Predator - A Raving Classic

People have had an odd fascination with Arnold Schwarzenegger ever since he showed up in Hollywood more than thirty years ago. We also have an obsession with Aliens - on top of that, most people love Reggae music. Add these three ingredients together and you'll get today's Raving Classic film - Predator. In 1987, we were treated to what is likely Arnold's best movie ever - a movie that asked the question - what if Aliens hunted humans the way hillbillies stalk deer? Well, maybe this Alien wasn't a hick on his world but then again maybe he was - he had a strange sense of humor and liked to collect trophies.

The main theme from Predator

Predator is one of those movies you can watch again and again and it still grips you. The storyline is fairly thin because this is a macho-action type plot. Everybody in the movie is macho, including the Alien. Even the one female lead, Elpidia Carrillo (as the sexy Sandinista), is pretty tough. The special effects were unique and memorable and the "creature design" - well, it was out of this world.

Kiss me baby !

Now if you want to watch this movie expecting some great acting - forget it. When Arnold does talk he's barely intelligible (perhaps a bit clearer than Stallone though) but then again he's there for the muscle-power and not a lot of introspective monologues. Arnold is always good in movies where you can reasonably affirm that he looks the part - like in Conan (not the talk show) and the Terminator and in this film. Arnold is a walking comic book character leading man - and he was doing that way before the comic book craze took over Hollywood. But he does it so well...

The original trailer for Predator, circa 1987

Here's a list of the rest of the things we like about the movie:

1. The premise was pretty cool.
2. The Dredlock Rastaman monster alien was exceptionally cool.
3. The jungle setting made it seem more plausible (in contrast to some of the silly sequels) 
4. The  Predator versus mercenary battle scenes were great as was the attack on the rebel camp. The personal battle between Arnold and the Predator good ole boy was awesome.
5. The humans won - at least until the next movie. 
6. The movie score was excellent - it added a lot of tension to an already suspenseful, well-paced plot. 
7. Oh, and we liked the shoulder-mounted laser. 

Believe it or not, this was state of the art in 1987

Here's some of our favorite quotes from the movie:

1. Bunch of slack-jawed faggots around here. This stuff will make you a god damned sexual Tyrannosaurus, just like me. (from Jesse Ventura early in the film)
2. This place makes Cambodia look like Kansas... you lose it out here and you're in a world of hurt. (another Jesse quote - all the more interesting given he was a real Navy Seal during the Vietnam war).
3. There's something out there waiting for us, and it ain't no man. We're all gonna die. (Billy / Sonny Landham)
4. If it bleeds, we can kill it. (Arnold)
5. We find them sometimes without their skin. Sometimes...much, much worse. Cazador de trofoes...means the demon who makes trophies of men. (Elpidia Carrillo)

The (entire) Making of Predator

Predator is not a profound movie-going experience but it is a visceral one. It isn't exactly scary but it does get your adrenaline pumping and pulls you inside the story. It's a movie-going experience that translates well to the TV screen as well (big screens are better of course).

Movie Reference	Ratings & Reviews	How to Watch
Predator on Wikipedia	Rotten Tomatoes	From Netflix
Predator on IMDB	Roger Ebert's Review	From Amazon.com

Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved

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A Tribute to Kurt Cobain

Well, it's not the anniversary of his tragic death or his birthday, but even still we decided today to pay tribute today to one of the most important influences on popular culture in the late 20th century. Cobain's band Nirvana, along with Soundgarden and Alice in Chains exploded onto the music scene during the early 90's - together the Seattle sound that they had collectively developed was referred to as Grunge.

This is "Grunge"

This all happened very quickly - Nirvana released their first album in 1989 and the second album made them international superstars by 1991. On April 5th, 1994 Kurt Cobain died. Essentially, Cobain had helped to pioneer a new genre of rock and create an enormous portfolio of innovative music in just a four year period.

Nirvana's take on the David Bowie classic

I was looking for something a lot heavier, yet melodic at the same time. Something different from heavy metal, a different attitude. - Kurt Cobain 

Kurt Cobain, troubled genuis

One of the earliest memories of one of contributors to this blog was the rock traumas of 1970 - these were remembered collectively as they were seen through the eyes of our elders at the time. Janis Joplin, Jim Morris, Jimi Hendrix - all dead in the same year. And then to top it off, the Beatles split up. These superstars of rock defined that generation and when they passed into history people recognized the significance immediately. 

Unfortunately he did have a gun...

Sad to say we didn't originally note the passing of Kurt Cobain the same way - he was a contemporary of ours but was introducing a form of music that we weren't too familiar with and hadn't adopted yet (that took a number of more years to fully appreciate). We didn't know too much about him beyond having seen him on Saturday Night Live. On top of that, things were busy then and the only music we listened to was on the radio going back and forth between places - this was mostly pre-Internet times (yes, they did exist).

Nirvana on SNL

So what made Curt Cobain and Nirvana so special? Well, there's always the 'star as martyr' or James Dean syndrome, but the difference here is that while James Dean only starred in three movies before entering pop immortality, Cobain created several dozen songs and redefined alternative music for the next twenty years.

As the years passed after his death, we began to listen to more and more of what Nirvana had produced over that incredibly short span of time. And because of that we began listening to Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam and together it seemed to us that this music more than anything else began to define the 1990's. Why it did is harder to explain - it's not just because that was the music which we heard playing at the time - it was because there seemed to be certain air of cynicism and depression associated with the 90's - and Grunge captured that sentiment. Why the 90's became an age of uncertainty could be attributed to the fact that the decade began with a Recession and a War - the first major American war since Vietnam. Or maybe there was a general sense of pessimism as the juggernaut of Globalism became the driving force in both the domestic and the global economy. The 1990's saw the partial retirement of the doomsday clock but introduced us to an even worse threat - Global Warming.

In the middle of this were a handful of seemingly awkward, troubled musicians who reintroduced rebellion and rejection of the status quo. Their's wasn't a happy message - but it seemed to be a true one. Yet their ability to channel that negativity lead to some of the brightest Grunge stars dying in self-destructive fits of misdirected rage. It reminds us a bit of 1970.

"I bought a gun and chose drugs instead."  Kurt Cobain 

One can only imagine how much music Kurt Cobain could have made if he had been given 20 years instead of 4 to express himself...

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