Movie Review: Blast from the Past

PLOT:

Adam Weber is the child of an eccentric inventor and his wife. Following a bomb scare in the 1960s that locked the Webers in their bomb shelter for 35 years, Adam Weber must venture out into Los Angeles and obtain food and supplies for his family. He meets Eve, who reluctantly agrees to help him out.

REVIEW:

What did I like?

Man out of time. This is the second time Brendan Fraser has played a character from another time, well he seems like it in this case due to being raised in a bomb shelter. The other time being Encino Man. I need to track that down and watch it again. It has been forever and a day. Anyway, Fraser completely owns the naivete of a 35 yr old man who has never seen anything but the bomb shelter he was born and raised in, taking the term “living a sheltered life” to new heights. For everyone else, it is just life as normal, but for Fraser, he is seeing everything for the first time and he brilliantly conveys that to the audience through an excitable mix of actions and facial expressions that he just naturally pulls off.

It was the 90s. I believe I was finishing high school or in the first half of college when this came out. In other words, I was still hitting up the club and bars most weekends, including one that resembles the Club 40s that they go to in search of a wife for Fraser’s character. In other reviews, and posts, that I have made on this blog, it is obvious that I am a fan of the 30s-50s era. However, I was the right age in the 90s to really appreciate the music, attitude, fashions, etc. Alicia Silverstone’s wardrobe isn’t as over the top as in Clueless. Mostly because she’s not a rich princess, but rather a struggling individual in her late 20s/early 30s. Having said that, the stuff she wears isn’t exactly 90s per se, save for the shoes, but the vibe is there. The modern (for the time) song used on the soundtrack really take me back, particularly to the retro swing era. Can we bring that back, please?!?

Little lady from Pasadena. Going back to Silverstone. When we first meet her, she talks about how guys like her character for her legs, butt, and hair. To which Fraser responds that he likes her eyes. I happen to agree with him, she does have great eyes. Her character is probably the only one that has any growth in the film. Sure, Fraser’s character evolves a bit, but she goes from being a cold bitch to the loving girlfriend you can bring home to mom. Not just any mom, a mom from the 50s!!!

What didn’t I like?

See the difference. When the Webers go underground in…I believe ’61…they lived in a nice suburb. As the years progressed, the suburb was bulldozed for a malt shop, which turned into a rock bar, then a biker bar, and finally a cult church of some sort in a skid row part of town. All the while, no one bothered to investigate the bomb shelter, but rather just paved right over it. Luckily, they were able to get out and back to the surface. That isn’t my criticism, though, but rather how the neighborhood went to hell in a handbasket. Given the tone of this movie, the worse we see is a porn shop and a tranny prostitute, but the impression I got is that this a bad part of town. I can only imagine what kind of horror these people would witness had they come up in present year. They’d probably go running back in and never come back up. Hell, sometimes I wish I could go down and do the same!

Call the cops. Near the film’s end, Silverstone’s character calls social services because she thinks Fraser is a threat. The night before he came clean about where he is from and asked her to come with him. In her defense, it would sound crazy if some guy you’ve only known for a few days asks you to go live underground with him, still there were other things that should have raised the proverbial red flag long before that. I don’t know, I have never understood that scene, especially when she rushed to call social services, but didn’t want them to call the cops. Did she want to be “safe from him” or not?

If I were a rich man. In an early scene down in the bomb shelter, Christopher Walken, who is Fraser’s dad, tells him that he bought some stock, but because the world has apparently been wiped out, they are no good. Fraser takes them and that is the last we hear of them until the final act. AT & T, Polaroid, and IBM stocks in the late 90s with the added interest from their purchase in ’58 made for billions upon billions. If this was present day, only the AT & T stock would still be worth something. My issue with all this is this coupled with the selling of baseball cards and the money he gets from his mother is how Fraser survives on the surface, but why is it the stocks weren’t even an afterthought until it was convenient? Sure, it makes for a feel good ending, but I just didn’t feel satisfied with how they were conveniently discovered and how Silverstone discovered that Fraser was telling the truth (after she scared him off and tried to have him committed).

Final verdict:

What did I think of Blast from the Past? This is one of those films that I first saw late at night in my dorm room, if I recall. The mixture of modern and retro really appealed to me then, and it still does now. The music is great, but the plot and comedy leave a little to be desired. Fraser is great and, while Silverstone is great to look at, she comes off as a wooden for most of the film. That being said, this is still an entertaining film. Is it the best thing ever? No, but often times the movies that people watch over and over aren’t. I highly recommend this one!

4 out of 5 stars

What’s good? #14

With so much stuff on Netflix, it can be a little overwhelming finding something to watch, especially when one scrolls through and half of what they see are foreign flicks and tv shows that they have absolutely no interest in. With that said, the purpose of these weekly posts is to share something that i watch on the service. Hopefully it will help someone find something new…or keep them from something they might have wasted their time with otherwise.

This week I’m going to cover…

Genre: Horror, Comedy
Duration: 3 seasons (30 episodes; ~28 min each)
Cast: Drew Barrymore, Timothy Olyphant, Liv Hewson, Skylar Gisondo, Natalie Morales, Ethan Suplee, Nathan Fillion, Ramona Young, Jonathan Slavin, Mary Elizabeth Ellis

Zombies have had a resurgence in the last few years because of shows like The Walking Dead, Z Nation, Ash vs Evil Dead, iZombie, etc. The thing about zombies it, though, that they are almost always portrayed as mindless killing machines in dark apocalyptic type scenarios. What would happen if we took the undead and let them be perfectly normal, except for the hunger for human flesh, living life as if nothing changed? This is the basic premise of Santa Clarita Diet.

Before you ask, there aren’t too many zombies in this series. I am nearing the end of the 3rd and final season and I think I can count the number of zombies that have appeared on one hand. The main member of the undead, and the star of the show, is Drew Barrymore. As Sheila, she and her husband Joel (Timothy Olyphant) are real estate agents living in the suburbs of Santa Clarita and raising their teenage daughter. One night she gets food poisoning after eating someplace and wakes up the next morning as a zombie, unbeknownst to her at the time.

As the show goes on, Sheila does what she can to survive while not letting her secret out. One can only imagine what it would be like to know that you live in a town with a woman who will shake your hand and give you a hug in the same action moment that she would rip you apart and eat you alive. Surprisingly, this works better than you can imagine, with the help of her friends and family.

There are those who would soon see her fail, however. I can’t remember the name of all these factions that are out to kill all the undead. In season 3, we get the Knights of Sumeria. None of these seem to be real threats, though. When a real threat does come along, they seem to be cast off as comic fodder while those less than capable take the forefront. Given that this is a comedy, that makes more sense, but I still have a feeling there should be more of a threat.

Aide from Sheila’s everyday trials and tribulations, audiences are also privy to the struggles of Joel as he plays the supportive husband, but always seems to have a look on his face as if he is wondering “why do i keep doing this?” Their daughter Abby and neighbor Eric are also in on the goings on. As time goes on, they grow closer, to the delight of Eric, but Abby is confused and reluctant.

This is another of the shows that Netflix has axed without letting it have a decent ending. So, all we have are 3 seasons. It can be argued that is more than long enough for this show to go on, but I need some closure. From what I have heard, there are some loose ends that needs to be tied up following the season 3 finale, which turned out to be the season finale.

All that said, I love this show and not because I have grown up loving Drew Barrymore, but rather because this is something that is different from anything that we currently have available to us. A zombie comedy that at one point is almost a sitcom and then when it is time for Sheila to feed becomes a watered down version of Dexter in some ways is entertaining to me, at least. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, give it a shot sometime!