murphy (Peter Weller). Murphy’s humanity is at war with his programming, and Weller’s tortured performance elevates what was sold as a typical 80s, cynical action film into a real human tragedy.

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Weller returned in 1990 for RoboCop 2, but Verhoeven had moved on to make Total Recall. The sequel, which is a much more conventional sci fi action film, was the final film directed by Irving Kirshner, who had started out the previous decade by directing The Empire Strikes Back. 

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Weller continues to work in film and TV today, appearing in Sons of Anarchy and Star Trek: Into Darkness. He took hiatus from acting to earn his PhD in Italian Art History and for a while was a notoriously difficult classics teacher at UCLA. You can see him tearing up the screen in his prime on Saturday at the Summer Drive-In. The Time Warp Drive-In RoboCop Lives! double feature starts at dusk. 

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SHOCKTOBER! Ghostbusters Leads Packed Time Warp Drive-In

There is no Dana. There is only Zuul. Sigourney Weaver slays in Ghostbusters.

October is horror movie month, and nobody does it better than the Time Warp Drive-In. The Warp got its start as a special Halloween program, and it proved so popular it expanded into a monthly event. This year they pulled out all the stops with a loaded program of comedy and musical horror from the glory days of the 1980s.

Leading the program is, naturally, Ghostbusters. The 1984 film was originally conceived by Dan Ackroyd as a vehicle for him, John Belushi, and Eddie Murphy as interdimensional “paranormal exterminators.” Ackroyd says he was actually writing dialog for Belushi when he found out his friend had died in March 1982. After Murphy turned down the opportunity, and an extensive re-write with Harold Ramis—conducted while the pair were locked in a fallout shelter—that has become the stuff of Hollywood legend, the film became the highest-grossing comedy of all time. Bill Murray’s performance as a would-be shyster who unexpectedly discovers ghosts are real cemented his status as a superstar, but it was the incredibly catchy, New Wave theme song by Ray Parker, Jr. that drove the masses to the theaters in the summer of ’84. Roll that tape!

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Next up is Little Shop of Horrors, which began life as a shlocky Roger Corman film from 1960, then revamped as an off-broadway musical in the early 80s. Muppet co-mastermind and Yoda himself, Frank Oz, directed Rick Moranis as a geeky flower shop worker who discovers a carnivorous plant from outer space, and makes an unlikely deal with it to woo his crush Audrey, played with squeaky precision by Broadway singer Ellen Greene.

The voice of the alien plant, dubbed Audrey II, is Four Tops frontman Levi Stubbs. Here he is absolutely killing it in the show-stopper “Mean Green Mother From Outer Space”:

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Universal Studios hasn’t had much luck with its classic monster properties in the 21st century. Just look at 2014’s Dracula Untold—or better yet, don’t. Maybe they need to switch directions and remake The Monster Squad. The 1987 monsters vs. teenagers romp didn’t scare up much business back in the day, but it earned a huge following on home video, and it’s got a hell of a lot more life than Tom Cruise’s deeply awful Mummy remake.

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Speaking of bad ideas, remember that adaptation of the board game Battleship? What a fiasco. Well, the 1985 adaptation of the board game Clue is the polar opposite of that. It’s got a stacked cast of Tim Curry, Martin Mull, Susan Sarandon, Christopher Lloyd, and a timeless performance by Madeline Khan, who delivers one of the greatest ad-libs in the history of cinema:

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You’re gonna want to stay up late for this one.

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The Time Warp Drive-In starts at 6:30 at the Malco Summer Drive-In with a performance by The Conspiracy Theory. Movies start at sundown. 

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Dispatch War Rocket Ajax to Time Warp Drive-In’s FUTURECOOL

Welcome to Mongo, Earth man.

