KLAATU YOU (24)
By:
June 11, 2020
One in a weekly series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite pre-Star Wars science fiction movies.
DEATH RACE 2000 | d. PAUL BARTEL | 1975
“It’s Kung Fu,” we say, with glee. We are at Laredo’s Pla-Mor Entertainment Center, not far from the Rio Grande. Pla-Mor is a wonderland: bowling, roller skating, pinball, videogames like Pong and (in 1976) Death Race. The movie house’s décor is one part Shakey’s Pizza, one part cineaste. In the same way, some years later, that Richard Chamberlain will come to be known as “El ‘Thorn Birds’,” in Laredo Kung Fu star David Carradine is known as “Kung Fu.” In Death Race 2000, during which he mostly wears a mask, he’s a bit of a disappointment: one-dimensional, mumbling, with the facial expression range of a mannequin. And 1976’s Rocky phenomena is still to come, so Sylvester Stallone’s appearance in this schlock sci-fi film does not excite us. But we’re not disappointed by the movie’s riotous violence: race car drivers running down the elderly and kids, blood spatterings, decapitations. Not to mention the R-rated female nudity. What I didn’t and couldn’t register at the time was how brilliantly this Roger Corman-produced satire presaged the the rise of the religious right, a neoliberal-infected news media, and the schlockster politics of Trump and Hannity. It’s a lurid, Vonnegut-esque dissection of the America to come: The Death Race’s fans are addicted to mindless television, inured to violence and titillation. The movie holds up a mirror, and the monster we see there isn’t Carradine’s Frankenstein, it’s us: pandemic-paralyzed, watching in horror as a demented old madman drives our national schoolbus off a cliff.
KLAATU YOU: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Matthew De Abaitua on ZARDOZ | Miranda Mellis on METROPOLIS | Rob Wringham on THE INVISIBLE MAN | Michael Grasso on THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN | Gordon Dahlquist on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY | Erik Davis on DARK STAR | Carlo Rotella on THE OMEGA MAN | Madeline Ashby on KISS ME DEADLY | Adam McGovern on SILENT RUNNING | Michael Lewy on THIS ISLAND EARTH | Josh Glenn on WILD IN THE STREETS | Mimi Lipson on BARBARELLA vs. SINS OF THE FLESHAPOIDS | Vanessa Berry on THE FLY | Lynn Peril on ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN | Peggy Nelson on SOLARIS | Adrienne Crew on LOGAN’S RUN | Ramona Lyons on THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH | Kio Stark on THE STEPFORD WIVES | Dan Fox on FANTASTIC PLANET | Chris Lanier on IKARIE XB-1 | Devin McKinney on IDAHO TRANSFER | Mark Kingwell on THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO | Luc Sante on THE TENTH VICTIM | William Nericcio on DEATH RACE 2000 | Rob Walker on CAPRICORN ONE | Gary Panter on ANGRY RED PLANET | David Levine on THE STEPFORD WIVES | Karinne Keithley Syers on ALPHAVILLE | Carolyn Kellogg on IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE | Sara Ryan on ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN | Lisa Jane Persky on PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE | Adam Harrison Levy on BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES | Gerald Peary on CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON | Susannah Breslin on A CLOCKWORK ORANGE | Seth on WAR OF THE WORLDS | James Hannaham on GOJIRA/GODZILLA | Lydia Millet on VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED | Matthew Daniel on FANTASTIC VOYAGE | Shawn Wolfe on ROLLERBALL | Erin M. Routson on WESTWORLD | Marc Weidenbaum on COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT | Neil LaBute on 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA | Vicente Lozano on DAY OF THE DOLPHIN | Tom Roston on SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE | Katya Apekina on A BOY AND HIS DOG | Chelsey Johnson on THE BLOB | Heather Kapplow on SPACE IS THE PLACE | Brian Berger on THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS | Anthony Miller on THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.
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