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Monday, March 27, 2006
Red Dawn
Watched Red Dawn Saturday night. It was a bit different than I remembered. Lots more crying. Lots more father figures telling son child figures to never cry again. If only that advice had been listened too...
We watched Red Dawn because it is, apparently, a totem of the right. Whether that's true or now, I don't know. Maybe it's something Ben Domenech knew for a fact; maybe it's something he copied from somewhere else; maybe it's something he made up. Whichever it is, Ben himself is no longer available for kicking around.
He now does children's parties.
After enduring the nearly 2 hours of crying and blowing shit up, I am determined to make the following notes.
- According to the opening credits, Nicaragua and Cuba each amass an army of 500,000 men. As of 2005, there were only 1.6 million men between the ages of 15 and 64 in all of Nicaragua. I think it quite suspect that Nicaragua would be able to field such an army. Funny, though, the bogeymen we can create. (IIRC, Iraq had the 3rd largest army in the world in 1991, with 500,000 troops. Just for comparison.)
- Swayze's gang includes 2 other cast members from the Outsiders. C. Thomas Howell and Darren Dalton (the Soc). Swayze's gang hides out near the Arapaho National Forest.
- One of the girls plants a bomb inside a "Soviet-American Friendship Center", then walks away. Doesn't that make her a terrorist?
- For a small town, they sure mowed down a lot of civilians in retribution.
- The Soviets use nuclear missiles to attack the U.S. Their missiles are so accurate that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is largely destroyed. The Soviets attack following severe food shortages and the withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons from Germany. Later, though, Powers Boothe blames the war on the "two toughest kids on the block have to fight eventually" theory. Frankly, Boothe's explanation is more credible.
- All of Europe other than Britain sits out the war. Jerks.
- The bulk of the Soviet army crosses the Bering Strait. That's roughly a 10,000 mile march -- to the Bering Strait. Then another 5,000 miles through Canada to reach the continental United States with a 50 mile swim in between. That's quite a trek.
Still, stuff blows up and Swayze pulls faces like he's constantly having his nipples waxed. Good, family fun. And so deeply implausible that only a select group could rally around the film as a touchstone of modern conservatism.
