About a week ago I had this sort of epiphany on the similarities between Big Trouble in Little China and Flash Gordon. It is almost like they are mirror images of eachother. Consider that both films:
- star a hero with long blond hair
- have pretty cheesy special effects that add a certain something to them. Big Trouble has some goofy looking monsters and green flame. Flash has a radical scene of Gordon flying a rocket sled.
- have a hero who gets transported to another world and has to save his own. Burton gets sucked into the Chinese underworld and Gordon goes to Mongo
- have main characters who get help from an old guy with special powers. In Big Trouble it is Egg, the old Chinese tour bus driver who is also a wizard waiting to duke it out with evil forces. Gordon runs across Hans Zarkov, a rocket scientist.
- feature a romance between the hero and a random blonde who also gets mixed up in the mess.
- depict a villain with special powers and powerful minions who rules over world that is threatening ours. Burton fights against Lo Pan some sort of ghost sorcerer who rules some level of Chinese hell and is poised to take over the universe. Gordon fights against Emporer Ming an alien superbeing who rules Mongo and is planning to destroy Earth.
- feature an exciting finale where the hero must save his world and break up a marriage between the villain and his love interest. I feel like this is not the most original of endings and looking back on it, its a little strange. But recognizing this was the ‘aha’ moment of this comparison.
- really reflect American values. Gordon is like a Sci Fi John Adams rallying the various kingdoms of Mongo to unite against the tyrant Emporer Ming. Burton relies on his guts, reflexes and moxie to see him through. He is like a 1986 version of John Wayne who messes up sometimes for comic relief.
- have Asians as bad guys. (Though the Asians are also the good guys in Big Trouble)
These movies have some important differences as well. While Flash is a traditional hero and has a real world occupation of being quarterback for the New York Jets, Burton is a truck driver known for CB monologues while rolling in the Pork Chop Express. While Flash has wholesome optimism, leadership and results Burton is a cynic, likes drinking and routinely screws things up. Burton’s chinese friend is more like Flash in the realm of purity of heart and physical prowess. The other most important difference is the music. While Flash has one of my favorite soundtracks, Big Trouble’s score is purely pedestrian.
Somehow, both of these movies ended up in my relatively short set of highly viewed movies. I will now commence spending a long time figuring out what this says about my childhood and my present psyche.
These are the movies I watched a lot growing up. I still feel like I am leaving some out, but think I got most of them. For about half of these I know a lot of the lines. For others I just remember a lot of the sequences. I really don’t know how Mannequin made it on there. I think my friend had a vhs tape with wierd science and mannequin on it and we often watched it at his house when nothing else was on. I would never have been able to tell you that the same actress was in both Mannequin and Big Trouble.
- Big Trouble in Little China - Kurt Russel fights Chinese black magic to hilarious effects
- Flash Gordon - He's just a man, with a man's courage.
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - Gooseshtepping morons like yourselves should try reading books instead of barning them!
- Raiders of the Lost Ark - They're digging in the wrong place!
- ¡Three Amigos! - Would you say I had a plethora of pinatas? - The Infamous El Guapo
- Top Gun - My analysis of your flying was right on!
- Weird Science - What's wrong, I was right in the middle of my gymnastics routine.
- Mannequin - I don't know how this made it
- Bloodsport - I remember no lines from this film, what I do remember is a whole lot of splits and kicks.
- Kickboxer - I definitely had a bit of a Van Damme phase.
- Major League - You may run like Hayes, but you hit like sh%t!
Carrie and I rewatched the season one episode where CJ gets a root canal recently. It was a real pick me up. This was the last TV show that I watched regularly. I think if I had discovered Arrested Development earlier I would have watched that and I am interested in the American Office and Studio 60, but that is besides the point.
My in-laws used to joke that they watched West Wing to pretend that Jeb Bartlett was the real president. I really like a couple of things about this show. It had enjoyable actors and complex enough plot and dialogue that you had to pay attention to. They talked about fun political issues with interesting takes on things. But my favorite moments of the West Wing were like the root canal dialogue, genuinely funny T.V. moments. I also really liked the episode where Josh comes back from a bachelor party hung over and has a hard time drinking coffee.
The show really lost something the last couple years, a big part because of Rob Lowe leaving. But I think it also lost a lot of the spirit of fun in just trying to do one crisis after another. I also like Toby and Charlie. I guess I like all the characters except one of the strategists at the beginning. I think they dropped her and she became the mom on One Tree Hill. Is that a step up?
There are lots of nice summaries of this movie out there and deservedly so. While I did enjoy the film, I did not feel as though it was great and it was not right in my wheelhouse so it won’t be one of my personal favorites. I really enjoyed the two sarcastic depressed characters and was a little annoyed by Greg Kinnear. I think that was all basically the plan of the filmakers. I was happy that I wasn’t deluged with sweetness, like I kind of thought I would be. The climax at the end of the movie is pretty good and my wife really liked it.
This is an interesting view. I had low expectations going in and ended up enjoying the main character (smoking lobbyist). They give him a kid to make him simpathetic and have a reporter (Holmes) trick him into exposing himself that also makes you feel bad for him. They also do some fun stuff with the Marlboro Man and Rob Lowe as a big time Hollywood producer. Plus the actor who played Champ in Anchorman has a supporting role as a gun lobbyist.
What this movie does not do is pas on a lot of enlightening information about tobacco. It does doe an okay job of having fun with some of the innerworkings of the lobbying world.
Big Trouble in Little China (1986) 
