OGWiseman Live-Blogs!
Filling out my knowledge of Sci Fi Cinema History--John Carpenter's "THEY LIVE"
So one of the things I like to do for this newsletter is watch highly-rated sci fi movies that I’ve never seen before, basically just working backwards from a few different online lists. Mostly I’ve seen everything of course, but there are gems I’ve missed.
And it sort of turns out that one of the main things I’ve missed is the oeuvre of John Carpenter. He’s most famous for “Halloween”, of course, which I’ve seen, and I loved “Escape from New York” and “Escape from LA” when I was a kid. But he had a whole run of weird, underrated cult classics in the ‘70s and ‘80s that I just completely missed.
All to say, my last live-blog was Carpenter’s “The Thing”, and now I’m doing “They Live”, and I admit it is more fun to live-blog a piece of ‘80s camp than like an Andrei Tarkovsky arthouse movie that’s a very specific allegory about life in Soviet Russia. (Which was my other candidate this time out.) BUT, I’m eventually going to blog movies by other directors.
That said, let’s watch this weird movie!
9:23 PM - So just perusing the IMDB for this movie during the opening credits, I note that it stars Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David. Yes, these two dudes:
(Yes, the professional wrestler in the kilt. The ‘80s were weird, man.)
(You may know Keith David from every movie and TV Show ever made; the man has way over 300 acting credits on IMDB. He was a regular on the final season of the NBC Sitcom “Community” and also starred as “Big Tim”, the pimp who turns out Jennifer Connelly in “Requiem For A Dream”. The man has range.)
This just makes sense, doesn’t it? A classically trained, Tony-and-Emmy-nominated, highly respected character actor at the height of his powers paired with the WWF-star who invented “The Sleeper Hold”. There’s no way this couldn’t be awesome.
9:26 - So this movie is about these two stars uncovering the fact that the rich and powerful in society are actually aliens that control all our minds, and every blurb I’ve read makes specific reference to the “Special Sunglasses” they use to uncover this secret. That is the most ‘80s plot device I’ve ever heard of, and I absolutely *cannot wait* to see them and learn more. (And by more, I mean “absolutely everything about them, I’m obsessed now”.)
(Live footage of me getting excited for the special glasses.)
9:29 - Hitting play. First thing I see is the classic “Piracy is not a victimless crime” warning against stealing, an instant anachronism in the streaming era. I don’t know exactly when Hollywood gave up on that. Also funny to put that label on this movie, since it’s about the importance of striking down the alien overlords who control our every action through written subliminal messaging. It’s not ironic, but it’s something.
9:31 - Opening shot is a graffitied wall. Cut the harmonica music with the dirty, metallic baseline. God the ‘80s were awesome.
9:40 - (Note that this movie is 98 minutes long but it might take me four hours to watch it because I’m on baby duty because my rock star of a wife needs to sleep at some point. So imagine my trying to soothe a cluster-feeding infant while I watch this kitsch and write these words to you between crying jags. (His, not mine.))
(Me trying to get Jack to shut up so I can write my newsletter.)
9:43 - One thing I love about John Carpenter is how literal he is. Rowdy Roddy arrives in LA with a flannel shirt, a sleeping roll, and a large backpack. He goes to get a job and there is a large poster in the background that says “JOB OPPORTUNITIES”. He walks through a park and a street preacher is wailing about how everybody is aliens, and the preacher is wearing a clerical collar like a Catholic Priest, so we know he’s a preacher and aren’t confused by his preaching, even though Catholic priests are not known for their street corner sermons.
9:53 - We’re seven minutes into the movie, the dirty baseline has not waned for a single instant, and Rowdy Roddy has his flannel off, swinging a pickaxe. I’m worried about his acting given that he’s had two lines and has done about seventeen meaningful looks where they’re pretty obviously not wanting him to talk, but if biceps were Oscars, he’d have two huge ones. Unless I miss my guess, he’s about to meet the most versatile black man in Hollywood, Mr Keith David himself.
(This is an alternate poster not a screenshot, but those biceps are to scale. Rowdy Roddy didn’t have time for acting school ‘cause he was at the gym.)
9:54 - Oh yeah, there he is, gazing at the shirtless Roddy through erect rods of steel rebar. Man there’s serious testosterone in this movie.
9:55 - One cool aspect of the script though genuinely is that Rowdy Roddy is homeless and still is about to be the hero. Not the sort of thing you see that much these days, despite all the talk of representation. Like nowadays I think that character would be played as a loser, but Rowdy Roddy literally says “I believe in America, everybody’s got hard times”, and Keith David nods sagely, and they don’t undercut it with some snarky line that winks at the audience like “Of course *we* all know it’s bullshit…” Now that would code as conservative propaganda. A very different time in America.
10:00 - Keith David has taken him to a sort of homeless encampment/hippie commune that does not remind me at all of the places I saw in eight years of riding my bicycle around Los Angeles. Also, Rowdy Roddy has an *awesome* leather jacket and good boots and feathered hair, but also he’s homeless? I dunno.
