12 Monkeys: A Movie I Watched for Some Reason

Editor's note: The thought of spending any more time on this fucking movie has stalled this post many weeks. The photos I've ultimately chosen to accompany this write-up demonstrate the fact that I just want it all to be over and also my disappointment that this movie is really not about monkeys.

Guys, today has wrought much caffeine and booze and caffeine/booze. Let's try to ride just the booze out on this one since I don't want to die and it's nearly 1 a.m. so I PROBABLY shouldn't have even more caffeine. I just ate the second half of a frozen pizza, so we'll see how it goes. I've never seen the movie or any of the new TV show, so let's time travel this shit! 12 Monkeys of 1995 when I was in late elementary school!

Deadly virus 1997. Survivors underground. Animals rule. Says a person with schizophrenia in 1990. Monkey spiral behind credits. Hey, remember going to the movies? That's a kind of cool thing sometimes. A kid watches a mass shooting in a airport, I think. Bruce Willis wakes up. Chain link cell. He's been called up for something. Some kind of giant prison. Probably going to die. A big hook reaches down for him. He's in a prep room putting on numerous layers of anti-contamination/protection suit things. He's carrying some suitcases and stuff is sprayed on him in a tube. He goes through a door and is moved down a tube. Now we're in a dark, broken down part of the factory thing, I guess. Bruce emerges on the snowy surface out of a manhole.

The city looks broken down. There's snow, a cockroach, and rotted-out looking buildings. Bruce collects a cockroach. He is scared by a legit BEAR. Nature's taken the city back, but the bear ends up walking away. Bruce investigates some kind of abandoned department store and collects a spider specimen for science. Birds are disturbed. He breathes his artificial air and walks through a snowy, broken city populated by an owl, a fucking lion, and finds something on the ground. A message: "We did it" with a red monkey symbol. Bruce is back and gets scrubbed down with a literal broom. He injects himself with some shit. He gets led as a prisoner ("volunteer") to a council of some kind. He, Mr. Cole, has been committed to a sentence of 25-life for antisocial somethingorather. The council has him sit down in what looks like an electric chair. It's very narrow. He's trapped in. The council appreciates him volunteering--doing observations topside to reduce his sentence.

Baltimore 1990. Some kind of lecture in an art gallery. A lady in all black drops her pager, almost disrupting the lecture. An overcrowded prison. Our lady comes to the prison to see a "crazy" prisoner. No drugs in his system, in restraints. He's rocking, alone. Our lady wants to find him. He's not in their system, not by fingerprints or anything. It's our friend Bruce, beat up and drooling, wearing a plastic suit. She's a psychiatrist here to help him. She wants to call him James. He wants to get out and gather information. He's upset about chains. He admits he's been locked up before, but underground. He thinks he's in 1996, but it's 1990.

The cops are transferring him to another facility. He's confused by the sunshine. They scrub him down and we see his ass again. The orderlies call him "Jimbo." He's dressed and led into the common room. We see Brad Pitt in PJs and a sweater and awesome shoes. The orderly says he'll give Pitt $5000 to show Jimbo around. It's like, a velour suit he's rocking. Pitt is clearly not with it. There are so many board games to play. He says, "If you play the games, you're voluntarily taking a tranquilizer." Jimbo wants a phone call. Pitt says they'd spread the crazy if they were allowed to access the outside world. They're not crazy, he says, just "part of the system." Consumers, blahblahblah. Pitt's name is Jeffrey. A nurse yells at him. He loves to thumbs-up. A guy in a tux says he's not really from outer space. Jeffrey yells at somebody in his chair. Why is this space, like, carved into an adobe cave? Tux claims he's mentally divergent. OKAY, DIFFERENT FRANCHISE.

James Cole tells a (1990) panel he's not "crazy." He won't hurt anyone. He talks about the Army of the 12 Monkeys. Nobody knows what he's talking about. The orderly dude is wearing a red fanny pack. The '90s, right? Cole says most of humanity died in 1996-7. He wants info to trace the path of the virus. He really wants to call a scientist. The lady psych says okay. Phone call to a phone number with a black family with a bunch of kids running around. No voice mail. Lady doc believes him. He was the kid who saw the airport attack. He had braces on. It's too soon for that phone number. He should be in 1996. Jeffrey tells James they're locked and welded in. This asylum is in a cool-ass building with a circular dorm. "Crazy is majority rules," Jeffrey says. Starts rambling about germs. Jim finds a spider. He ends up eating it, I think. Jeff says he can get him out and laughs with googly eyes. Jeffrey says his dad will send you to a classy asylum. He moons the guards. The pillows are all feathers. So many feathers.

