Retro Moment: Red Dawn

The end of the Cold War may have led to the end of good movies.

For the motion picture industry in 1984, it was morning again in America. It was a Red Dawn.

This American classic, which brought to us stars like Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, and a pre-plastic surgery Jennifer Grey, helped me learn to truly hate Communism.

Before it came out, I sort of knew that Communists were bad people, but I didn't fully realize that they wanted to invade our country and dominate the world. Red Dawn changed all of that.


I mean, look at that poster! Those Commies don't even use Latin letters. They wanted to destroy all that was good, like English and high school football.

GO WOLVERINES!!!

See, we won the Cold War, so I can still say that.

There are plenty of reasons to see this movie, if you have not already done so:


There was a moving, near-mute, performance by one of my top five all time crushes, Lea Thompson.

There was Powers Booth reminding us that our current level of wealth is something to be cherished, saying:

"You think you're tough? You eat beans every day? There's a handful of scarecrows left in Denver give anything for a mouthful of what you got."

There was chilling dialogue, like:

Jed Eckert: We can hunt, we can fish, we can stay here a long, long time.
Robert: How long, Jed?
[Jed and Robert hear jets]
Jed Eckert: 'Til we don't hear that no more.

...and...

Jed Eckert: Well, who *is* on our side?
Col. Andy Tanner: Six hundred million screamin' Chinamen.
Darryl Bates: Well, last I heard, there were a billion screamin' Chinamen.
Col. Andy Tanner: There were.

See, that's when I knew that those Commie Russians (and Cubans) were out to get us, and would even kill a lot of Chinese to do it. They had to be stopped!

No wonder Walter Mondale lost, he was a stupid Communist too.

I watched the movie over and over again as I got older, until the Berlin Wall went down.

There really hasn't been a movie so complementary of gun-owning Middle-Americans made ever since (at least not one I would actually watch from the comfort of my New York City apartment).

But looking back upon this glorious movie, I await the anti-terrorism version of Red Dawn. Perhaps, it's time for a remake?

It's not like Hollywood is coming out with a lot of original ideas.

With Patrick Swayze saying lines like "because...we live here!" you know this is an American classic.

Other Retro Moments.

Links of interest:

IMBD site

Fast-Rewind: Red Dawn

Allwatchers.com movie review of Red Dawn

Ruthless Reviews: Red Dawn

Rotten Tomatoes Reviews of Red Dawn

Red Dawn photo page

BLOGS / NEWS OF THE DAY:
The Airing of Grievances is having a debate on race and football that's worth plowing into.

Marvel is bringing back one of my favorite comics, the What If? series.
Paul Katcher, a Syracuse graduate, talks about the firing of SU football coach Paul Pasqualoni.

Outside the Beltway reports that national ID cards are probably on the way.

Poliblog discusses the politics of contributions.

Here's a way to give to the relief of tsunami victims through the Presbyterian Church USA.