(That hovel is now listed on Redfin at $1.2 million dollars. Housing prices, amirite?!)
10:05 - We’re now fifteen minutes in and still sort of at the homeless encampment following random characters who do most of the talking while Rowdy Roddy looks strong next to them. I want to see the Special Sunglasses already!!
10:08 - Rowdy Roddy wanders into the back of a church and sort of stumbles on three guys having a weird conversation about “breaking into their signal” and “finding strong people who can work with us”, which, like, that’s basically a complete description of Rowdy Roddy’s character so far, which is convenient. I’m not sure who these guys are of how they relate though. There’s an old blind man too. So far this is now what you’d call “tightly scripted”.
10:11 - Rowdy Roddy is now spying on the church with a high-end pair of binoculars (Is that what was in the backpack? I might want extra flannels instead, that seems like a weird thing for a homeless guy to prioritize.) and Keith David comes over to him and does the weirdest stance, and it becomes obvious that he knows what they’re doing. Uh oh!
10:12 - I literally don’t think the bass line has stopped for this entire movie. I just paused and looked it up, and apparently Carpenter is known for scoring his own films, including this one, in this exact very strange style. MAN is it noticeable.
10:14 - Police raid the homeless commune with a bulldozer (Police have bulldozers?) and a helicopter for support. People are running every which way and Rowdy Roddy is just like wandering through them at a slow walk, aimless, with a blank expression on his face. He’s definitely not doing too much as an actor, is the nicest thing I can say.
(“This is my wrasslin’ face. Also how I cry. And it’s my look for when I have to poop. Plus, everything else.)
10:17 - The bassline *finally* stops, 28 minutes into the movie, and we get a section of like dissonant horns and bells and drumrolls. So far, by FAR the most striking thing about this movie is the music.
10:19 - I just realized something funny: The fashionable people in this movie dress very “80s”, but the homeless people in this movie wear hipster clothing that would not be remotely out of place in Los Feliz or Echo Park today.
(Guy in the middle looks like he sells kidnap insurance for coke dealers’ pet tigers, but “homeless guys” Rowdy and Keith could be headed out to catch a show at The Roxy of a Friday evening. This movie has layers.)
10:37 - After a baby break, I hit play again and the dirty bass line is back. It occurs to me that this premise is actually weirdly relevant to today’s political atmosphere and general societal vibe. I wish this movie was better so far because it should make sense.
10:38 - SPECIAL MOTHAFLIPPIN’ SUNGLASSES Y’ALL! Are they super-’80s boxy style, blacked out, you ask? Of *course* they are! He finds a box of them behind a dumpster—that’s literally the whole explanation. Wow. They’re everything I thought they could be. I hope he never takes them off.
(Okay, now he’s not a hipster. Those sunglasses are the apotheosis of 1980’s high culture. Special doesn’t begin to describe them!)
10:41 - Again, John Carpenter’s literalness: When he’s wearing the sunglasses, all the billboards and magazines and everything just say things like “OBEY” and “CONSUME” and these subliminal messages, and the money says “THIS IS YOUR GOD”. No room for confusion there!
(I mean… yeah. It’s never once made clear in this movie where the aliens came from, what they’re doing here, or why, but this part is undeniably cool and weird, and I guess at a certain point in movie history, that was enough.)
10:42 - I just looked it up and apparently the Shepherd Fairy “OBEY” street art campaign was inspired directly by this movie. (I noticed because the font was exactly the same.) What a strange crossover event!
(The Shepherd Fairey sticker in question. You’ve heard the name because he also did the famous Obama “HOPE” poster that went viral, but this was his thing for a long time.)
10:44 - He can also see alien faces now. Not everybody but a bunch of the people are aliens. The effects are a little cheesy but the idea is clever because he can shoot mostly a guy walking down the street and then do one effects shot of the alien face, not have to pay that much for it, and get a lot of mileage.
10:47 - Okay wow, suddenly Rowdy Roddy kills two cops. Sure, they’re aliens, but still—that would never happen that way today! What a weird plot choice for no good reason.
10:48 - Now he’s got a shotgun in a bank and is mowing people down while saying things like “Momma don’t like tattletales” and “I’m here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubble gum”. Considering how slow this movie started, this is happening incredibly fast.
(“Somebody get this man more bubble gum before something terrible happens!”)
10:51 - We’re at the midpoint and he finally meets a woman in this movie. I think it’s literally the first lines a woman has spoken. Also: Is it just me or do attractive, put-together women in the ‘80s look like men in drag? There’s a weird androgyny to the decade that runs both ways. Is it that they all have feathered hair no matter what?
(I am not trying to be unkind and I have nothing against men in drag, or trans men, or anything like that. But, I mean, right? It just seems presentationally so off, like you don’t have to do her hair makeup like that! It’s a choice!)
