laramie

Aaarrgh. Every now and then somebody I care about hears that "'They Live' has a good message if you, you know, look past the aliens and Roddy Piper" and decides to watch it. Usually I try to dissuade them, but it's apparently too late in this case.

For the benefit of the rest of you who might be thinking about watching this film:

DO NOT BE FOOLED.

As much as I've liked other movies John Carpenter has done, "They Live" stinks like a mountain of week-old used cat litter. Its much-touted "message" is presented so sophomorically as to make itself ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned, it takes Ray Nelson's marvelous short short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" and turns it into an overlong, overdone, unwatchable travesty.

(Sorry about the tone of this diatribe, but it's the result of my being virtually *forced* to watch it again the last time one of my friends got this bug in their head. Certain parts of my brain have not yet recovered...)