So I'm browsing my TV listings tonight and I realize there's nothing good to watch. A bit tired of gaming all day long, I decided to check netflix and see what they had. I'm scrolling down through the categories... Thrillers... nothing good that I don't already have in my queue... TV series... blech... Documentaries... Why the hell is there a documentary category on MY front page? I never watch the damn things... and I come across a listing for A Force of One.
A Force of One? That old chuck norris movie, you ask? Yes, that's the one. Haven't seen it in ages. So I'm chowing down on my steak and peppers, onions and shrooms (god i love shrooms, and not the hallucinogenic kind, either), and I start watching it. It doesn't take long for me to realize... this is a CHRISTMAS MOVIE! :-o
It's true. I admit it's a rare thing, a martial arts / christmas movie, but there it is. In fact, I think it's so rare that I have never before seen or heard of such a thing. And this movie isn't even that bad. One of chuck norris' better performances, by all accounts. And an actual martial arts movie, too, not an action / christmas movie, like Die Hard. What? Die Hard was a christmas movie? Of course it was. John McClane heads out to California to be at his wife's office christmas party? Yea, now you remember. Anyway, that was action/christmas, most definitely, and there WAS fighting, but the action was the focus, not the martial arts.
So I'm watching Chuck, and I remember the high point of his martial arts career was around 1969 or 1970 or so (the year i was born... yes, chuck is THAT old), and in between all the action, I'm watching the christmas decorations. Literally every scene is SPLATTERED with christmas decorations. The police station, people's homes, random shops, restaurants, there's even a bunch of christmas carolers singing on the street at one point! And I LOVE christmas, so to get a martial arts movie AND christmas all at once, is just CRAZY! I should watch this every year! :-D
Yea, i know, Chuck Norris doesn't always scream HAPPY HANUKKAH or anything, but hey, I'll take my christmas cheer where I can get it! I think this is pretty much Chuck's trio of good acting, I mean, he had his Braddock series, and I actually thought that one where he fought the demonic entity out in the desert was pretty good (can't remember the name of it... Hellbound, that was it, thanks IMDB) but there was mainly A Force of One, Silent Rage and probably the Octagon as far a all that goes. But this is quite possibly he only christmas movie that Chuck norris has ever done. lol
It's actually surprising how long christmas time lasts in this movie. I mean I don't know exactly when it was set or anything as no actual dates are even mentioned in the film, but there's a few killings and some police work and some martial arts training stuff and then some more killings and more police work and then more martial arts and then more killings and more police work and then martial arts finale, and through the WHOLE time there's decorations EVERYWHERE. They're just walking along the street and every house is decorated! Oh that explains it. According to IMDB.com, they hired Clark Griswold as scenery director (I totally just made that up). So either all this martial arts killings stuff happened in a very short span of days, OR the christmas season lasted even LONGER back in the 80's, which I find hard to believe. I started seeing commercials for xmas shit back in october this year, believe it or not. Now I can understand airing them before thanskgiving, because thanksgiving is basically just an american holiday and not a very official one at that since one of the presidents (roosevelt maybe?) just up and moved it a week earlier because he wanted more time to shop for xmas, but before HALLOWEEN? That's just pushing it.
