5/14/09: More Miscellaneous
The great housecleaning of RightWingTrash continues, leading up to announcing a new site on Memorial Day—where we’ll still regularly feature some conservative schlock, so don’t go mourning things too much. For now, though, here are more pop-culture items that didn’t have quite enough conservative content to warrant an actual entry here. Or at least we never thought of them at 3 am when we were really desperate for ideas…
Flight of the Phoenix (2004): This remake of a classic about an airplane stranded in the desert didn’t get much attention when it was released. We didn’t want to contribute any more attention after director John Moore went on to use 9/11 footage in his dopey remake of
The Omen. Still, there’s a lot to be said for Giovanni Ribisi’s work as plane designer Elliott. He’s stubbornly confident in his ability to save the passengers despite complete apathy amongst his comrades in crisis. Also, Elliott is the only one who understands the appropriate response when a murderous Arab is being a distraction. It’s a great scene that works as comic relief despite Moore’s general incompetence.
Pretty Persuasion (2005): This trashy dark comedy provided some major sexploitation for the usually dull indie circuit. Evan Rachel Wood stars as an amoral high-school student who uses her body to pull off a scam based on false charges of sexual harassment. Her scheme includes literally seducing a gullible media figure who’s in search of a victim. You also get James Woods stealing the film as our anti-heroine’s vulgar father. You wouldn’t want to accept him into the conservative cause, but the guy makes a few reasonable points during the film.
Kolchak: The Night Stalker: “The Devil's Platform” (1974): We come from a world where Carl Kolchak inspired more budding journalists than Woodward and Bernstein ever did. Darren McGavin starred in this ABC series as the humble investigative reporter with a penchant for stumbling across demons, vampires, and werewolves. This episode has Kolchak trying to stop a politician who’s sold his soul to the Devil. Unfortunately, the script is careful not to reveal any political affiliations. There’s a throwaway line at the very end that might suggest the bad guy’s political bent, and it’s not encouraging for our cause. The good news is that Kolchak saves the day with some special Holy Water that would never be allowed to save the day today.
Joe Jackson: “Forty Years” (1986): It seems that Joe Jackson and The Pursuit of Happiness are the most frequent artists found on the RightWingTrash jukebox. We never wanted to wear out Jackson’s welcome, so we put off writing up this lovely song about the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II. Here are
the lyrics—as found on
Big World, which is yet another underheard Jackson album.
G.I. Joe: Resolute (2009): This animated cartoon began as a series of short webisodes, and was then compiled last month for a full-length run on the Cartoon Network. (You can piece the whole thing together on YouTube.) It’s a fun revisiting of the classic ’80s cartoon series, with the very American heroes of the G.I. Joe anti-terrorist unit saving the day once again from the evil Cobra Commander. There’s never any token Leftist moral equivalency, but also no mad jingoism to scare the hipsters. The best part is at the end of Chapter 9, as the G.I. Joe squad confirms the location of Cobra Commander. They set out to save the world without a second thought about consulting the United Nations or even their own superiors. It helps that Cobra Commander has based himself in a small American town. Nobody at the U.N. cares if one of those gets blown up.
Make it your own: Once again, we’ve assembled discards that are all easily tracked down. This entry probably clears out the most promising of our bad ideas—but we reserve the right to maybe do this one more time before our final postings on Memorial Day.
