Postcards From the Post-Apocalypse

Sometimes I get the feeling that come the end of the world, I’ll feel fine.

For about as long as I can remember (which at times stretches as far back as the day I split my two-year-old lip open and calmly explained to my mother that I thought a visit to the emergency room might be in order), I’ve had a thing for post-apocalyptic dystopias. From telling my grade school principal to take her stinking paws off me to welcoming 1997 with a Snake Pliskin drinking game, I’ve spent a lot of my formative years longing for the end of days.

In honor of the Final Girl-sponsored Hey Internet, Stop Being Such Cynical Fucking Douchebags Blog-a-Thon (and Neil “I Somehow Manage to Keep Living Up to All the Hype” Marshall), I take a break from berating Rob Zombie today and instead present these loving wishes to black leather, nuclear fallout, and the drinking of one’s own pee.


Escape From New York
Growing up in the Midwest, by the time I was about four I had developed a serious case of Los Angelenvy. This is the condition one acquires by watching a constant string of early ‘80s movies that were all filmed in the suburbs of L.A. Every time a swimming pool was dug in my neighborhood, I secretly hoped corpses would start popping up out of the hole and paranormal investigators would show up and rip off their own faces. In the sixth grade, I desperately wanted to take my first-ever date to Golf N’ Stuff. But at some point in my adolescence, I finally discovered a cool movie that had not been filmed or set in SoCal. In fact, said cool movie had actually been filmed on my home turf (apparently the streets of New York were not run-down and shitty enough to pass for a post-apocalyptic warzone, but St. Louis fit the bill perfectly). I heart pretty much any John Carpenter movie from the ‘80s, but there will always be a special pocket of love reserved for EFNY. There will always be a special pocket of love reserved for Harry Dean Stanton, too, but that’s a post for another HISBSCFD-blog-a-thon.


Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
The third Mad Max movie is not better than the first two. It’s not even anywhere near as good as either of them. In fact, it’s not really good at all. But come on, the word Thunderdome is in the frickin’ title! Incidentally, do you remember how those rumors about Michael Jackson buying the Elephant Man’s bones started circulating in the late ‘80s? I always thought Trent Reznor had perpetrated a similarly ridiculous purchase of the Thunderdome for use in his 1992 “Wish” music video (this was right after the rumor about him having his ribs surgically removed so he could fellatiate himself on stage emerged, so I assumed he must have gotten some kind of deal on the ‘dome from Tina Turner).


Waterworld
Like just about every summer movie that came out after 1993, seeing Waterworld was supposed to be more important than having sex. Or eating. Or going to college.
It was not.
But it did feature and still holds the record for the best scene ever filmed in which a man who once made out with Susan Sarandon drinks his own urine.


Tank Girl
Coinciding with my lifelong fascination with post-apocalyptic movies is my lifelong fascination with girls who could kick my ass. This affair sort of reached its pinnacle when I saw Lori Petty’s performance in Tank Girl. If The Donnas collectively ate Japan and washed it down with a bottle of Manic Panic, the morning-after result would be Lori Petty as Tank Girl.


A Boy and His Dog
In my junior year in college I took an eight-week Friday night class on science fiction movies. With nearly 20 years as a nerd under my belt, I thought for sure this would cover material I was already familiar with and be an easy ace. Instead I ended up seeing eight movies I’d never seen of, most of which I hadn’t even heard of. A Boy and His Dog was one of those movies. I didn’t particularly care for it, but I wanted to include it on this list because I think it’s noteworthy that I received college credit for watching a movie starring Don Johnson.


Doomsday
Worried about how the dollar is doing against the Euro right now? Just wait till Neil Marshall gets a hold of it. Not even Shaun of the Dead duo Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg know how to rescue a traditionally American horror subgenre that’s flagging the way this guy does. I’m pretty sure the man secretes awesomeness from his pores and just sprinkles it on whatever movie set he’s working on at the time. This movie might as well be The Road Warriorette Escapes From Edinburgh, which is exactly why it’s the greatest thing to ever happen in the month of March, 2008.

The next best thing is the HISBSCFD blog-a-thon, so go read the other entries and don’t come back till somebody drops the big one.