Anti-consumerism November: Action Anti-consumerism

There's little I love more than a good action movie, unless that action movie also has strong anti-consumerism undertones!


They Live:

This is a classic movie that I screened on my birthday one year to at least 3 people who hadn't seen it. Mind blown. But if there was ever an anti-consumerism movie, this is it. And it is nothing short of glorious.






Small Soldiers:

Maybe directors of kids movies get away with so much subversive stuff because studio heads don't want to sit through a kids movies to give them the ok? Whatever the reason, kids movies often have more progressive ideas in them than you'd think, and Small Soldiers is no exception. In fact, it's a shining example. This movie is explicitly anti-big box store, it explores the problems with toxic masculinity, the benefits of team work, and the dangers of letting weapons manufactures take over the toy industry.

Still a kids movie, but one that's pretty dang tolerable, if not pretty darn good.

Fight Club:

This is a movie that spits in the face of toxic masculinity, but was marketed as the glorification of just that. It's a study on rites of passage for men and how without that, men wonder the world as giant children looking for approval and fulfillment in all the wrong places. There's also a healthy study of the consumption of goods and ideals sold to us as our own identities (the commodification of self worth). Fight Club is an exploration of life without the crushing weight of needless need, the exploration of self, and the importance of growth. It's pretty fucking great, and clearly one of my personal favorites.

Bonus!!
Knock Off:

Not an anti-consumerism movie per se, but the terrorist's plot is to put explosive devices into a large amount of consumer goods and detonate them; for reasons. And, like any good Van Damme movie, the rest of the plot is so convoluted it's hysterical.

Third Clue: November

Clue #3:

This month's movie is our favorite offering by our favorite director and actor duo.

Tape Freaks Presents: Mystery Movie! Theatres at Mall of America, Thursday, Nov th at 7:30pm, only $5!

Anti-consumerism November: Corporations and Genetics

Genetics has long been a topic covered in anti-corporation movies, and the outcome is never good for the consumer. Here's some of our favorites: 

Carnosaur:

Leaving an unstable genetics researcher completely to her on devices can have unexpected results, if you don't think about it for more than ten seconds... But you know, competitive products, cutting costs, longer shelf lives, happy shareholders, etc.


Carnosaur Trailer by trailermov




Black Sheep:

It's not often the IMDB description of a movie can't be improved upon, but this is one of those instances: An experiment in genetic engineering turns harmless sheep into blood-thirsty killers that terrorize a sprawling New Zealand farm.

Really though, if you've not watched this one, you're missing out...

Blood Freak:

What do you get when you combine genetic testing, recreational drugs, and PTSD? A vampire were-chicken, obviously...





Bonus!!
The Clones (1973):

We've not seen this movie in full, but the trailer was in a Trailer Trash lineup and rightly brought the house down. Aside from that, there is nothing I can say about this trailer that it doesn't explicitly say itself.

Anti-Consumerism November: Weaponized Stuff

There's nothing evil corporations love more than selling weapons. Here are three movies that call into question how good of an idea that might be...

Aliens:

What happens when you're the only survivor of an alien attack on your spaceship? The company that rescues you makes you go back to that ship so they can bring said alien to your home planet and weaponize it. What the hell could possibly go wrong?

This is a crazy amazing action movie with an anti-corporate subtext (though, the subtext is not so “sub”, I mean Cameron isn't known for his light touch...) that touches on how the commodification of living things on this planet gets us into tremendous trouble, and how that greed could undo us entirely when we start applying it interstellerly.





Carnasaur 2:

The first Carnasaur pretty explicitly lampoons corporate hierarchies, where as the second installment explores how one person's bend to destroy the world intentionally, could leave a door open for another person to unintentionally do the same exact thing.

This time it's government that's hording dangerous organisms for weapons research, and you can pretty well guess how things unfold.






Death Machine:

The insatiable drive for humans to control all things doesn't end at living creatures, they also must conquer the stuff they created themselves; machines. The same basic primes of Carnasaur, with the gritty action of Alien. And it's not completely bad to boot!

Hayden Cale comes to work one day to discover protesters are angry about secrets her corporation has been keeping from the public. When she finds out there's a thread of truth to the protesters' grievances, she orders the shut down of all active projects for independent review. That's when Jack Dante (Brad Dourif) lays down the gauntlet...

Second Clue: November

Clue #2:

This month's movie stars an original SNL cast member.

Tape Freaks Presents: Mystery Movie! Theatres at Mall of America, Thursday, Nov th at 7:30pm, only $5!

Anti-consumerism November: Halloween III

Now, for a long time, this was considered by many to be the worst in the Halloween series. But if you're going to evaluate this installment fairly, you kind of have to remove it from the series entirely. This movie's charm lies in it's anti-consumerism subtext, the simplistic beauty of the baddie’s master plan, the confusing complexity of his motives, and the fact that it stars Tom Atkins.

The bad guy's plan is to sell halloween masks to million of kids and to use a television special as a switch that activates said masks, sacrificing the wearer in pretty gruesome ways. Why do they need to make a mass sacrifice? Mmmm, something to do with witch craft, Celtic traditions, and stone henge. But never fear, Tom Atkins is there to save the day.

Atkins plays a doctor, and that is a fact I always forget. There's really isn't a reason for him to be a doctor, except that he's in the hospital while the first victim divulges some key dialogue. After that, Atkins could just as well have been investigating that patient's death as a homicide detective. But that weird detail adds to the “charm” of this off-the-wall character. (And actually, he's only investigating the man's death because he thinks the man's daughter is hot, so it doesn't really matter what his profession is...)

But all these quirks don't change that this is a movie we love. It's not an amazing movie or ground breaking by any means, it's just a good example of an underdog movie grabbing your attention and telling a fun story.

Tim Kelly's interview with Tom Atkins at Theaters MOA. 

First Clue: November

Clue #1:

This month's theme is anti-consumerism horror.

Tape Freaks Presents: Mystery Movie! Theatres at Mall of America, Thursday, Nov th at 7:30pm, only $5!