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Let's All Review: Basic Cable Classics
Okay. Pick your favorite Basic Cable Classic movie (or just one you've recently enjoyed) and tell us why you like it. These are the movies you'd never pay money to rent, but you've seen them on TNT a million times: Red Dawn, Iron Eagle, etc.
My first pick:
THE CONDEMNED
Featuring "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones.
The film was made in 2007, the plot was made in 1987.
Ian Breckel: What were you doing in El Salvador?
Jack Conrad: Working on my tan.
Ian Breckel: Why did you blow the building up?
Jack Conrad: It was blocking my sun.
An evil internets genius has kidnapped 10 of the world's fiercest criminals and forced them to fight to the death on a remote island. He'll broadcast it live until only one survives. His ultimate goal: to have a larger audience than the Super Bowl.
Steve Austin stars as Jack Conrad, a man wrongfully condemned to die for doing something secret for the US government that the movie never really tells you. It's only important that you know that he knows how to fight and disable GPS devices.
Jack Conrad: You know, I don't know who you are, and I don't care. But I don't play games.
Ian Breckel: You don't have to win... but everbody plays
Vinnie Jones stars as an evil sadistic British guy. He has a small, wiry Japanese sidekick.
Each prisoner is strapped with a C4 ankle bracelet that will blow them up if they "jostle it or try to disable it". Yet, they spend the whole movie RUNNING THROUGH THE FUCKING JUNGLE and falling down, swimming, etc, and nothing happens.
Jack Conrad defeats the Asian by duct-taping metal rods to his forearms to protect himself from knife attacks. Duct tape is bountiful in the jungle.
Jack Conrad: Sounds like you've had a hard life.
Ewan McStarley: Yeah.
Jack Conrad: Good thing it's over.
Every line is a cliche. All of the black people die. A lesson is learned at the end about how we, the viewers, are the real monsters.
Jack Conrad reunites with his estranged girlfriend at the end of the film, after flying from somewhere near Guam all the way to Texas without taking a shower or getting his wounds tended to.
Good times made all the better by cable censorship of intense dialog.
Ian Breckel: Where do you live?
Jack Conrad: Alaska.
Ian Breckel: Where abouts in Alaska?
Jack Conrad: In a little fishing town, you probably heard of it, its called Go Find Your Momma.
What have you seen lately?
It's a God-awful small affair to the girl with the mousy hair...
I will also say that for sheer entertainment value, the cable-censored version of Glengarry/ Glen Ross is amazing:
Dave Moss: That guy's a filthy animal. Anybody who talks to that animal is a filthy animal...
Ricky Roma: Who said 'forget the machine'?
Dave Moss: Forget the machine? Forget the machine? FORGET THE MACHINE! What is this, courtesy class?
It's a God-awful small affair to the girl with the mousy hair...
True Lies (1994)
Starring: Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis
Helicopter Pilot: Oh yeah, she's got her head in the guy's lap all right. Yahoo.
Gib: Maybe she's sleepy.
Somewhere in the course of Mr. and Mrs. Tasker's marriage, Mrs. Tasker gets bored. But her husband is a chronically absent computer salesman, he should expect it, right? Wrong! Her husband is an undercover spy, and happens to be spying on her when she's on the brink of an affair with Simon, a used car salesman, pretending to be...twist! A spy!
Fresh from a computer file stealing mission, and in hot pursuit of Salim Abu Abiz, leader of the Crimson Jihad, he takes a moment to trick his wife into sleeping with him in a swanky hotel on the spy agency's dime.
In the midst of an applaudable strip tease performance on curtis's part,
they are kidnapped by the very organization Mr. Tasker was pursuing in the first part. How convenient! They are whisked away to florida, where Mr. Tasker foils their terroristy and very original plan of detonating a nuke, and escapes via fighter jet back to Miami.
Upon their return, their happiness is interrupted by the news that their daughter, Dana, has been kidnapped in retaliation to their escape! Can he save his family and stop the bomb from being detonated once again?
You know how to find out!
Lofivinyl: R uth I believe you. you are an oddd little piece of work. I find that I like you after all!
There's also the de rigeur spectacular death scene wherein the evil terrorist is hooked on a missile and fired at the other terrorists to kill them all and save the day! action movie fantastic main bad guy deaths could be a great thread of its own!
It's a God-awful small affair to the girl with the mousy hair...
didn't The Condemned just premiere on cable like LAST WEEK? i don't see how it can be a classic already, no matter how bad it is.
anyways, I can't stand watching movies on cable all cut up so the ones I think are classic are the ones I HAVE to sit and watch whenever theyre on, knowing theyre going to be all edited and yet I still watch them!
Blues Brothers
Shawshank Redemption
The Crow
also, The Day After is a good one, but i only watch it till after the bombs go off. I don't think i've ever seen the end of it.
in the heat of burning air to watch the naked famele body is insane,
they don't have it on as much nowadays but i used to watch this all the time when i was littler.
I saw this in the theater when it was first released too!!
in the heat of burning air to watch the naked famele body is insane,
they don't have it on as much nowadays but i used to watch this all the time when i was littler.
I saw this in the theater when it was first released too!!
That spaceship has huge testicles.
But the poster reminds me of on eof my all-time favorite basic cable classics:
I'll have to review that one next...
It's a God-awful small affair to the girl with the mousy hair...
Copyright 2008 - A Writers Cult, LLC
Joined: 2004-12-05
From: Parts Unknown.