SOYLENT GREEN and the Starbucks Solution

Starring Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, Brock Peters, Chuck Connors, Joseph Cotten, Paula Kelly, Stephen Young, Mike Henry, Whit Bissell, Dick Van Patten. Directed by Richard Fleischer. (1973/97 min).

Essay by D.M. ANDERSON

"Soylent Green is peeeople!"

Everybody knows that, just like everybody knows Darth Vader is Luke's old man, Dorothy was only dreaming and Taylor has been on Earth the entire time. So quoting the final line in Soylent Green - memorably moaned by that master of subtlety, Charlton Heston - probably isn't spoiling the party. It isn't like the time I was watching Planet of the Apes on TV when I was 9-years-old and Mom came waltzing into the living room to smugly announce, "You know it's really Earth, right?"

What the fuck, Mom?

I didn't actually say that, of course, because I preferred my ass to be welt-free. The funny thing is, she knew Planet of the Apes' big twist without ever actually seeing the movie herself. That final image of the Statue of Liberty buried in sand became almost instantly iconic (without help from the internet). From that point on, the only people shocked by the film's climax were those fortunate enough to have seen it in 1968...and clueless nine-year-olds catching it for the first time on CBS...hopefully without their spoiler-happy mothers lurking about.

Soylent Green is not as culturally revered as Planet of the Apes, though Charlton Heston was becoming cinema's apocalypse poster boy at the time. The film isn't nearly as much fun, either. In 2022, the world is severely polluted and overpopulated. While the wealthy live in relative comfort in luxurious high-rise apartments (complete with young concubines), most poor bastards dwell in crowded squalor. Suicide, however, is an option. Anyone sick of life can simply show up unannounced at their friendly neighborhood euthanasia clinic and peacefully end it all.

Livestock and crops are nearly non-existent and reserved for those who can afford 150 bucks for a jar of strawberries. Everyone else lives off of government issued crackers, Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow and everyone's new favorite, Soylent Green. In fact, Soylent Green proves to be so popular that people riot when food centers run out.

"Forget it, kid. I'm starting at QB today."

Frank Thorn (Heston) is a cop investigating the murder of a Soylent Corporation bigwig, who was bludgeoned to death in his swanky apartment. With the help of his researcher & roommate, Sol (Edward G. Robinson, in his final film), the investigation leads him to discover the Soylent Corporation's dark secret: the main ingredient of those delectable crackers isn't soy at all, but people who've been processed through the euthanasia clinics.

Soylent Green ain't exactly a feelgood film. In fact, it's downright depressing at times, such as when Sol finally decides to cash-in at one of those clinics. That scene is even more poignant when you realize Robinson was dying of cancer at the time. He and Heston were friends, so their emotions during his deathbed sequence were genuine. Elsewhere, the film is aesthetically drab & grimy, the tone relentlessly downbeat and pessimistic, its environmental message sobering. We're subjected to so much self-perpetuated human misery that when the big twist is finally revealed, perhaps we really aren't all that shocked.

Still, "Soylent Green is people!" more-or-less immortalized the movie, which has left its indelible mark on popular culture. For over four decades now, it has been referenced, name-dropped and parodied in countless films, TV shows and various other media. There's a metal band that took its name from the title. There are numerous Soylent Green food & cocktail recipes. Yours truly even owns a novelty t-shirt advertising Soylent Green cereal ("Now with more REAL PEOPLE in every bite!"). Neither my wife or daughters have ever sat and watched the movie, but even they know what Soylent Green is made of.

Extreme Hopscotch.

But getting back to the film itself...my pessimistic view of human nature has me wondering if Thorn's discovery would realistically make a difference. The film ends with Heston screeching that immortal, meme-worthy line to the masses, the camera freezing on his bloody, outstretched hand. This raises some troubling questions: What next? Is the Soylent Corporation held accountable for their awful secret? Does a shocked and outraged society rise-up against them? And if all plant and animal life are already on the verge of extinction, what are 40 million people in New York City alone going to eat instead? And if Soylent Green itself is so deliciously addicting, would anyone really care what it's made of?

It's possible people would be initially horrified, but I suspect most would soon bury that knowledge, just like we currently do while enjoying a hot dog. We've all heard horror stories and urban legends about McDonald's ingredients...worm meat, animal brains, etc. But even after Morgan Spurlock exposed the horrors of Value Meals in Super Size Me, McDonald's remained the biggest restaurant chain in the world because Quarter Pounders are still fucking awesome. Since Soylent Green itself looks more like Sun Chips than it does our loved ones, wouldn't most of us do the same, especially if the only other option is starvation?

Thorn spots a relative.

On a related personal note, yours truly is a coffee junkie. Ever since becoming addicted to it in college, I'm unable to constructively interact with others without starting my day with a cup or six. As an educator in the real world - of middle-schoolers, no less - I'm fairly confident this magic elixir is the only thing that prevents me from becoming a child murderer.

Starbucks, of course, is the evil Galactic Empire of the java-verse. For the longest time, I managed to avoid its insidious allure, dashing clear of the Starbucks in our Safeway parking lot, then juking like Walter Payton to avoid the second Starbucks inside the store. I thumbed my nose at franchise's hipster-baiting trendiness and the idea of shelling-out five bucks for what's essentially a glorified milkshake. I was also convinced most people patronized Starbucks so others could see they patronized Starbucks. After all, coffee is coffee. Anyone who needed whipped cream, sprinkles, syrup and cookie straws weren't hardcore coffee achievers...just candy addicts. To my utter disgust, Starbucks' grande-sized White Chocolate Mocha became my own wife's personal heroin. Worse yet, like the drug-addicted parents we educators are required to report to Child Services, she got our kids hooked on this shit, too.