10:58 - This movie is still dragging, but there’s one cool scene: Rowdy Roddy goes to the woman’s apartment, and sort of starts to reach out and try to make a connection with her, only the moment he turns his back for one second she pushes him out a third story window and calls the cops. Very against expectations.
10:59 - Kieth David comes back on screen (apparently he’s been working construction this whole time) and it makes me realize—Kieth David is hardly in this movie! That’s such false advertising, I thought this was like a buddy cop movie where the two of them were trying to kill aliens, but so far it’s 90% Rowdy Roddy wandering around Los Angeles.
(“I deserve better than this, as an actor. I’m going to spend the rest of my career making up for this by appearing in literally everything that is ever made.”)
11:03 - So now I think we’re entering a scene 'I’ve been waiting for—a six-minute fight scene between Rowdy Roddy and Keith David over whether Keith David is going to try on the special sunglasses or not. And I shit you not it’s literally like a WWF match, theatrical blows that draw no blood, and one-liners, and Keith David trying to stomp on the glasses while Rowdy Roddy tries to save them and et them on his face. There’s false victories and comebacks from the dead, too. Somebody should have somebody on the ropes!
11:05 - I’m not joking, it’s been going on the entire time I’ve been writing this, with no end in sight. They just picked up a bottle and a 2x4. They just stopped this already-slow movie fix a full six minutes to have the two main characters fight in a parking lot over whether one of them was willing to try on a pair of sunglasses.
11:08 - Keith David finally puts the glasses on, sees all the aliens, and Rowdy Roddy sums up the situation by announcing “Life’s a bitch… she’s back in heat.” What in the actual fuck is happening in this movie?
(Footage of me watching this boring movie stop to Keith David and Roddy Piper can do a WWF fight over a pair of sunglasses.)
11:09 - So Keith David sees a bunch of aliens on the street, and it occurs to me that there’s a LOT of aliens. Like I thought it was the President and the Cabinet or something, but it’s like hundreds of people just in this one neighborhood in LA, which implies millions of aliens worldwide. What is the economy of that? What do they eat? How do they distribute themselves? There are so very many unanswered questions in this story but we are 64 minutes into a 98 minute movie, they haven’t answered any of them, and they’ve hardly killed any aliens yet except those two cops. Woof.
11:15 - So now they’re suddenly like meeting a resistance organization that it’s not even clear how they found? Rowdy Roddy looks confused too, but that’s sort of his signature.
11:21 - I guess it had to happen considering how slow it started, but this movie is quite suddenly turning into Black Hark Down with alien masks. Rowdy Roddy and Keith David have large guns and are battling the cops/aliens in the streets of LA. At least something is finally happening!
(This is one of the only shots of the two “stars” of this movie in the same frame. You can tell how excited Rowdy Roddy is from context, although of course not from his face. The man couldn’t act his way into the ocean if he started out walking a plank.)
11:25 - Rowdy and Keith sort of just saunter into a ballroom where the “Human Power Elite” (who are all aliens) are having a self-congratulatory meeting, and despite the war zone they’ve been creating outside, there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of security. Again—a different time in America!
11:31 - The ending of this is quite standard. They have to break into the office building where the alien signal that changes all the TV programs (and somehow all the magazines and everyone’s vision?) is being broadcast, and destroy it so that people wake up to their alien captivity. This of course only begs questions galore: Why do the technologically advanced aliens (they got here and they’ve been disguising themselves as humand and passing, right?) only have one pirate signal broadcasting? These are the small details that absolutely *make* a story, and you have to get them right or at least close by actually caring about it being mistake free. I would blame this all on cocaine, except this movie is so slow and ponderous it’s more like it was made by people on quaaludes.
(Either the luded-up writers cranking out this turd or me, watching. Take your pick.)
11:38 - In literally the last shot of the movie there’s suddenly a sex scene with random boobs in it. It’s just sort of a punchline for the signal going out and the aliens suddenly becoming visible to everyone. Imagine being that actress and agreeing to do nudity for *that* moment. Do you tell your family and friends?
11:40 - The bass line continues to the very end. That metallic bass sound was easily in 75% of the movie. Credits roll, and I am finally forced to accept that they’re never going to explain a single thing about the aliens in the entire movie. Bizarre.
11:43 - This is just not nearly as good a movie as “The Thing”, the other Carpenter I watched, and that movie wasn’t nearly good enough to be on “Best Sci Fi” lists. “How we choose our heroes and why kinda bad stuff gets remembered as good” is the subject of a longer and more serious essay, and I’ve got to change a diaper and go to bed. I guess what we learned here today is that the ‘80s were weird, everyone was on cocaine, and… that’s pretty much it, there’s not really a third thing.
END
Well, I hope reading that was more entertaining than the movie! Can’t say I really recommend this one, but if there’s one rule of Hollywood, it’s that you gotta make a ton of crap to make a few really good things in the mix. Frustrating but true!
Hope everyone has a great week, and I’ll be back next Sunday with another original story!
very funny, thanks