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Predator 2
🕑 Added 2022-08-05 15:27:44 +0000 UTCThere's a new Predator movie getting dumped staright to Hulu this weekend. In anticipation of the franchise's dimishing returns, we revisit the overlooked sequel to the 1987 action classic, 'Predator 2' - a film that brilliantly turns the imperialist anxieties of its predecessor inward to explore early-90s reactionary crime wave narratives and the Bush-era fixation with gang violence & emboldened police response.
We discuss the proliferation of early 90s depictions of Los Angeles as a crime-ridden helscape, the deeper symbolism of the titular monster (and what it's like to look at your reflection and see a monster), & why Danny Glover's Harrigan is the perfect choice to replace the musclebound macho action stars of the original film.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish.
Comments
Kyle Kennerson
Great ep guys. Loved the Björk at the end cause I've been listening to her a lot recently and thought my Spotify cut in haha
Jesper Ohlsson
...I feel slightly vindicated for liking this movie, as a teen, more than I did the first predator. I'm not exactly sure why - though retroactively, it makes sense that I would like "the lesser movie, with a black male lead and a woman that does "something" as opposed to nothing", in contrast to the - by now meme-obliterated first movie. I enjoyed that you picked up on Danny Glover's fashion (which I made note of even as a...I dunno...13-15 year old? I'm old, and don't remember). I wasn't sexually attracted to him, but I remember that the style and cut of his pants made it look like he had a preposterously thicc butt. Another "low-cost-sci-fi-styling" of this movie is that all the guns were memorably extremely elaborate. They were either very heavy, or outfitted with some kind of scope (as I remember it; I haven't seen the movie since I was a teen, but it's the "chunkiest handheld-gun" movie I can think of). ...I think some of the "problematic" aspects of the racial depictions is very much undermined/mitigated by having a black lead, and (as I remember it) a latino female "side-kick" that was allowed to do stuff. Politically, the movie is ridicoulous (it's as hysterical as a Death Wish-movie) , but it lands so much more softly just by virtue of having non-white leads. ....in some (probably weird way), this movie feels like the queer version of the cartoonishly straight originial. I like both, but thick-butt-50's-sweaty-slacks-weirdly-ornamented-handgun-why-is-Gary-Busey-here-voodoo-nervous-racial-US-politics-version of "The Predator" is probably always going to be my favorite. //Was a little surprised that you didn't delve a bit deeper into the real existence of LA Cop Gangs. I don't know to what extent they were known as a phenomenon at the time of filming, and it's possible that this is an aspect of LA that only got traction way after the movie was made. ...the idea of tacitly allowed gang-formation within law-enforcement is genuinely one of the darkest phenomenon I can think of.