Between my family, co-workers, acquaintances and friends, I felt like a single ship atop a sea of conformity, feeling superior the mindless sheep willing to wait in a twenty-minute line for something you could get at 7-Eleven for half the price. Whenever I was forced to feed my family's addiction by being the twelfth fucking car at the drive-thru - nearly every weekend - a small part of me wished the neighborhood euthanasia clinics in Soylent Green were real.

Then I received a Starbucks Christmas gift card from one of my students, who apparently assumed teachers must love Starbucks nearly as much as driving Toyota Priuses (you'd be surprised how many of my colleagues own one). I feigned gratitude with a polite smile while making a mental note to drop her grade to a C-. My family was happy, of course. For them, the only thing better than getting Starbucks while holiday shopping was free Starbucks while holiday shopping. So one weekend, card in-hand, we found ourselves in the nearest twenty-minute line at one of our local mall's 17 Starbucks stores. Being that I was exhausted from lugging around Old Navy bags and it didn't cost anything, I caved-in and ordered myself a grande cup of their strongest, darkest roast. "Would you like room for cream?" the bubbly barista asked. Fuck, no.

Sometimes it's a texture thing.

I took my first sip, and despite scorching my tongue, the heavens suddenly parted and the angels sang. This wasn't just coffee...this was nerve-jolting, eyeball-bursting COFFEE! Sweet ambrosia, where have you been my whole life? Even though I felt like I just joined the world's largest cult, I became an instant Starbucks convert. Sure, I had always managed to brew a decent cup o' joe at home, but it was mere Soylent Yellow compared to this. Today, whenever my wife and I go anywhere, be-it the grocery store or a trip to her mother's, our first stop is always the nearest Starbucks. Someday, I hope to stop at the Starbucks in our Safeway parking lot and pound-back a grande Dark Roast in time to order another one when we get inside the store.

If some nosey cop were to suddenly burst into the store with the ominous announcement that Starbucks' soaked its coffee beans in the blood of children to achieve their delectable distinctiveness, I'm not sure how much I'd really care. Sure, I'd be initially horrified because...you know, the blood of children. But what am I supposed to do...revert back to Folger's?  The prospect of shitting a coconut has more appeal. Besides, it's not like I'd be drinking the blood my children.

Starbucks: Brewed with the blood of children.

Additionally, if I were waiting in one of those twenty-minute lines and the manager came out from behind the counter with a bullhorn to announce, "The supply of Dark Roast has been exhausted," I'd probably incite a riot that would make the one in Soylent Green look like toddlers protesting naptime at a daycare facility.

Am I alone? From my own personal experience, I doubt it. Maybe Soylent Green's concept is actually more timely than we'd like to think. Sure, as 2022 rapidly approaches, it doesn't look like we'll be ready to make Grandpa part of our nutritious breakfast. But we might want to ask ourselves what horrors we'd be currently willing to accept in order to keep consuming the things we love.

Movie Haiku of the Week: SOYLENT GREEN

What is Soylent Green?

These crackers are tasty, but...

Hey...where's my roommate?

6 Classics Featuring the Cast of SESAME STREET

"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" (Network)

"I'm in love with you already, but I'll nail you anyway." (Basic Instinct)

"It's people! Soylent Green is made out of people! They're making our food out of people!" (Soylent Green)

"What knockers!" (Young Frankenstein)

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubblegum." (They Live)

"We should have brought fuckin' shotguns." (Pulp Fiction)

Blu-Ray Review: WALT DISNEY ANIMATION STUDIOS SHORT FILMS COLLECTION

Various Directors. (2000-2014, 79 min).
WALT DISNEY

Disney's full length animated features may get all the hype and attention, but their short subjects are nearly always as creatively entertaining, sometimes more so. I always had the impression the shorts were where Disney animators, unburdened by commercial expectations, really got to turn loose and spread their wings. This diverse collection features 12 of their best shorts since 2000.

Animation styles vary from film to film, from traditional to CG, though all are impeccably crafted. Narratively, stories range from the brilliantly comic (Mickey Mouse's visually astounding "Get a Horse" & Goofy's welcome return in "How to Hook Up Your Home Theater") to the totally tragic ("The Little Matchgirl," from Hans Christian Andersen's story, might be the most heartbreaking seven minutes Disney ever produced).

"Wait a minute! If Soylent Green is people, then Soylent Brown must be...be...oh, no!"

Oscar winners "Paperman" & "Feast" are included, as well as many other shorts which played with Disney's theatrical features, such as "The Ballad of Nessie," "Frozen Fever" and "Tangled Ever After." My personal favorite (if I had to pick one) would be "Tick Tock Clock," which was never included with any theatrical film or DVD release and reminded me of a lost Fantasia segment (I later discovered it actually was supposed to be part of a since-abandoned Fantasia 2006 project, as were "Lorenzo" and "The Little Matchgirl"). The oldest film, "John Henry," dates back to 2000, and while it's still a wonderful take on the old legend, it's arguably the weakest of the lot, an indication of just how great all the others are.

Most of these shorts have been previously included as bonus features on other DVDs in recent years. However, they provide a supremely unique & entertaining experience when viewed collectively, especially with new intros by their creators which precede each film. Disney and animation fans will be hard-pressed to find a more entertaining batch of shorts on a single disc (yes, it's even better than the Pixar collections). This one a must-own and, so far, the best single-disc Blu-Ray release of the year.