This month’s Time Warp Drive-In is devoted to 80s space opera. The term comes, believe it or not, from Westerns. In particular, elaborately staged Westerns in the middle of the 20th century came to be known derisively as “horse operas,” and the term kind of migrated over to movies like This Island Earth. The post Star Wars period of 1977-1984, where studios were greenlighting big-budget sci-fi left and right, no matter how poorly conceived, was the golden age of space opera, and there was none more operatically staged than Flash Gordon.

George Lucas had wanted to license Alex Raymond’s comic strip character from the 1930s, Flash Gordon, for his followup to American Graffiti. But Italian mogul Dino De Laurentiis wouldn’t sell, so Lucas ended up creating Star Wars instead. De Laurentiis, who didn’t get to be a rich and famous movie producer by ignoring cultural trends or letting good taste get in his way, decided it was time to exploit the intellectual property he had been sitting on and make a Flash Gordon movie of his own.

After a false start with director Nicholas Roeg, and a hard pass from Fredrico Fellini, of all people, he hired Mike Hoges to direct. Playgirl model Sam Jones was cast as Flash, but by far the best casting decision in the whole project was Max Von Sydow as Ming the Merciless. In the comic and the classic Saturday matinee serials, the ruler of Mongo has an icky, yellow, peril vibe. Von Sydow, who got his start with Ingrid Bergman in Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal, transcends that to makes Ming both truly alien and kinda charming, in a sadistic space tyrant kind of way.

Dispatch War Rocket Ajax to Time Warp Drive-In’s FUTURECOOL (2)

With Star Wars, Lucas set out to create a visually believable space opera. Flash Gordon attempts to emulate its source material — which is to say, comics of the 1930s and 40s. You might think the whole thing look irredeemably cheesy, and you’d be right, but you have to admit they achieved what they set out to do.

But admit it, we’re all just in it for the Queen soundtrack, which is absolute perfection. Let’s roll that theme song.

Dispatch War Rocket Ajax to Time Warp Drive-In’s FUTURECOOL

Speaking of classically trained actors going over the top, the second film of the evening is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Widely regarded as the best big-screen Trek, it cements Khan Noonien Singh as Captain James T. Kirk’s arch enemy.

So many things passed from this classic into the larger culture. “Kobayashi Maru” became geek slang for a no-win situation, and the “Genesis Wave” sequence, a Lucasfilm masterpiece of early CGI, was recently referenced in Dark Phoenix. But Ricardo Montalbán steals the show from William Shatner, and the folks at Paramount who made this 1982 trailer, knew it.

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The final film of the evening is Masters of the Universe, which stars Dolph Lundgrin as toy superhero He-Man in what is probably his finest role, and Academy Award nominee Frank Langella as Skeletor in what is definitely not his finest role. Is it so bad it’s good? You be the judge.

Dispatch War Rocket Ajax to Time Warp Drive-In’s FUTURECOOL (4)

Time Warp starts at dusk at the Malco Summer Drive-In on Saturday, August 17. 

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Tired Of Good Movies? Time Warp Drive-In Has Got You Covered With The Return Of The Worst Movies Ever

I feel you. Now that you’ve fully absorbed the Cats trailer, you’re primed to watch some bad movies. Really bad movies. Absolute ineptitude. Movies that turn the old conceptual corner from bad to good. This weekend’s Time Warp Drive-In has got you covered with The Return of the Worst Movies Ever.

What makes a movie so bad it’s good? This is a question that has plagued fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for two decades. I think it’s impossible to intentionally make a film so bad it’s good. You have to really believe in what you’re doing, and have utter confidence in your creative vision. And no one had more misplaced confidence in his creative vision than George Lucas circa 1986.

And, hey, wouldn’t you feel the same way? He’d just come off of changing the entire film industry with the original Star Wars trilogy and two Indiana Jones movies. He could do no wrong. Time to tee up a really daring project — an adaptation of a cult comic book by Marvel that took a semi-satirical look at the medium. In 2019, that’s half the films greenlit in Hollywood. In 1986, that was Howard The Duck. Lucas produced and his friends Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who had written American Graffiti and punched up the dialog in A New Hope, directed and wrote. He cast Lea Thompson, who was so good in Back To The Future the year before. What could possibly go wrong?

