Friday, August 9, 2013

Life imitating art?

So I was watching Robocop 2 tonight, and I was kind of struck by the fact that either life sort of imitates art, or we just always have the same sorts of things going on and we don't realize it.

Made in 1990, the movie features a story and screenplay by Frank Miller, the wonderful writer behind 300, The Dark Night Returns, Sin City, and some of the best storylines in comics like Daredevil and The Punisher.

You've got a bankrupt Detroit in the movie -- now, yeah...same thing. People making the case that legalized drugs will reduce crime and put more people to work making the drugs -- see marijuana, medical. Civil servants (cops in the movie) on strike for wages and benefits -- pretty much any state with a Republican governor trying to make budget. And so on.

The overly PC people in the movie cramming Robocop's head full of touchy-feely directives -- address environmental concerns, stop shooting "that big gun of his" be a better role model, get a consensus before you act, etc. Doesn't that sound like every pantiwaist whiny liberal you hear on tv today?

And I love the commercial for the blue stuff to slather on to spend some time by the pool because of the hole in the ozone. Of course, like all climite hysteria, that was a load of crap too. But funny to look back and see something about it in a movie. It's like picking up a magazine from the 70s and seeing one of those articles about how half of North America would be covered in ice by 1985 because of global cooling. Oops . . .

One other thing I liked was the deliciously evil Dr. Faxx, played by underrated beauty Belinda Bauer. I think she writes crime novels or something now, but here's a shot of her on the cover of Esquire circa 1977 looking pretty hot in those halcyon days of no Photoshop:

belinda bauer

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