EXTRAS:

• @DisneyAnimation: An insightful featurette which looks at various animators' efforts to create modern Disney shorts
• DVD & Digital Copies

KITTY CONSENSUS:

MEE-OW! BETTER THAN AN OPEN CAN OF TUNA.

ROLLERBALL (1975): The Greatest Game Never Played

Starring James Caan, John Houseman, Maude Adams, Moses Gunn, John Beck. Directed by Norman Jewison. (1975, 129 min)

Until 1968's Planet of the Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey, science fiction was seldom too serious...alien invaders, time travel, giant monsters, space battles, etc. A lot of those movies made the future look awesome; we cursed our bad luck for being born before flying cars, laser guns, space colonies and giant robots. Mindless fun, and mostly kiddie stuff (some of which I still love).

Then the 70s arrived, along with The Andromeda Strain, Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Omega Man, Westworld, Soylent Green, Logan's Run, Silent Running, A Boy and his Dog, A Clockwork Orange, THX-1138, et al. These mostly-dystopian movies promised us that, not only will the future suck, it's gonna kick our asses. Many directors of these films claimed to use sci-fi as a commentary on the ills of modern-day society. If so, I seldom understood any message they were trying to convey. In some cases, I still don’t. Even now, I’d love to visit Westworld, drill robot hookers and blow away Yul Brynner. And yeah, I’d take the chance on one of them suddenly turning homicidal.

Another of those dystopian nightmares was 1975’s Rollerball, Norman Jewison’s supposed commentary on society’s bloodlust, which depicts a future society controlled by corporations. Nations, war and poverty no longer exist, but the population still has a craving for death, which the world’s corporations provide with Rollerball, an unholy cross between roller derby, football, motorcycle racing and gladiatorial combat.


I’ve seen and read interviews where Jewison (in full-pretention mode) intended the audience to be appalled by the violence in Rollerball. Well, Mr. Jewison, mission failed, because you made the game so kick-ass that we all wished it was a real fucking sport (it makes the NFL look like cheerleading competitions). Hell, even the stunt guys you employed played the game in their free time between takes. If you had any other agenda, Mr. Jewison, it was lost on most folks, at least on me and my friends when we decided to try playing Rollerball ourselves in the summer of ‘76 (a year after the movie was released in theaters, but recently premiered on TV for all of us to behold).

Granted, we didn’t have motorcycles, roller-skates, spiked gloves or a speeding steel ball that could tear your head off, but we did have bicycles, skateboards, gardening gloves, old baseball helmets, a softball wrapped in silver duct tape and two trash cans placed on opposite ends of our cul-de-sac to serve as goals. We were all set.

But unlike the climactic match in the film with no time limit, our own little game lasted about five minutes. That’s when my friend Mark, riding a skateboard, collided with another kid on his bike and smacked face-first onto the street. He broke his nose, two teeth and scraped a good chunk of skin off his cheek. After that, no one seemed too enthused to continue the game, especially after seeing all that blood squirting from Mark’s face.

Looking back on that incident now, maybe it was my first hard-learned lesson (though not as hard on me as it was on Mark) not to imitate what you see in the movies. But even though re-enacting Rollerball was basically my idea, I'm still gonna blame Norman Jewison for Mark's busted nose. Screw the man’s social commentary; he made the sport look like too much goddamned fun for a bunch of bored 13-year-olds to pass up.

There are more reasons why Rollerball’s violence-is-bad message falls on deaf ears...

As brilliantly conceived and shot as the game scenes are, an actual plot is required for most movies, and the plot in this one is flimsy and stupid. Rollerball-champion Jonathon E (James Caan) is a threat to the corporations because his skill defeats the purpose of the game (demonstrating the futility of individual effort). So they keep changing the rules of the game in order to eliminate him. It is never made clear why Jonathon’s continued ass-kicking is a threat, but even if it was, it seems to me that if corporations are able to keep the global population in-check, simply killing one guy shouldn’t be too tough. The last time I checked, one of the few times in history killing just one guy ever had global impact was during World War II, and that was a good thing.

Furthermore, if Rollerball truly does sate the population’s bloodlust, yet it’s obvious everyone loves Jonathon E, doesn’t killing him lessen one’s interest in the game? Wouldn’t you want him to keep kicking-ass, especially since he is such a nice guy off the track? Consider the Chicago Bulls during the Michael Jordan era. I’m not a basketball fan, but even I sometimes tuned into games when he was playing. We loved the guy even when he was kicking the shit out of our own home team. When he decided to finally retire, there was a noticeable dip in TV ratings for NBA games. As a society, we love seeing one man totally dominate a sport, to the point where his absence makes the sport a bit less compelling. Disagree? Then when was the last time you watched a golf tournament in its entirety when Tiger Woods wasn’t playing?

In Rollerball, by trying to kill Jonathan, these corporations aren’t really doing a lot to help their cause. In fact, with every increasingly deadly rule change designed to eliminate him, the sport becomes even more popular when he overcomes the odds and wins anyway. And besides, doesn’t Jonathan’s triumph accomplish the very goals the corporations had in the first place, to placate the passive public’s bloodlust?