This.

Tired Of Good Movies? Time Warp Drive-In Has Got You Covered With The Return Of The Worst Movies Ever

Feeling the burn? You ain’t seen nothing yet. In 1988, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra Terrestrial had held the title of the top-grossing film of all time for six years. McDonald’s, in their corporate wisdom, decided they needed to expand beyond just making TV ads and buying product placement segments, and produce their own feature film. What kind of movie did they want to make? One like E.T., of course. Everybody likes E.T. The result is Mac and Me, one of the most inept films ever made. There’s a reason it was chosen as the lead film for the latest season of MST3K. And that reason is this scene, which you should not watch if you value your sanity. 

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Also, there’s a four-and-a-half-minute long musical number, set — where else? — in a McDonald’s.

I said earlier that it’s not possible to make a truly bad/good movie if you set out to do so. But what if you know you’re making a bad satire of Hollywood sexism and capitalist alienation, but no one else involved in the project does? That’s what’s claimed of Paul Verhooven’s 1995 disasterpiece Showgirls. I’m not sure I buy that explanation for one of the most horrific and mean-spirited films ever made, but you can judge for yourself. The trailer oozes sleaze, and it only scratches the surface.

Tired Of Good Movies? Time Warp Drive-In Has Got You Covered With The Return Of The Worst Movies Ever (3)

If you survive that long, you will be “rewarded” with Samurai Cop. Dig the magnificent mane on the titular character, who is…wait for it…a cop, trained as a samurai. Yeah.

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Time Warp Drive-In starts at dusk on Saturday, July 20th at the Malco Summer Drive-In. 

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John Hughes Big 80s Films At The Time Warp Drive-In

The gang’s all here for The Breakfast Club at the Time Warp Drive-In

Time Warp Drive-In organizer Matt Martin says the most requested theme in the six-year history of the monthly retro movie night has always been the teen ’80s movies of John Hughes. Saturday night, April 20th at the Malco Summer Drive-In, Time Warpers will get their wish.

Hughes grew up in suburban Grosse Point, Michigan. After getting his start with National Lampoon, he became one of the most prolific and successful writers of his generation. For better or worse, his insightful depictions of high school hierarchy became the default view of teenage life in the ’80s and ’90s. When they were released, they were often controversial due to their frank depictions of teenage sex, drugs, and rock and roll, while teenagers of the time praised the emotional honesty. Today’s audiences in the teenage target demographic might find the film’s almost exclusively white cast and creaky gender role assumptions problematic. It’s the rare artist who can remain controversial over the decades, only for changing reasons.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is probably Hughes’ tightest screenplay, comedy wise. Putting the majority of those words in the mouth of a fourth-wall breaking Matthew Broderick made it an instant classic. Would Bueller have gotten away with his low-key crime spree if he’d been a black teenager who couldn’t leverage his white privilege? Probably not. Does he show signs of borderline sociopathy? Arguably. But when this film is really clicking, you can’t help but root for Broderick’s portrayal of the consummate teenage con man with a heart of gold.

John Hughes Big 80s Films At The Time Warp Drive-In

The Breakfast Club is Hughes at his most empathetic. He created the perfect portrayals of the teenage stereotypes of the jock, the beauty queen, the introvert, the waste-oid criminal, and the geek, and then proceeded to rip them to pieces by revealing the scared and hopeful people underneath.

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Weird Science was Hughes’ second film as director in 1984, and, as the title says, it’s probably his weirdest. In what must be the most egregious example of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl in film history, two nerds, Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell Smith) use…well, weird science…to semi-accidentally create a super-powered supermodel, played by real life supermodel Kelly LeBrock. But like most stories of summoning a genie from a lamp, the wishers end up getting more of what they need than what they think they want.

