Weird Science

Weird Science
Originally uploaded by MacQ

High school is hell, especially for geeks Gary & Wyatt. Tired of being bullied and not being able to get a girl Gary & Wyatt decide to do the most outlandish thing they can think of – make a girlfriend ala Frankenstein, using Wyatt’s computer. Enter Lisa, their creation; she’s everything the boys want and makes them the envy of their high school and their bullies, but there’s on problem – Lisa isn’t content to be their dream girl, she wants to pop them out of their shell and make them the boys she wants them to be.

John Hughes has made a lot of movies and to my experience so far Weird Science is the strangest. I’ve never seen Hughes dabble in science fiction before but I have to say his take on Frankenstein was entertaining.

As always Hughes has incredible characters. Gary and Wyatt are fun, entertaining teens to watch that never leave you wondering why they are the center of the film. They have a bond that is second only to the ladies in Sex & the City; they finish each others sentences, spend all their time together and admire the opposite sex as their greatest hobby. However, Hughes does what he does best and somehow infuses these crazy, hair-brained teen boys with a human heart and soul.

What I honestly forgot about Weird Science is that Robert Downey Jr. plays one of the bullies. Man was he young, but even then he commanded the screen. Also sharing the screen was Bill Paxton as Wyatt’s older brother and what was funny to see was that he has looked exactly the same for his entire career – even then you can see the influences that will later make great characters like Hudson in Aliens.

Weird Science is a quintessential teen movie that has to be seen by a Hughes fan or anyone that still remembers the horrors of being a teenager. So pop in the DVD, get loaded up on sugar and remember what it was like to be in high school.

Director & Writer: John Hughes
Gary Wallace: Anthony Michael Hall
Lisa: Kelly LeBrock
Wyatt Donnelly: IIan Michael-Smith
Chet Donnelly: Bill Paxton
Ian: Robert Downey Jr.

Wyatt: Gary?... By the way, why are we wearing bras on our heads?
Garry: Ceremonial.

The Terminator

Sarah Connor was living her life like any material girl in the 1984; she waitressed by day, laughed with her roommate Ginger and went out on dates. Then one day women named Sarah Connor began to be killed and her world was turned upside down. Out of nowhere Sarah finds out that a machine from the future, a terminator has been sent through time to kill her because she will give birth to a legendary leader named John Connor who will fight back against the machines when they cause a nuclear world and enslave the human race, and in the future he is on the verge of winning. Sarah finds out that she is the one that trains him to become this great leader, military warrior and savior of man kind. After that day Sarah Connor’s life changed forever – and so did cinema.

Sarah Connor is one of the most respected strong women of cinema; she is a legendary character and one in a long line of leading strong women led by James Cameron. What makes the character of Sarah Connor remarkable is not one thing but many, and it all starts with The Terminator. Never before had such a strong yet feminine woman been brought to the screen; Connor wasn’t strong in the say Kathryn Hepburn was strong, she was strong in a whole new way. She learned how to make plastic explosives, field dress wounds and fight for humanity.

Every time I watch The Terminator I am amazed at how natural Cameron and Linda Hamilton make Sarah Connor’s transformation from simple citizen to guerilla warrior. One would think that to make that dramatic a change it would be clunky and sudden, but it is not. Even before she knew the definition of an H.K. and T-101 Sarah could defend herself, think on her feet, and by the end of the film she is motivating the soldier sent back to protect her, and fighting against the machines herself.

In The Terminator Cameron creates not just Sarah Connor, but an entire world with a future so bleak that an entire new avenue was opened in science fiction. Time travel tales had been told before, but never in such a way as he told them. The Terminator sets up an entire world that we cannot see, a heroine that grows to greatness before us and the possibility of a leader even greater than this heroine. Cameron creates a way for the future to crash into the present with the idea that they are so linked together that neither the viewer or the characters can truly know if anything they do will actually change the future or if their actions are creating the future they dread. It was unique when the franchise began and remains fresh and vibrant to this day.

While The Terminator is arguably a franchise fueled by testosterone one must never forget that like just a John Connor was trained by his mother, Terminator was built by Sarah Connor.

Director: James Cameron
Writers: James Cameron & Gale Anne Hurd
The Terminator: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Kyle Reese: Michael Biehn
Sarah Connor: Linda Hamilton
Detective Vukovich: Lance Henrickson
Dr. Silberman: Earl Boen
Punk Leader: Bill Paxton

Kyle Reese: Some of us were kept alive... to work... loading bodies into dumpsters and incinerators. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah, your unborn son.