But I’m being way too analytical, because I’ve never met anyone who has seen Rollerball that gives two shits about the story anyway. In fact, the chapter-skip feature on your remote was made for movies like this. In-between the most awesome sports-action sequences you’ll ever see are endless scenes of dull exposition, cheesy parties, occasionally nonsensical dialogue or random shots intended to be symbolic. With your remote, it’s possible to enjoy this two-hour film in about thirty minutes, catching all of the stupendous action and still have an inkling of the plot (if you care). We get the gist of the story whenever Jonathan scores a goal or does something awesomely violent; the movie cuts to John Houseman (the evil corporate executive trying to kill him), a stern expression on his jowly puss.

Still, the very idea of Rollerball is great (and I do love this film). So even though its anti-violence message is an epic fail, out of sheer respect, I’ll mention at least one valuable life-lesson this dystopian classic does offer with utmost clarity (besides never try to play the game in your cul-de-sac with your friends):

Polyester is not, and will never be, attractive. Especially beige polyester.

Blu-Ray Review: THE SEA WOLF (1941)

Starring Edward G. Robinson, Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Alexander Knox, Gene Lockhart, Barry Fitzgerald. Directed by Michael Curtiz. (1941, 100 min).

WARNER ARCHIVE

Of course, Edward G. Robinson is a national treasure. The bulk of his legendary career was well before my time, though, and the first thing I remember seeing him in was Soylent Green, his final film. It was an amazing performance that rendered me to tears, made even more poignant when I later learned he was dying of cancer at the time. Talk about dedication to your craft.

Ever since, I've retroactively enjoyed many films in his lengthy filmography (and still only scratched the surface). Robinson's tough guys were always a little more badass, his villains a little nastier, his weasels a little slimier, his heroes a little more dignified. One could argue he was the Robert DeNiro of his time.

One of his best early roles was tyrannical sea captain Wolf Larsen in The Sea Wolf, arguably his most vicious character who never carried a tommy gun. Larsen commands a crew of outlaws and derelicts aboard the Ghost, a scavenger vessel that sails the Pacific looting seal hunting boats. Most of the crew are forced into service, but George Leach (John Garfield) signs on voluntarily to escape police custody in San Francisco (the only town where the Ghost ever makes port). Later, two shipwreck survivors, fugitive Ruth Webster (Ida Lupino) & writer Humphrey van Wyden (Alexander Knox) are rescued but forbidden to leave the ship.

Mr. Robinson was never much of a joke teller.

Humphrey is shocked at Wolf's level of cruelty and sadism, while Wolf himself is both angered and intrigued by this writer, who seems to know the captain better than he knows himself. Still, Humphrey manages to build a precarious trust with him, particularly with regard to Wolf's migraines, which are slowly rendering him blind. Meanwhile, Leach, tired of Wolf's brutality, leads some of the crew in a planned mutiny.

It's a dark, character-driven tale of megalomania, anchored immeasurably Robinson's powerful performance. The scenes between he and Knox fraught with tension and are, by far, the crux of the entire story. Less effective - and mostly unnecessary - is the budding love between George and Ruth. Garfield is suitably stoic and Lupino is easy on the eyes, but their scenes simply don't have the same urgency.

That's a small quip, though, for the rest of The Sea Wolf is crackling with dramatic intensity. This is an overlooked, underappreciated gem that's a must-own for classic adventure lovers.

EXTRA KIBBLES

SCREEN DIRECTOR'S PLAYHOUSE RADIO BROADCAST

TRAILER

KITTY CONSENSUS:

MEE-OW! AN UNDERRATED CLASSIC

THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971): The Best from Sci-Fi’s True Golden Age

Starring Arthur Hill, James Olson, David Wayne, Kate Reid, Paula Kelly, George Mitchell, Ramon Bieri, Carl Reindel. Directed by Robert Wise. (1971/131 min).

ON BLU-RAY FROM ARROW VIDEO

Review by Mr. Paws😸

In this writer’s opinion, the golden age of cinematic science-fiction was the decade between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars. This was the genre at its darkest. Distressing dystopias, cantankerous technology, apocalyptic annihilation...civilization was collectively screwed. And more often than not, these dire consequences were largely our fault.

Growing up on these movies, I found them both terrifying and fascinating. But I drew some comfort in the knowledge that it was merely science-fiction. Surely, none of these horrors could ever come to pass. Right? Right?

1971’s The Andromeda Strain is not only the best science-fiction film from this era, what makes it unnerving even today is that, despite its extraterrestrial threat, everything seems totally plausible. A satellite crashes in a small desert town, carrying a lethal microscopic organism that swiftly kills everyone, save for an old man and a baby who are seemingly immune to its effects. They are taken to an underground facility, code-named Wildfire, where a small team of scientific experts attempt to identify what they think might be some kind of virus.

"It could use a few throw pillows."

Much of the film takes place in Wildfire, depicting the methodical, painstaking process. The implications are dire. The germ – given the name, Andromeda – is not-only instantly lethal, it’s growing exponentially. What makes the scenario especially ominous is that the crew assembled are the best in their fields, and even they are mostly dumbfounded since Andromeda's existence is contrary to any known organism. Even worse are the simple "shit-happens" moments, when everything is nearly undone by human error or faulty machinery. We've all been there and its scary to realize it can even happen when stakes are at their highest.

Based on an early Michael Crichton novel, The Andromeda Strain is masterpiece of controlled tension. Aided considerably by impressively antiseptic production design – namely, the Wildfire facility – director Robert Wise wisely eschews melodramatics, a traditional music score and any real characterization in favor of the authenticity of its concept. Everything we see and hear is believable, including Andromeda itself. It’s a scary-ass bug to begin with, but the more were learn about it, the more malevolent it becomes.

