Blast From the Past

Look at this just... awful cover.

"She'd never met anyone like him. He's never met anyone... Period."

Hi everyone, we're rounding out into the back end of the week, and I couldn't be more full of hate. Naturally when I feel this way I feel the need to lash out at those around me, and that includes you, my fine readers. To that end, I thought I'd do something really hateful, which is to expose you to a Brendan Fraser movie, because that's just the worst I can come up with on short notice. I considered George of the Jungle, but in the end I settled on Blast from the Past, because George of the Jungle had that super cool gorilla and Leslie Mann, and that's not nearly as bad as being trapped in a film with ALICIA FUCKING SILVERSTONE. Yeah you heard me right, as in Clueless, or worse yet BATMAN AND ROBIN. Yeah, I'm going there. If you're hoping that the movie's premise will soften the blow well... maybe temper your expectations. Blast from the Past was a film released right on the bleeding edge of the millennium, but still steeped in the mysticism of the 90s. It stars Mr. Fraser as Adam, a 35 year old man who, thanks to his paranoid father (who was convinced like so many that communists would end the world by starting WWIII) has lived his whole life in a self-sustaining fallout shelter. As such, he is incredibly naive, despite being a sort of 1950s style renaissance man. After 35 years on lockdown, Adam's father Calvin (Christopher Walken) ventures into the outside world. He believes he has emerged into a post-apocalyptic warscape, filled with a degenerate brand of barbaric humanity, but actually he is just in a shitty part of Los Angeles, which does admittedly seem like it's trying to get ahead of the apocalyptic curve. Deciding they should stay underground forever, Calvin tries to venture out for supplies, but after suffering chest pains decides that Adam will need to brave the fearsome nightmare that is LA.

Man now I want sushi.

I think it's pretty easy to see where they're going with this. So Adam sets out into the world and predictably gets lost and is surprised to see a "negro" and generally does things that I guess someone thought would be funny. BUT ARE THEY REALLY?! Trying to get to a Holiday Inn or some shit, Adam hitches a ride with Eve (I just can't even... ADAM AND EVE REALLY MOVIE) and pays her with a baseball card he has with him, which is a great deal for her because the card is worth like 4000 dollars or something to that tune. Demonstrating the true extent of his obliviousness, Adam decides that Alicia Silverstone will be a great help to him in his quest for supplies, and so the two set about not just filling Adam's ridiculous long grocery list, but also his quest to find a girl to marry before he goes back into the vault. He says he'd prefer the person not to be a mutant, but I mean, he's in LA so the chances of that aren't great really. This plot travels on a more or less predictable trajectory, involving Adam and Eve getting together by the end of the film. The movie is locked on target like an ICBM starting World War III almost you might say if you were Christopher Walken in this movie.

Look how young they all were!

So for a movie that is sitting at the outer edge of the 1990s, this movie is really very 1990s. In particular, I found the soundtrack to be spectacularly anchored in time. There is a Jesus Jones song. There was a Dishwalla song that WASN'T Counting Blue Cars. Even the retro music that plays in the 1940s styled club they take Adam to was quintessentially 90s, because it was actually the Cherry Poppin' Daddies.  If this doesn't sound like probably the best part of the movie to you, then I'm not sure how you've endured my blog for this long. The cult of people who worship Adam and his family as they rise up from their shelter is also pretty funny. For very weird things, a very young looking Nathan Fillion plays Eve's asshole ex-boyfriend, and gets beat up by Brendan Fraser, which I'm sure will be really hard to stomach for all those Firefly fans out there, but really you're already watching Blast from the Past so you probably are used to things that are hard to stomach by now.

I'd pass up any great advice from her.

As much as I've been bagging on this movie, I actually enjoy it. This is partially because of the aforementioned super 90s soundtrack/everything else, makes a guy a little bit nostalgic. It's also surprisingly amusing for a movie that could be considered very formulaic, and also has as I can't emphasize enough Alicia Silverstone in it (who if you haven't guessed, I don't like a great deal). The screenplay really makes the premise work here, I think that a less well written script could have made this movie a nightmare. We also have Dave Foley who you will recognize if you ever watched Kids in the Hall. Also Adam's mom was the original Carrie, so that's pretty weird to think about I guess. What I honestly find most surprising about this movie is that it wasn't universally panned by critics, it actually enjoys something like a 58% on RT I think, and it managed to win back its 35 million budget and then a little bit, finishing out at around 40 mil. You really need to wonder what they did with 35 million dollars to make this movie though.

That's it for today folks! Join me next week for Breaking Bad: Godzilla Edition.