Thoughts from
San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture

 
You can have my copy of Red Dawn when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers
By Tom Smith

Sasha Volokh is implying that Red Dawn lacks artistic merit, I think, and I won't stand for it. He seems to admit he has not seen it in awhile. Well, I own my own copy and watched it fairly recently thankyouverymuch. I can report it makes a pretty good treadmill movie. How can you beat the scene where the Cuban colonel tells his goons to go to the gun store and get the federal government forms revealing where the gun owners are, who end up in Commie concentration camps of course. We told you so. And how about the scene where the Wolverines execute the rat in their midst who was captured by the commies and made to swallow a radio homing device. That's what I call drama. And when the red soldier actually does pry a handgun from the cold, dead fingers of a dead Murican with just such a bumper sticker on his pickup truck. Chatterbox misses the point. If you are an elite Special Ops guy in your twenties, you have probably watched Red Dawn a hundred times. You would get a kick out of being called Wolverines. Moreover, doesn't anybody here remember 1984? It was the era of Sting singing "I hope the Russians love their children too," and nuclear freeze and we better surrender before its too late. And it turned out to be too late, too, but for a different reason. I guess that theory of history still has a few bugs in it. By the way, the DVD of Red Dawn has some interesting background material on the making of this classic film, the difficulties getting it made and released (imagine that!) and how it became a cult classic. Test your knowledge of the movie: The answer is "Shoot straight for once, you Army pukes."
posted by thomas at 12/16/2003 11:39:00 AM