The arcade's toughest claw machine.

The Andromeda Strain is also proof that G-rated movies could be pretty hardcore back in the fun-loving 70s, exposing impressionable youth to nudity, buzzard-chewed bodies, lab animals’ agonizing death-throes and a corpse’s wrist being surgically slit-open. So either the MPAA thinks today’s children are a bunch of pampered pussies or the organization never knew what the fuck they were doing in the first place. Probably a bit of both.

Despite its age, length and complete lack of traditional action, The Andromeda Strain remains an exemplary example of golden-age science-fiction. Perhaps the best example, since death-from-within is still a real apocalyptic possibility, making its concept more contemporary than wondering what Soylent Green is made of. It has been released on Blu-ray before, but this version from Arrow Films gives it a considerable facelift with a nice 4K scan restoration, remastered audio and a few nifty new extras to go along with some substantial vintage features. An all-around great release and highly recommended for anyone who loves smart, plausible science-fiction.

EXTRA KIBBLES

NEW: “A NEW STRAIN OF SCIENCE FICTION” - Running 30 minutes, critic Kim Newman discusses the film and its place in the history of the virus-related science fiction.

NEW: SUPPLEMENTARY BOOKLET – Includes an essay, “Secret Spine-Chiller: The Other Side of Robert Wise,” by author Peter Tonguette; “A Discussion Guide for Teachers and Students,” a promotional study guide that was sent to high schools back in 1971; Cast & Crew Credits; Restoration Credits.

NEW: REVERSIBLE COVER ART – Includes all-new and vintage artwork. We think the new cover is pretty damn cool.

NEW: CINESCRIPT – The entire shooting script, which can also by accessed as a PDF.

NEW: IMAGE GALLERY – With photos and promotional artwork.

"THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN: MAKING THE FILM” - A 30 minute making-of featurette from the 2001 DVD release. Features director Robert Wise, screenwriter Nelson Gidding, author Michael Crichton and special effects creator Douglas Trumbull.

"A PORTRAIT OF MICHAEL CRICHTON” - Interview with the author from 2001.

AUDIO COMMENTARY – By Bryan Reesman

TRAILER, TV & RADIO SPOTS

KITTY CONSENSUS:

MEE-OW! LIKE TAUNTING A MOUSE TO DEATH

20 Random Facts You May Not Know About Movies You Know

1. Over 7,000 rounds are fired during the climax of Scarface.

2. Saw VI, part of the franchise most associated with the “torture porn” subgenre, was distributed in Argentina by Walt Disney Studios.

3. The “dog” in John Carpenter’s The Thing also played the title animal in the 1991 version of White Fang.

4. The film with the highest all-time onscreen body count is The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (836).

5. Only six actual alien costumes were made for James Cameron’s sequel, Aliens, which is why you never see more than a half-dozen on the screen at any time.

6. Francis Ford Coppola agreed to write and direct The Godfather Part III mostly because he needed the money.

7. One of the transvestite performers during the “vaudeville” scene in Escape from New York is Roger Bumpass, better known to the world as the voice of Squidward in Spongebob Squarepants.

8. Despite their reputations as box office flops, both Waterworld and Godzilla (1998) actually made money for their studios.

9. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins were the two catalysts for the MPAA’s decision to add a new rating to their existing system. 1984’s Red Dawn was the first film to be officially designated PG-13.

10. The Black Hole was Walt Disney Studios’ first live-action PG rated film. The Black Cauldron was their first animated PG rated film. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was their first PG-13 rated film. All three films have the word ‘black’ in the title.

11. Technically speaking, Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X have the highest body counts of all the films in the franchise, both with 23.

12. The word ‘zombie’ is never mentioned in Night of the Living Dead.

13. Even though O Brother, Where Art Thou? is loosely based on Homer’s The Odyssey, neither of the Coen Brothers ever actually read it.

14. During the making of Soylent Green, Charlton Heston was the only member of the crew who knew co-star and old friend Edward G. Robinson was dying of cancer. The emotions Heston displayed during Robinson’s character’s voluntary suicide scene were genuine. Robinson died 12 days after filming his scenes.

15. The Exorcist is the only horror movie ever to be nominated for an Oscar in the Best Picture category.

16. Kurt Russell auditioned for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars.

17. Jaws was the first movie to gross over $100,000,000 during its initial theatrical run. Taking inflation into account, it is still the seventh biggest film of all time.

18. In France, Jaws is known as The Teeth from the Sea.

19. The producers of Dirty Harry originally wanted Frank Sinatra for the role.

20. Die Hard with a Vengeance was originally conceived as a Lethal Weapon sequel.

2012 and the Problem with Expiration Dates

Starring John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson. Directed by Roland Emmerich. 2009, 158 min).

Today is December 21, 2012. The end of days according to the Mayan calendar. Of course, we're still here. No solar flare erupted to heat up Earth's core; no cataclysmic tidal waves; no super-volcanic eruptions. I haven't watched the news yet today, but I'm pretty certain L.A.didn't slide into the sea either.

I'm glad we're all still here, mainly because season three of The Walking Dead isn't over yet. On the down side, though, it looks like I'll have to retract the letter of resignation I submitted to my boss, which may not be easy since it consisted of only two words: suck and it.

Despite the plethora of doomsday documentaries popping up on the History Channel over the past few weeks (maybe it should be called the We're History Channel), I don't think too many folks spent sleepless nights worried about 12/21/12. If that were true, most of us would have spent yesterday crapping ourselves on an hourly basis. Doomsday years have come and gone over the centuries, and I'm looking forward to the next predicted one. Personally, I'm putting my money of 2036, when there's a giant asteroid out there which has the remote possibility of hitting us (really, look it up). We love watching ourselves die as a species, and director Roland Emmerich has made a decent living showing us our possible extinction.

