They Live at the Road House!

A question often* posed to me is, "Elly, just how much awesomeness can one weekend hold?" Well, there was the time I watched Hard Boiled, Where Eagles Dare, The Transporter 2, and Speed Racer all in one such time span, and about nine years ago my first true all-night movie marathon consisted of The Core, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Mystery Men, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, some random episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, both the David Lynch and Sci-Fi Channel versions of Dune, and possibly UHF. That was epic. Caroline, if by some slim chance you've stumbled across this page, I'm pretty unhappy about having lost your contact information and forgotten your last name, so leave a comment, okay? You rock.

This time around, only two films were in play...but they contained so much awesomeness between them that their memories belong beside those mythic weekends remembered above: John Carpenter's classic homage to 50's sci-fi, They Live (1988), and the late great Patrick Swayze's legendary homage to some martial arts style whose name escapes me but which often pops up in Jet Li films, Road House (1989).

They Live stars Saskatoon native (hi folks! Thanks for the comics!) and former wrestling villain 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper as a simple drifter known only as Nada who's hitched across the U.S. from Detroit to L.A. in a Great Depression-style journey to find work. He lands a construction job and sets up camp in a shanty town filled with other transient workers and poor folk, whose food needs are looked after by the church across the street, a church at which strange comings and goings take place in the middle of the night and whose basement looks like a combination drug kitchen/counterfeit sunglasses operation. When the church is violently raided one night by a small army of cops, Nada discovers that the sunglasses are what all the fuss is about, as wearing them makes him feel like he's just ordered a big meal from a drug kitchen. Aliens walk among us! They've taken over and are sucking the life out of Earth! They look like the ghouls from Fallout 3 mated with the villains from Mars Attacks!! And if you're not wearing the special sunglasses, they look just like regular people! Conveniently armed with two pairs of said sunglasses, Nada enlists the help of fellow drifter Frank (Keith David), and together they set out to kick their bubblegum habit once and for all and show those lousy aliens the door. Or the window. Both work.

John Carpenter's films work because he never forgets what they are. He never tries to treat a completely ludicrous premise as anything but, choosing instead to jump in, latch on, and have fun, as demonstrated in films like Big Trouble in Little China and my personal favourite, Escape from New York. This same work ethic can also turn out rock-solid dramas, like his 1984 sci-fi horror classic The Thing, which is of the same quality as the literal mother of them all, Alien. They Live is not a drama, and it looks like Carpenter had lots of fun with that fact. With his brilliant use of black-and-white Sunglasses Vision, a hero who's not the sharpest tool in the box, and such famous lines as "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubblegum" (referenced in legions of movies, shows, and The Dresden Files) and the less-famous line "Brother, life's a bitch - and she's back in heat" (which concludes the longest dirty fight I've ever seen on film, clocking in at nearly six minutes), all topped off with a Hong Kong-style twist and a horrifically funny final shot which now rivals The Lost Boys for my favourite ending to a ridiculous movie, They Live contains almost too much awesomeness for one film to hold. Which is code for, if you think that contrived and melodramatic action films like the ones homaged in Hot Fuzz are in fact deep and serious, you'll probably think that They Live is a stupid failure. And hey, even if you watch it for what it is, you may still think it's a stupid failure. That's okay. You'd just be wrong. ;)

FUN FACT! Keith David worked with John Carpenter prior to They Live, with a chilling and memorable role in The Thing.

MASS EFFECT FUN FACT! Keith David also provided the voice of Captain/Councilor Anderson in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2.

CRAZY COINCIDENCE FUN FACT! Keith David also has a small role in...

Road House (which I keep confusing with From Dusk 'Til Dawn, which takes place in a roadhouse), which aired on TV the day after They Live, is a film my husband taped because it is, and I quote, "mythic". Mythically awful, mythically awesome, take your pick; it certainly deserves its allegedly legendary status. Starring Patrick Swayze as a nice young doctor of philosophy who can't find work philosophizing and is instead famous in bar circles for being one of the best bouncers in the U.S. (I am not making this up), Road House sees Swayze's Dalton accepting a job offer to turn around the reputation of the Double Deuce, an incredibly seedy, sleazy, violent small-town bar which happens to be owned by a nice older man who wants to see the place get cleaned up. Obviously, all problems stem from the fact that the town is owned and controlled by some seedy, sleazy, violent tycoon rancher, which may leave some readers wondering whether or not Dalton will have to save the town and hook up with the tycoon's ex-wife. I think I'll leave you hanging.

If Road House's awesomeness factor and Patrick Swayze factor are not enough to catch your interest, consider also that the Double Deuce's house musician is the late great blues man Jeff Healey (one of Canada's finest contributions to music), and that while he had a decent TV career before co-starring in Road House, this still may be the only time you'll ever see Sam Elliott (Tombstone, The Big Lebowski, Ang Lee's Hulk) with brown hair. He looks dangerous, like he's going to come flying through the window to kick your ass at any moment! It's wild! It's like seeing Ben Kingsley with hair in Searching for Bobby Fischer, except that Ben Kingsley looks much scarier now that he's bald. This is not to say that Sam Elliott cannot look very threatening in his current white-haired state, but rather that Sam Elliott in Road House is a bit of an experience.

NOT SO FUN FACT! There is some brief but lingering martial arts-related grossness in Road House, of the level you'd expect to see in a Steven Seagal film rather than a Patrick Swayze one. Eeeeew. Hail to the 80's.

KIND OF BORING CONCLUSION! A highly entertaining pair of films.

*Never.