watching movies one cup at a time

John Carpenter’s attempt at political commentary is pretty ham-fisted. Not going for subtlety, he creates a world where everything is going to hell fast and weird skinless aliens are the cause. And they just happen to be brainwashing all of us through sublimal messages behind everything. Messages like “Obey” “Submit” and “Marry and procreate.” And with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper in the lead role, you know this is going to be more like Die Hard than All The President’s Men. For what it is, it’s not bad. It does provide a way to criticize Ronald Reagan’s Yuppie Utopia of the ’80s and feed into a million conspiracy theories about how this government is controlling us. Aliens? More like the ruling class. I think it’s a little optimistic to pin this on aliens and not the evil nature of men. They don’t need an alien to dupe them into manipulating the masses. But it’s a simple, kinda fun movie. And since we are being manipulated anyway, anyone drawing attention to it is a good thing.