But as entertainment, the end of the world is always fun.  My personal favorite of his is The Day After Tomorrow, which may play fast and loose with science, but comes across as at-least being plausible.

But that was just a warm-up for 2012, arguably the mother of all disaster movies. It's spectacular depiction of our global demise reaches orgasmic levels every fifteen minutes or so, making Armageddon look like a Saturday night, SyFy channel cheesefest. It's also the funniest disaster movie since Twilight. Only a movie like this would have a limo driver/failed author (John Cusack) repeatedly out-run volcanic eruptions, catastrophic quakes and save his family to safety by steering a sports car from the rear of a crashing plane. Only a movie like this would have us believe entire continents could shift halfway around the world in just a few short days. Only a movie like this would let Woody Harrelson steal the entire movie right out from under everyone else's noses.

Its title and timing couldn't have been more perfect. Playing off the hype and speculation surrounding the Mayan calendar (which was becoming part of the public consciousness back in 2009), 2012 was ingeniously marketed, even though the title really has nothing to do with the story at all. The movie could have taken place during any year. It is obvious 2012 was intended to be relevant back when its title date was still the possible future.

One of the few positives of the impending apocalypse.

The problem is time always marches on, and this ominously-titled epic has passed its expiration date. This possible future is now our past. I understand why the makers of 2012 did what they did, but at the same time, part of me wonders why they gave it such a short expiration date. Maybe they knew their movie was nothing more than easily digestible crap and never created to stand the test of time. And that's fine, I guess, but it has me wondering why any filmmaker feels the need to set their speculative sci-fi during a specific year.

For example, when Stanley Kurick collaborated with Arthur C. Clarke to write 2001: A Space Odyssey, is there any real reason an actual date needed to be incorporated into the story? 2001 came and went and we, as a species, still haven't managed to travel beyond the moon. The movie was based on Clarke’s story, "The Sentinel," a timeless title that, if the film was named as such, newbies watching it wouldn’t think of it as a product of its time. Think about any film depicting a specific year in the future...does knowing the year make it better? And when that future date comes and goes, doesn't it - even a little bit - make said-film sort-of a relic, regardless of how awesome it is?

Alas, there's something just a little bit sad when any future depicted in a film eventually becomes the distant past. It makes me ominously aware of just how fast time really passes. The urban hellhole of Escape from New York was set in the distant future of 1997...sixteen years ago. Hell, I still fondly remember seeing it in 1981 like it was yesterday. On a related note...still more expiration dates of modern classics are fast approaching, such as Soylent Green (2022), Back to the Future II (2015) and Blade Runner (2019).

So, considering the whole Mayan calendar angle has nothing to do with the events in 2012, I’m still surprised the filmmakers would place an early expiration date on a film which must have cost more cash than every disaster movie ever made. Why not let the future be more ambiguous? Why not make sure your movie seems timely and relevant several years later?

As it stands, 2012 is still fun, still as unintentionally funny as ever. But as of now, on 12/21/12, the movie is now part of our collective past. From today on forward, anyone seeing it for the first time will look at it the way I first watched movies like Forbidden Planet, which showed mankind first-venturing into space “in the later half of the 21st Century.”

THE LONGEST YARD (1974) and the Mistaken Message

THE LONGEST YARD (1974)

Starring Burt Reynolds, Eddie Albert, Ed Lauter, Michael Conrad, James Hampton, Mike Henry, Bernadette Peters, Richard Kiel, Joe Kapp, Ray Nitschke. Directed by Robert Aldrich. (121 min)

Essay by D.M. ANDERSON💀

The older I get, the more simplified my wardrobe becomes. Aside from a single suit & tie reserved for weddings and funerals, my closet consists almost exclusively of jeans, shorts, sneakers and t-shirts. Too old and too married to concern myself with being aesthetically appealing to others anymore, the look suits my complex life of working and watching TV (with the occasional road trip to Starbucks).

Taking a cue from Einstein via Seth Brundle, my jeans are all blue, my socks all white, my sneakers all Nikes. Not expending a lot of thought over my daily attire is kind-of liberating. If you’re ever fortunate enough to be in the personal & professional position to purge the pressed pants, Oxfords and button-down collars, I highly recommend it. 

As for anyone who feels I should still take pride in my appearance for the sake of my loving wife...let me assure you that after 31 years of marriage, she’s far more aroused when her man engages in rigorous yardwork and assembling IKEA furniture than preening around the house like a GQ model. Besides, I still dress up - or down - in the one room it matters most (which reminds me...I need to get my Indiana Jones costume in the wash before date-night this weekend).

But despite my scaled-back attire, I do take discriminate pride in my t-shirt selection. Not how they fit - like jet-ski tarps - but what’s printed on the front, since novelty shirts say a lot about the people wearing them. For example, a Cleveland Browns t-shirt demonstrates masochistic tendencies, a Hooters logo tells the world you have trouble getting laid and  someone wearing a “Make America Great Again” shirt would struggle with the words you’re reading right now.

All my shirts are movie related, and not the mass-printed Star Wars or Marvel ones you can snag at Target on any given day. Most are blasts from the past, a lot of them featuring titles, artwork and/or tag lines from films of the 1970s. Since that decade is ancient history, I end up finding most of this shit on Amazon, eBay or some website that specializes in playing the nostalgia card to drain your wallet.

