Hey, I’m the other half of the opinionated bastard’s psyche, the half that thinks that writing about the merits of a bad movie from the 80′s now, in 2008 is just stupid and wrong.



First: IF the lead actor in a movie is as bad as William Petersen is in To Live and Die in LA, AND Wang Chung does the score, well, it went out of its way to horribly date itself right off the bat and who are YOU to navigate thin margins of acceptablility you eek from any possible pore and tought it as a good film.

Bad is BAD. End of story.



Yeah, Dafoe’s okay, when his dialogue is synched right, but even here we see how the production team embraced the sights, styles and sounds of the Times, as if trying to ride that ‘hey, this is the 80′s, this is what we do here! Strap on your leotards, your leg warmers, have another line and crank up the Wang Chung cuz these are the times.’ Whether its a film, a tv show or music, this is the kind of short-term appeal that renders something from ever being TIMELESS. Sure, you could talk about how some of my favorite pieces, like Goodfellas or Donnie Darko are period pieces, but they are done from OUTSIDE the period, and as such, with a healthy dose of hindsight. Trying to perform a period piece, or as some called ‘…LA’ at the time ’80′s LA noir’ from within the period, is both pretentious (because how do you know what the lasting impressionarios of the ‘period’ will be? Clearly ‘…La’ proves you cannot, as, again, Wang Chung was chosen to score the fucker) and ill-sighted.



And again, Petersen. I hate to harp on the guy, but this is two flicks now, as I had for years remembered Michael Mann’s ‘Manhunter’ as a great film, which it is, except when I went back and rewatched it a couple years ago I could not get past Petersen’s truly awful acting. I hear he’s great on CSI: Dallas or whatever, good. I’ll never test that theory, but I mention it cuz I hate to just go off on someone without some kind of counterpoint. But seriously, anyone else think on more than one occasion in the 80′s producers and agents referred to Petersen as the ‘big-screen Don Johnson?’ What works well on the small screen, does not always, shit, actually almost never translates to the big. I’m bitter because if Mann had cast someone else I would not have had to sell back my copy of Manhunter out of delayed 80′s shame.



But yeah, Time Machine Go! my ass. If the other half of my brain wants to spend a good bit of your time talking about the fine aspects of a bad movie, I’m just going to have to stowaway in the Time Pod and give you the counter argument.

Oh yeah, and the car chase is awesome, but when the subtler aspects of the film clearly do not have nearly as much time and energy put into them, well, you might as well be watching an Arnold movie.