In Los Angeles, Hollywood gets all the name recognition with the Walk of Fame, Chinese Theater, hand prints and touristy locales but over on the west side Culver City has been Screenland for decades. Sony Pictures Studios is a stone’s throw away from The Culver Studios and between them boast productions from Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of OZ, Masters of the Universe to Last Action Hero. Next door is the New York City inspired Culver Hotel, once co-owned by John Wayne and where all the Wizard of Oz Munchkin actors stayed. Amazon moved in and owns The Culver Theater that hosts many an Amazon MGM function.
This week they were screening The Running Man as part of Movie Mad Mondays, a fantastic series highlighting dystopian worlds with Escape From New York, The Terminator, Robot Jox and Demolition Man as part of the line up. Arnold Schwarzenegger fans get the quadruple impact with Terminator, The Running Man, Total Recall and Terminator 2. T2 was the only one of those I saw in a theater during original release but Terminator and Total Recall play constantly on the LA repertory circuit. The Running Man is a little harder to come by so of course I had to venture out on a school night.
Before the 80’s fun, we stumbled upon the season 3 premiere of Amazon’s animated series Invincible. Comic book creator Robert Kirkman and cast members Steven Yuen, Sandra Oh, Gillian Jacobs, Jay Pharoah and Jason Mantzoukas were all huddled up on the step and repeat for photographers and press.
Back to The Running Man, which may not carry the same cachet as Conan, Terminator or Predator, but it’s one of my favorite Arnold flicks. With its look at the future in 2017 where criminals go head-to-head with modern day gladiators on live TV for a chance at freedom. It’s still ironic and scarily accurate with its media and money driven view of the future where footage is doctored, a narrative is pushed on the public, ratings are king, there’s deepfake technology and you get court appointed media representation. The world is well established, desolate and corporate locations are used well and the action doesn’t stop with fists, machine guns, exploding collars, chainsaws, go karts, flame throwers and chainsaws.
Harold Faltermeyer’s (Top Gun, Tango & Cash) rocking synth 80’s soundtrack keeps things moving while so, so many quips and one liners keep things zippy for the actor. Based on the Stephen King novel and adapted by Steven De Souza who had already given us some classics in Commando but TRM is nearly wall to wall with “Plain Zero!”, Captain Freedom’s workout, “leave enough room for my fist” and Arnold’s trademark insult, “low forehead”. Surrounding Arnold is a plethora of familiar faces like Richard Dawson (Family Feud) as the evil yet funny CEO, Arnold buddy Sven Ol-Thorson as a bodyguard, Maria Conchita Alonso (Predator 2) as kidnappee turned running partner, Yaphet Kotto (Alien), wrestler turned actor Jesse “The Body” Ventura (“Are you ready for pain?!”), Professor Toro Tanaka (The Perfect Weapon) and Jim Brown (The Dirty Dozen) along with musicians Mick Fleetwood and Dweezil Zappa.
Actor and director Paul Michael Glaser stepped in to replace Andrew Davis early into production so kudos for keeping things together and delivering a rollicking action flick with atmosphere, action and laughs that culminates in the perfect 80’s ending blaring John Parr’s song Restless Heart. We’ll see if Edgar Wright and Glen Powell can come up with something as fun.