One of my favorites is a replica of the Mean Machine jersey from The Longest Yard. Not only is it one of Burt Reynolds’ few genuine classics, it continues to battle Slap Shot for the top spot on my list of the greatest sports movies of all time.

Your humble author, the fashion plate.

Reynolds plays Paul “Wrecking” Crewe, a burnt-out ex-quarterback who steals his girlfriend’s car and leads the police on a high-speed chase, resulting in an 18 month prison sentence. He isn’t initially held in high regard by the other cons, mainly because he was once accused of “shaving points” in a game. As fellow inmate “Caretaker” (James Hampton) sums-up early on, “You could've robbed banks, sold dope or stole your grandmother’s pension checks and none of us woulda minded. But shaving points off a football game, man, that’s un-American.”

Crewe just wants to do his time and get out, but Warden Hazen (Eddie Albert), has other ideas. He has a semi-pro football team consisting of his thuggish prison guards and wants Crewe to quarterback a team of inmates against them in an exhibition game. Since Hazen more-or-less has him over a barrel (threatening to extend his sentence for attacking a guard), Crewe reluctantly agrees. Hazan sees the game as a demonstration of his power, while Crewe just wants to survive the game. However, he manages to build a team of enthusiastic players by promising the opportunity to get back at the guards.

Most of the middle act has Crewe putting the team together, an amusing assortment of brutes, psychopaths, murderers and misfits, while Caretaker uses his acquisition skills to get game films, guards’ x-rays and anything else that might give them an advantage. He also manages to steal the guards’ new helmets & uniforms for their own use (the aforementioned Mean Machine jerseys).

By this time, our allegiance is clearly with Crewe’s cons and the climactic game is brutal, crude, funny & suspenseful, enhanced by virtuoso direction from criminally under-appreciated Robert Aldrich (whose frequent use of split-screen is utilized to great effect). A superlative example of the triumph-of-the-underdog formula that found its way into nearly every sports-related film since, The Longest Yard is a textbook definition of the “audience picture.” And despite a prologue that simply reeks of the decade from which it sprang, the film holds up as well today as it did back in 1974, meaning it sure-as-fuck didn’t need to be remade...twice.

Burt enjoys it whenever Eddie touches his balls.

One of the things I like about my classic movie shirts is they aren’t always immediately recognized as such. So wherever I bump into a fellow fan who acknowledges my Rollerball, Towering Inferno or Soylent Green fashion choices, I feel like I’ve met a kindred spirit. Most of those folks are also my age, if not older. But I learned the hard way that many younger people actually are familiar with The Longest Yard...just not the one I grew up with.

Though I teach middle school in the real world, my professional attire is identical to what I throw on during weekends, meaning I wear movie t-shirts and shorts to work. Most of them are unfamiliar to the kids, though a few have been conversation starters. Sometimes I wear specific shirts on certain days. For example, on the last day of school, it’s my Apocalypse Now-themed shirt with “This is The End” printed beneath a swarm of choppers, while on Halloween it’s...well, you get the idea. And since football’s my favorite sport, I wear my Mean Machine shirt during the first week of the NFL season. Most kids don’t get the connection, though it turns out more-than-a-few identify Mean Machine with the god-awful, teen-friendly remake of The Longest Yard starring Adam Sandler and a truckload of his frat buddies.

Though many are rather pointless and inferior, I’m not blindly opposed to remakes and there have been some great ones that, in my humble opinion, manage to top the originals. William Friedkin’s Sorcerer, John Carpenter’s The Thing and both chapters of Stephen King’s It are a few which immediately come-to-mind. But not-only has The Longest Yard been liberally ripped-off for decades, an early stab at the same story (Britain’s soccer-themed Mean Machine) already demonstrated the futility of trying to remake it. 

Frequently mistaken by young people - mostly boys - for someone who’s actually funny, Sandler has the Midas touch of turning everything into pre-digested pus (a few decent stabs at drama notwithstanding). I know I’m in the minority on this, but ever since his Saturday Night Live days, I’ve never been able to escape the notion that Adam Sandler’s biggest fan is Adam Sandler, perpetually looking like he’s on the verge of laughing at his own jokes. The infantile man-boy schtick that endears him to millions has got to be the most irritating onscreen persona since the glory days of Jerry Lewis. Sandler’s unique skill of dumbing things down for the mouth-breathers in the audience is especially glaring in his remakes - which include Just Go with It and Mr. Deeds - because we have bonafide classics to compare them to.

"You think I'm funny...don't you?"

While those students I mentioned do indeed love Sandler’s film (and its dumbass hip-hop soundtrack), the notion that they'd assume we share the same shitty taste in comedy is horrifying. I’m quick to inform them my shirt refers to the original 1974 movie with Burt Reynolds, followed by my usual rant about Sandler's version being dumb and pointless. Each time, their blank stares say it all: OK, boomer. 

But hey, they’re kids and nothing existed before they were born, so of course they’re unaware of the original and have no idea who Burt Reynolds was beyond playing the old guy in the remake (assuming Michael Conrad’s role of Nate Scarboro). However, even a lot of adults in my life have assumed the shirt means I love the Sandler movie. I’m quick to correct them, too, because as a movie purist and part-time boomer, I’d rather be a suspected serial killer than a suspected Sandler fan, especially regarding one of the greatest sports movies ever made.