Also, now I don't want to pick apart the movie too much but the ending was goofy. Jennifer O neill plays a policewoman, and chuck isn't even a police officer in this movie, he's just like world martial arts / mustache champion or something. And I don't want to give away the end, but the movie is 31 years old so if you really must see it for yourself and don't want it spoiled, don't read the rest of this paragraph. Chuck's about to kill the bad guy and she stops him, because as we all know, cops ruin all the fun, errr, I mean, they want to be the only ones allowed to do vengeance killings, errmm what i mean is, they don't want vigilantes running around killing people without due process (yea, that's it), so he's about to kill the baddest guy ever in the history of all bad guys (worse than snidely whiplash, even!), and she points the gun at him and stops him. Now she's practically shaking like a leaf because she almost had to shoot chuck to stop him from killing the guy (good acting on her part, i must say) and then the bad guy hops up and throws a box at chuck, which he easily destroys, and then he kills the bad guy anyway. Yea, I get that technically the bad guy was half-unconscious the first time and killing him would be murder, and the second time was technically self defense, but a box? Really? That's your excuse for killing the guy? "He threw a box at me, your honor." "But did the box hit you." "No your honor, but some fucker throws a box at me, he's got to die." "Well, yes i guess that makes sense. Case dismissed." And though she was about to shoot the shit out of him like 5 seconds earlier, the lady cop is TOTALLY OKAY with chuck killing him this time around. Yep. Doesn't even look alarmed, raise her pistol, nothing, just all smiles. Like chuck would have deserved a bullet for punching a semi-conscious guy, but once the guy throws a box, all bets are off! I'm surprised she didn't empty her gun into him at the end, screaming "THROW A BOX AT US, WILL YA? TAKE THAT MUTHAHFUCKAH BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM click click click... Goddamn box thrower! death is too good for him! (spits)"
Anyway, so by mere chance, I happened to watch a christmas movie during christmas season when i wasn't even planning to. Fun surprise! :-D
In other news, my brother is still behaving badly (and likely always will), so christmas is kind of fucked up this year. I don't want to be around him, basically because he thinks my sister and I are the root of all his problems and we should die (and yes i am pretty sure he is thinking that very thing, no exaggeration), and also because he's the only adult I've ever actually had a fistfight with, so he certainly enjoys violence with his family gatherings. Not just one occasion, either, but several fights. I mean seriously, sure, siblings squabble, it's a given, as kids they may even brawl a bit, but civilized people do not just start throwing punches at each other unless they are both professional boxers, you know what I mean? Who the hell does that anymore? I suppose that sort of christmas is more in tune with severely dysfunctional families the world over, but I have no desire to ruin what is normally a wonderful holiday for me by inviting a violent drunkard over for the holidays. Unfortunately, my mother, god bless her (it's just an expression, I don't actually believe in god), is so weirded out by the idea that one of her precious offspring could be fucked in the head, that she literally will NOT have holiday meals over at our house anymore if she can't have him here. Which, for years was a christmas tradition. Now I'm not trying to make her decide between the two of us (like my brother tried to force me to do with my sister, and i chose her instead of him), but I simply can't risk the very real possibility of multiple contusions and possibly broken bones for the holidays just because my mother wants to invite her oldest son. So, there's that awkwardness to deal with this year. I can't even talk to her about it, either, my mom is totally buttoned up on the whole issue. I mean it's one thing if she's too old or tired to do the holiday meals anymore, and she's 80, so i get that, but I offered to cook the meal myself next year (hey I have a year to learn how to cook it) and she was all like "but then your brother will have to be there, you cooking for him too?" So she nixed that idea right off. And don't ask me why she HAS to invite him to every holiday, either, but it's her house. Oh well. I guess I find somewhere else to spend my holidays after this one! Had to happen eventually. So much for mom's apple pie. Somehow she still managed to invite him over to our house on xmas to get her gifts, so my xmas is pretty much fucked now because of the risk the asshole will start something. And he ALWAYS starts something, so it's not even a risk, more of a certainty. Ah now i know what people mean when they say the stress of the holidays is a real killer. At least we're having xmas dinner at my one sister's house, so i get a small reprieve while I eat, at least.
Well, to all the people out there who don't have to deal with a violent drunkard who wants them dead on their holiday family gatherings, Merry Xmas and Happy New Year if i don't post again between now and then! Hopefully everyone will have something nice to look forward to this season and this coming year. :-) Enjoy your holidays however you can, with whomever you wish! Because, come on... Life's way too short to put up with all this bullshit, isn't it?
On the plus side, the world is supposed to end in a day or two! lol Hmmm maybe I better download my xmas games early so I have time to play them before the end. lol Obviously, I don't believe any of the world's-ending predictions out there. Although there is that whole risk of a meteor actually smashing into the earth at some point, but that's as likely to happen a billion years from now as it is in the next few days, so I'm not really planning on that one just yet.
Which brings me to another point as I close out this post... Doomsday preppers. Seriously? If the WORLD ENDS, you really think stashing a few canned goods and flashlight batteries is going to help you? I mean, the only instance whereby that's going to help, is if the WORLD is still here after whatever might happen, happens. So basically what you are prepping for isn't doomsday, but an event whereby most of the humans on the surface die, but somehow, you are spared. At which point, you'll live for another week or two, then your food will run out, go bad, or you'll die of some injury or sickness that was once easily cured with a hospital visit but is now fatal because you can't go to the ER anymore. But hey! Enjoy that extra two weeks in the underground shelter while you slowly starve, suffocate or die of illness, despairing and alone the whole time since you are one of the few people who didn't die right away. Have an extra ration of creamed corn just for the hell of it! lol