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The Time Warp Drive-in rolls at 7:30 PM on Saturday, April 20th at the Malco Summer Drive-In. 

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High School Magic and a Pam Grier Double Feature this Weekend at the Cinema

Pam Grier as Jackie Brown

Saturday is packed with cinematic treats this week.

First, at 10 a.m., a rare screening of a Memphis classic at Malco Studio on the Square. When What I Love About Concrete won the 2013 Best Hometowner Feature at Indie Memphis, it had been in production for several years. Filmmakers Brett Hannover, Alanna Stewart, and Katherine Dohan began the project while they were still in high school at White Station. As I said in my Indie Memphis’ Greatest Hits article about the film, everyone thinks they should make a movie about the high school experience, but these folks actually did it, and their movie is much cooler than yours would have been. Somewhere between Sixteen Candles and A Wrinkle In Time, What I Love About Concrete is a must-see. And if you, or someone you know, is in grades 7-12, you can see it for free, and have a pizza lunch with the filmmakers, courtesy of the Indie Memphis young filmmakers program! Click here to sign up.

High School Magic and a Pam Grier Double Feature this Weekend at the Cinema

Then at sunset, the Time Warp Drive-In kicks off its sixth season with a tribute to actress Pam Grier. Quick, what’s the best Quentin Tarantino movie? Time’s up! It’s Jackie Brown,  the Elmore Leonard adaptation QT wrote for Grier in the mid-90s. And there’s no better place to see it than the Malco Summer Drive-In.

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Then, Grier’s breakthrough performance, the 1973 blackspoitation flick Coffy, in which she is an incredible bad ass.

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Get out and see some flicks this weekend! 

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Time Warp With Ahnold this Saturday!

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career in the 1980s ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. That makes the former governor of California the perfect subject for this month’s Time Warp Drive-In.

Schwarzenegger, a former professional bodybuilder whose first screen appearance was in the documentary Pumping Iron, starred in two perfect movies in the Reagan era. One of them is Conan The Barbarian, and I will accept no disagreement on that point. The second one is James Cameron’s breakthrough picture (if you don’t count Piranha II: The Spawning) The Terminator. Not much I can say about The Terminator that hasn’t already been said a thousand times. If you’ve never seen it, yes, it is every bit as good as you’ve heard, and watching it in a drive-in is pretty much the ideal setting. And if you want a master class in how to cut a trailer, take a look at this one. They don’t make ’em like this any more.

Time Warp With Ahnold this Saturday!

Next up is a film that epitomizes the rut he fell into in the late ’80s. Where The Terminator was violent, it was also one of the smartest science fiction scripts ever filmed. Predator is all about bulging biceps and firearms. And yet, Ahnold carries it effortlessly. To see what happens when he’s not the lead, check out this year’s flaccid Predator remake.

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Two years later, Paul Verhoeven was using Ahnold’s public image as a tough guy to sell his over-the-top, borderline satirical take on Philip K. Dick’s Total Recall. And yet, amidst all the weirdness, Schwarzenegger still carries the film! Just witness the horror show of the Ahnold-less remake. This is why, despite the fact that he is almost singlehandedly responsible for the introduction of the Hummer into civilian life, I can’t hate the guy. He’s got chops.

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Finally, a Stephen King adaptation that was set in the then-far-away future of 2017, The Running Man. Schwarzenegger is, predictably, great in this, but not for the usual reasons. He’s kinda clueless as the now all-too-real satire swirls around him, but playing the material completely straight is absolutely the right move here, especially since he’s playing off of a gloriously over-the-top Richard Dawson. Did I mention this movie essentially predicted the plague of reality TV, but somehow didn’t go far enough to see that the dystopia that blighted entertainment genre would create when we essentially elected Richard Dawson’s character president?

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Time Warp Drive-In starts at dusk on Saturday, November 10 at the Malco Summer Drive-In.