While I don’t begrudge others’ personal tastes, it does sadden me that the 1974 classic is not the first film that comes-to-mind when the title is mentioned. Google The Longest Yard right now and links to the fucking remake show-up before anything else. But I still love my Mean Machine shirt and will continue to wear it regularly, correcting those who mistake the message, one maladjusted millennial at a time.

BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II: Where the Hell is My Hoverboard?

Starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Thomas F. Wilson, Lea Thompson, Elisabeth Shue. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. (1989, 108 min).

As of this writing, it is the first day of 2015. When I was a little kid, this date wasn’t just the future, but the distant future, the sci-fi future, when we would all be buzzing through the sky in flying cars, have robot servants and fight our battles with laser guns. Men would wear bell-bottom jumpsuits, while their women strutted around in silver lipstick, go-go boots and mini-skirts. We’d have ventured far into space, colonized other worlds and met-or-fought alien races.

When Hollywood eventually decided the distant future would actually really suck, we got an overpopulated world where we were forced to eat crackers made from people, kill everyone on their 30th birthday and send folks to prison for having more than single child. We’ve turned New York into a maximum security prison, declared independent thought illegal and nuked ourselves into oblivion (hundreds of times). We’ve murdered each other for the gasoline in our vehicles and died by the millions after our own machines have turned against us.

Hollywood didn’t always inform us exactly when all this shit would go down, but sometimes we were told. By that reckoning, it’s now been 14 years since we ventured out to Jupiter to figure out what the hell a black slab floating around in space was trying to tell us, 18 years since Snake Plissken escaped New York, 19 years since Khan Noonien Singh ruled over a quarter of the world and 24 years since apes revolted to overthrow the human race. More ominously, it’s only four years before rogue replicants run rampant through L.A. (Blade Runner) and seven years before Grandpa becomes part of our nutritious breakfast (Soylent Green), at which time we are also permitted unleash our aggression during the annual Purge.

Obviously, none of these past-future events have occurred, nor are they likely to. We’re nowhere near creating android likenesses of ourselves; the closest we’ve come is a robot vacuum cleaner that still can’t get into those cracks and crevices where dust bunnies dwell. We haven’t ventured past the moon (not because we can’t, but because we’ve got no economic reason to). And though our population has hit the seven-billion mark, we aren’t-yet ready to dine on each other.

Like every other year of this fairly new century, 2015 is not shaping-up to become the dystopia we once feared (though I wouldn’t put that to a vote). At the same time, it’s also not the 2015 depicted in Back to the Future Part II, released 25 years ago when today was still relatively distant. No flying cars, no self-drying clothes, no Nikes equipped with power laces, no Jaws 19 and, most distressingly, no hoverboards.

Cool, huh? Now imagine your grandpa behind
the wheel.

Granted, Back to the Future Part II’s vision of the future makes no pretense of accuracy or logic. It’s more of a parody of what 1950’s Hollywood once assumed the future would look like (with some sharp jabs at then-current 1980’s pop culture thrown in for good measure). Hence, the presence of flying cars, arguably the most iconic image virtually everyone envisions of the sci-fi future (mostly thanks to movies). On the other hand, the film did accurately predict wall-sized flatscreen televisions with multi-channel capability, video chat systems like Skype and a Major League Baseball team in Florida. But most importantly, Back to the Future Part II is one of the few films since 1968 to depict the future as a pretty awesome place.

Still waiting on the damn hoverboards, though.

But regarding those flying cars, I’m torn between wishing I had one right-the-hell-now and praying they never become a reality.

Personally, I’d love nothing more than to jump into my “hover converted” Durango and leap to work in a matter of minutes, or cut that annual three-hour Thanksgiving trip to my mother-in-law’s house to a fraction of the time.

However, such technology would only be ideal if it were available exclusively to me. Not to sound arrogant or anything, but I have a pretty decent self-assessment of my own driving capabilities, and the thought of sharing the sky with the rest of the free world scares me shitless.

Anyone who’s ever spent a considerable amount of time in the driver’s seat can surely attest to the fact there’s an enormous percentage of the population who have absolutely no business getting behind the wheel as it is (you know, the geniuses trying to text, eat and drive at the same time). Do we really want these dinkfuckers flying over our heads, where their idiocy would likely result in, not only countless deaths from mid-air collisions, but endangering everyone on the ground due to the fiery debris raining back to Earth? Simply put, allowing every mouth-breathing booger-eater who passed a driving test carte blanche to fly the friendly skies is a bad fucking idea.

Then again, maybe I’m not quite thinking this scenario through to its logical conclusion. Perhaps a world where flying cars are commonplace would ultimately be a good thing. If, as Hollywood has often foretold, overpopulation is a possible threat to our foreseeable future, then it stands to reason rendering everyone airborne would cull the herd considerably. Sure, many drivers whose heads aren’t permanently lodged in their asses might pay the ultimate price, as would those on the ground unable to dodge the constant daily barrage of flaming auto parts dropping from the sky. But this decrease in the population would mean there’d always be plenty of food for the rest of us, so we’d never be forced to convert the dead into tiny green Triscuits in order to feed everybody.

Now that I’ve thought this through, bring on the flying cars! Then feel free to text, talk and scarf-down that morning danish while you steer with your knees during your morning commute 500 feet in the air. By doing so, you’re inadvertently saving us from a dystopian hell Hollywood has been warning us about for decades.

Or, at the very least, let us have one of those hoverboards. We’ve made it to 2015 without blowing each other up. Surely us future-dwellers deserve at least one perk.

The mini-skirts and go-go boots would be pretty cool too.