"They Live" isn't John Carpenter's best movie, but it is his most socially-conscious. An anonymous drifter named Nada (Roddy Piper) discovers that aliens have invaded Earth. Worse, they've already conquered us because they've foregone the usual "flying saucers blast skyscrapers with lasers" route. No, these aliens walk among us, disguised as ordinary humans, while feeding us subliminal messages: "Buy." "Conform." "Obey."
The story is an allegory for how media and culture indoctrinate us so we spend our lives serving capitalism. Piper's character is able to see the secret messages when he wears a pair of special sunglasses the aliens created. This too, is a metaphor, for having your eyes opened to the reality of the world.
Carpenter, a "no Bs" director if there ever was one, told Starlog Magazine #136 (November 1988) what he was satirizing:
"The picture's premise is that the 'Reagan Revolution' is run by aliens from another galaxy.
The story is an allegory for how media and culture indoctrinate us so we spend our lives serving capitalism. Piper's character is able to see the secret messages when he wears a pair of special sunglasses the aliens created. This too, is a metaphor, for having your eyes opened to the reality of the world.
Carpenter, a "no Bs" director if there ever was one, told Starlog Magazine #136 (November 1988) what he was satirizing:
"The picture's premise is that the 'Reagan Revolution' is run by aliens from another galaxy.
- 10/23/2022
- by Devin Meenan
- Slash Film
As the headlines get darker and darker with almost every day, many are finding comfort in looking back on the TV shows and characters they enjoyed as kids. One of the most celebrated of those shows is the focus of this new feature documentary, which begins streaming just a few days after the big announcement of a revival. It’s deserving of the doc treatment because it was a landmark, becoming a real turning point for the medium. Historians often point to “touchstones” in cinema often making note of the first “talkie”, the first color film, and so on. The same can be done with theatrical animation via a timeline: 1928 first sound cartoon short, 1937 first feature-length cartoon, and into the rise of Pixar. And the same can be done for it’s “lowly cousin”, TV animation. This doc’s focus was neatly squeezed in, between the return of prime-time animation...
- 8/14/2020
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Post-punk warhorse the Fall releases its 30th record, Re-Mit, today. As per most great Fall albums, Re-Mit is equal parts brilliant and confounding. Up-tempo garage-rock stompers, like lead single “Sir William Wray,” are balanced by inchoate noodling (one of said tracks is aptly titled “Noise”). The group is led by Mark E. Smith, the outspoken and cantankerous visionary and sole constant member since the group’s formation in 1976. Smith still churns out scalpel-sharp lyrics, this time focusing his wit and zeal on such topics as a Hittite corpse rising from the grave and wreaking havoc and Italian laziness on Sundays. We spoke to him by phone from his home in Manchester about the new album, playing for 6,000 German lawyers, and H.P. Lovecraft.On the Fall’s first live record, 1980’s Totale’s Turns, the cover gave a funny shout-out to your tour itinerary [listing “Doncaster! Bradford! Preston! Prestwich!”]. Tonight you’re playing in...
- 5/13/2013
- by William Van Meter
- Vulture
I am of the opinion that “bad taste” is a good thing. It’s the most ridiculously subjective concept imaginable: what offends me (admittedly, very little) might be absolutely awesome to you, and we each have a right to our opinions.
I was fortunate enough to be the editor and, along with ComicMix co-conspirator John Ostrander, co-conceiver of a DC Comics series called Wasteland. It was the black hole of humor, a monthly love-letter to bad taste. The stories usually had a point with enough wiggle-room in each concept to cause the reader night sweats. John wrote the series, often in tandem with improv legend Del Close, and we had a rotating gaggle of extraordinarily gifted artists as our visual collaborators. We’d have four going at any one time: three doing interior stories and one doing the cover. The one who did the cover in month one would do...
I was fortunate enough to be the editor and, along with ComicMix co-conspirator John Ostrander, co-conceiver of a DC Comics series called Wasteland. It was the black hole of humor, a monthly love-letter to bad taste. The stories usually had a point with enough wiggle-room in each concept to cause the reader night sweats. John wrote the series, often in tandem with improv legend Del Close, and we had a rotating gaggle of extraordinarily gifted artists as our visual collaborators. We’d have four going at any one time: three doing interior stories and one doing the cover. The one who did the cover in month one would do...
- 5/23/2012
- by Mike Gold
- Comicmix.com
It was a long, long running series of one-panel cartoons. It was an iconic teevee series. It was subject of two pretty decent movies. It was almost a DC Comic by Mike Baron and Bill Wray. It is the subject of a Broadway play that opened last week to mediocre reviews. And now it looks like The Addams Family will be a Tim Burton movie.
But with a twist. This adaptation will be based upon Charles Addams's misanthropic cartoons in the New Yorker magazine and not in the spirit of the teevee series. Woo-Hoo!
According to Deadline Hollywood, it isn't a done deal and Burton and his pal Johnny Depp are preparing their version of Dark Shadows. One wouldn't want Burton to get typecast, right?
Either way, Universal Studios paid for the rights and it's possible the movie might actually get made. If it winds up being a Burton-less...
But with a twist. This adaptation will be based upon Charles Addams's misanthropic cartoons in the New Yorker magazine and not in the spirit of the teevee series. Woo-Hoo!
According to Deadline Hollywood, it isn't a done deal and Burton and his pal Johnny Depp are preparing their version of Dark Shadows. One wouldn't want Burton to get typecast, right?
Either way, Universal Studios paid for the rights and it's possible the movie might actually get made. If it winds up being a Burton-less...
- 3/18/2010
- by Mike Gold
- Comicmix.com
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