I went to a friend's house Friday night to see (and mock) "Prophecy," the John Frankenheimer film from 1979, starring Robert Foxworth and Talia Shire. It's a horror movie with an environmental message. It's not often that you see a movie centered around a rubber monster chasing people through the woods that manages to be laughably pretentious at the same time, but this one manages it. There's a moment in the middle where Robert Foxworth, the doctor hero, gives a monologue about the dangers of mercury of such scientific illiteracy that it rivals an anime translation or a speech by Al Gore (which is not to downplay the dangers of mercury, but in this movie, mercury works on the level of Marvel Comics' cosmic rays). Leonard Rosenman's score sounds exactly like the score of every other movie he's ever scored. I mean, exactly. And yet...
There are scenes of awesomeness in it. Not awesome in the sense of great writing or acting or special effects, but awesome in the same sense that Battle to the Death was awesome just because it was a comic book about ninjas vs. zombies. In "Prophecy," there is an axe vs. chainsaw duel (bloodless, sadly). A fish eats a duck. A kid asks Talia Shire if she's going camping while she's carrying a cello case.
And there are projectile people. Seriously.
Sadly, they don't all explode into feathers.
Watched "Roadhouse" again today. It was on Spike and I was bored. Not bored enough to sit through the whole thing, though, just had it on while I did other things and came in occasionally to see the good parts. The good parts without nudity, anyway, since Spike cuts those out.
Okay, need to work on the book now. Or maybe mow the lawn...
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