This has to be my best find to date. Not only is The Running Man a great sci-fi action film staring Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, but the version I bought for $4.99 at Movie Stop is the Special Edition 2 Disc set with all kinds of extra features, including documentaries and audio commentary tracks. If you’re like me then you love extra features, but even if you don’t this is still a spectacular deal for a copy of this film.
Based on the novel of the same name written by Steven King, The Running Man takes place in the future, the bad kind of future with vastly depleted resources and a tyrannical military government. To keep people distracted from their terribly oppressive existence, the justice department has created a televised blood sport event where armed gladiators hunt down convicts for the pleasure of the masses. Arnold plays Ben Richards, a former military pilot that was framed and falsely imprisoned for massacring of dozens of unarmed civilians. After an unsuccessful escape attempt, he is conned into competing on The Running Man game show (the previously mentioned bloodsport) which is hosted by none other than Richard Dawson from Family Feud. Amazingly, Dawson manages to steal the show in this film with a truly villainous performance and is, in my opinion, one of the best bad guys Arnold has ever faced.
The general consensus among horror movie fans is that John Carpenter’s 1982 film The Thing is awesome, and those fans would be right. It has a claustrophobic atmosphere, a haunting Ennio Morricone score, and many other fantastic factors that much more verbose critics have mentioned over and over again. But, one has to wonder if the movie would even exist without its Howard Hawks’ produced predecessor, The Thing from Another World.
I found this treasure of a DVD for $4.99 a while back at a sale that Circuit City was having right before it went out of business. I had seen the movie in my dad’s collection a long time ago but only had a few memories of watching it; mainly that it was black and white and had a big vegetable man stomping around in the snow. Upon a more recent viewing, I was able to appreciate the character archetypes and subtle nuances of the film. All of the classic sci-fi tropes are present and accounted for here. Kenneth Tobey plays the charismatic Captain Hendry who leads our military men, and an investigative journalist played by Douglas Spencer, to a research station at the north pole to investigate a downed aircraft reported by a group of scientists. Even though they loose the mysterious aircraft, the group does manage to recover its pilot, a huge alien played by James Arness, frozen in a block of ice. The plant based creature manages to escape from its frigid prison, however, and all hell breaks loose on the research station.
Most of the science fiction films to come out of this decade are mediocre at the best of times, but this film is an exception. The quick dialogue, characterizations, and subtle sense of humor running throughout the script keep it moving and entertaining, and the second half is filled with some truly tense moments. This film belongs in the same category as classic horror fare like Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein. It’s just that good.
My never-ending mission to find great movies for low low prices took me recently to the used DVDs of a local Movie Gallery. Sitting on the shelf was a copy of the monster movie Slither for under five dollars. Score! As far as plot goes, this movie is nothing special. An alien creature crashes in a meteor near small town U.S.A. and instantly takes over the mind of the town’s local douche to take over the world. Seen it, taped it, recorded over it. Anytime this movie takes itself too seriously, I just rolled my eyes and occupied myself with a book or sandwich for a few minutes. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen too often.
Where this movie does shine is in the brilliantly written dialogue and over-the-top special effects. The cast is surprisingly good with the always creepy Michael Rooker as the alien host, Elizabeth Banks as his beautiful wife and target of the alien’s weird affection, and Nathan Fillion as the local cop who has to stop the whole dang alien takeover and rescue the girl. All of these people are great, but Gregg Henry, as the town mayor, steals the show whenever he’s on screen with some of the best delivered expletives I’ve heard in movies in a long time. This film also features a lot of practical, and very disgusting, creature effects throughout it’s run time. Writer/director James Gunn really understands 1980’s style gross-out movies, and Slither feels like his love letter to that whole decade’s worth of horror films. If, like me, you are a fan of splatter horror and monster movies then I highly recommend you go find this movie and watch it right now.
I have an addiction. I cannot stop myself from buying DVDs. Whenever I go out to any big store or shopping center, I find myself attracted to the shelves swollen with new and used DVDs. To try and keep myself from starving to death, I have set out on a quest to find quality new and used DVDs for a great price. The magic number I’m looking for is $5 or under, pretax. My first venture took me to Best Buy’s $5 bargain bin, and, after sifting through some less than desirable films, I stumbled onto an overlooked gem from a few years back.
The Grand is a false documentary in the style of This is Spinal Tap or Best in Show that highlights the lives of several professional poker players on their journey to play for ten million dollars in a televised tournament of Texas Hold ‘Em. The impressive stable of comedic talent on board for this picture includes Woody Harrelson as Jack Faro (the closest thing we get to a central character) who is exiting drug rehab and entering the grand champion tournament to save the casino/hotel his grandfather left him. He makes it to the final table against David Cross and Cheryl Hines playing competing siblings Lainie and Larry Schwartzman, Chris Parnell playing the mathematically inclined Harold, Richard Kind as a very funny clueless berk named Andy Andrews, and, my personal favorite, Dennis Farina playing the grizzled, and somewhat racist, old-timer named Deuce. The parade of hilarious character actors doesn’t stop there. The supporting cast includes Jason Alexander, Hank Azaria, Ray Ramano, and Michael McKean, just to name a few. Movie snobs might be surprised to see legendary director Werner Herzog playing a sadistic German poker player simply named The German. This movie is a real treat for five bucks and will be fun for anyone with a taste for dry humor.
This has to be my best find to date. Not only is The Running Man a great sci-fi action film staring Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, but the version I bought for $4.99 at Movie Stop is the Special Edition 2 Disc set with all kinds of extra features, including documentaries and audio commentary tracks. If you’re like me then you love extra features, but even if you don’t this is still a spectacular deal for a copy of this film.
