Snark, Critic and Pop!

On the surface, 1989′s “Ghetto Blaster” sounds rather mundane. From the imdb page description:

When Travis, middle-aged, working class man, returns home to visit his parents, he quickly learns that his hood is rife with criminal activity and gang warfare. Quickly, Travis finds himself thrust into a position to defend his family and neighbors from the punks who terrorize them on a daily basis. Good thing he has a military training, enabling the man to become a one-man vigilante unit against the forces of evil in his town.

But watch the trailer, friends, watch the trailer. It’s got hip hop, street kung fu, exploding boom boxes, Battlestar Galactica’s Richard Hatch, and a clown riding a motor cycle. What a world, what a world! (continue reading…)

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The North Koreans are coming! The North Koreans are coming! Wait, what? (continue reading…)

This is what cartoons were like when I was growing up, people:

I will not bore you with the story of how I ended up with a copy of Streets of Fire, but let me assure you I did not pay a dime for it.  Yet, ever inquisitive, without foreknowledge of the plot, never reading the back cover or looking it up on imdb.com I watched it.  The front cover promises me a movie starring Michael Pare (who?), Diane Lane, and Willem Dafoe.  The roughly sketched picture of a dashing guy holding a shotgun as a woman is holding on to him in front of gritty streets that do not appear to be on fire.  I’m bold.  I pop in the DVD and press play.

The first clue I’m in for a rough ride is the text reading: “A Rock ‘n Roll Fable.”  Not a good start.  Then more text: “Another Time . . . Another Place.”  Based on these clues one might expect the Star Wars musical, but that’s not the case.  Turns out we’re in the ‘50s of what I think is supposed to be Chicago or New York or maybe it doesn’t matter.  It is a strange, ‘80s version of the ‘50s.  Curious observation: The ‘50s movies about the ‘80s envisioned everyone riding in jet packs and living on moon colonies; ‘80s movies about the ‘50s portray everyone as an idiot.  But I digress. . . (continue reading…)

It’s the 80s, So Where’s Our Rocket Packs?  Thus asked the band Daniel Amos in one of their songs off their classic 1984 album Vox Humana. 

I’m a sucker for nostalgia, even though as Yogi Berra once said, “Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.”  One of my favorite Mystery Science Theater riffs was during a 1950s sci-fi film, featuring a moon base and a space fleet, it was cited as 1988; the riff was “Oh, this is our old future.”

Similarly, it’s kinda funny to hear a 27 year-old tune lamenting the scientific advances that did not yet happen, which still have not come to pass (“I thought by now we’d live in space/And eat a pill instead of dinner”).  Here the song It’s The 80s, So Where’s Our Rocket Packs is put to music video in the form of the olde time, goofy science fiction films and serials like Commander Cody, that provided the as yet false hope.  Enjoy, won’t you? (continue reading…)