Video of a monkey trying to get out of a cage. Sad people playing with bubbles. "We're all monkeys," says Jeff. Jim wonders if he was hurt. Video of bunnies being tested on/tortured. Jim is writing something in crayon, claims it's private. They give him meds. Later, the Marx Brothers' "Monkey Business" is on TV. Jeff has a literal key. Jim is all spaced out on drugs. Animal morphing on the TV. Jeff starts freaking out and creating a distraction for Jim. Throwing, running, riling up the other patients. Jim has the key, but is still pretty spaced out on the drugs they gave him. God, how horrible. I hope I never end up there. I'm not ruling it out. He unlocks the gates. All the guards are reading tabloids and distracted, so he can just walk out, I guess? Batboy issues. His white robe doesn't look unlike a lab coat. He finds the working elevator and goes down. All the dude doctors tease the lady doctor about James Cole. They find he's escaped. He stumbles into an MRI room. Orderlies approach. He's still very drugged. Scrapes on his head. The orderlies grab him and he fights.

Lady doctor orders a sedative, but he doesn't want more drugs. Screaming about "no more drugs" doesn't really work when he's tied down on a gurney. The other docs are lecturing Kathryn, the lady doctor. Oh, somehow he's escaped the facility. Little Jim sees the guy in the airport who gets shot and it's ponytailed Jeff. Jim wakes up in the cell and hears somebody talking to him. No clear origin for the voice. It seems Jim is back in the present. Jim is back in front of the panel in the tall metal chair He couldn't make a call. He says it was all the wrong year. They ask if he saw anyone in a slide show, and he recognizes Jeff. They are disappointed, but ask if he wants another chance to reduce his sentence.

Jim is in some kind of machine with wires and plastic and a weird leather loincloth. The council tells him "No mistakes this time, Cole." They say he'll be sent to the third quarter of 1996 this time. War. Trenches. Gas masks. It looks pretty WWI-ish to me with the long coats and stuff. He shows up, naked. Jose recognizes Clay. Yelling, air attacks, gunshot in leg.

Baltimore November 1996. Dr. K gives a talk, discussing Revelation and has some pretty sweet slides. The people don't wear a very wide variety of colors. She talks about mustard gas attacks. A photo of Jose, he claimed he was from the future and spoke English, not French like his compatriots. He said he was from 1996 and disappeared from the hospital. Cassandra Complex. A guy with a pink shirt and a bolo tie in the audience. Art gallery douches after the lecture. Pink shirt has fake red hair. So creepy. "The planet cannot outlast the excesses of the human race." Kathryn laughs politely at him while others hand her books to sign. Not-new snow as she goes to her car. Someone attacks her and forces her into the car to drive. I think he's holding a knife to her neck. She starts driving and he directs her. He demands they head toward Philadelphia. He can't drive 100 miles, he was born underground and can't drive. She realizes who he is: Jim! He hurt his leg and has been sleeping on the street. He hasn't been stalking her, he just found a flier for her talk. I think I might be flagging on this, one hour in.

Cole doesn't understand that the radio ad isn't really a special message for him. "Blueberry Hill" comes on and everybody in the car is teary-eyed for different reasons. Jim breathes the outside air. "It's a Wonderful World" now. Jimbo is tired. Next day, authorities are tracking him and Kathryn down. Jim wakes up in a motel room from the flashback to cartoons on TV. He's wearing dirty coveralls. He tells Kathryn that her hair is different in the dream he just had. She's tied up in sheets. She thinks he has a fever. He's limping from that WWI gunshot. On the news, a kid has been trapped in a well. The media is tracking Kathryn and James.

Back on the road. He's got a notebook to help guide him to the Army of the 12 Monkeys who will spread the virus so he can get info for the future to help make an antidote. The well kid is supposedly actually hiding in a barn, according to Jim. In Philly, Jim sees 12 Monkeys graffiti. Kathryn considers driving away. A homeless man tells them they can't escape, they've got tracking devices in their teeth. More red 12 Monkeys graffiti on top of everything. Jim makes Kathryn come into a sketchy building with him. It's an old abandoned theater. Violent fights appear to be happening. James and Kathryn are attacked. James ends up being able to fight them off before the one dude can rape her. He stomps him a lot and is sad about doing it. Kathryn is scared. "I've seen dead people," Jim says. He's got a gun now. He pulls Kathryn along down the street. They find a corner shop labeled "FAA" and go inside. There are plants and in there and lots of animals noises. A tape!

Jim says he's looking for the Army of the 12 Monkeys and the activists claim they don't know anything. He pulls a gun. He finds out Jeff is into guerrilla activism. But after saying they're going to human-hunt, Jeff says he'll take over his dad (the virologist)'s lab experiments on animals. Reading this later, I can't reinterpret my description of this scene to make sense, so let's just move on. Kathryn drives off in a Volvo with Jim, who's looking through the animal people's rolodex. Kathryn finds out he's got a bullet wound. They stop at a rural gas station for medical supplies. She takes out the bullet. She "smells so good." Is he going to rape her?

Next we see Jim hiding on (in?) a Range Rover at a fancy event. The gun lies abandoned. Inside the mansion, a fancy banquet. Jeff's douche dad gives a speech. Jeff sleeps in the back of the room, wearing a ponytail, mustache, and glasses. He gets called out of the meeting. He picks up his shoes and leaves with the guy. Jim's asked for Jeff, who has the best crazy brown eyes. He says he's there about some monkeys. Jeff starts calling Jim "Arnie" now. Jim knows he can't stop him, but he wants access to the pure virus. Jim tells him in the future "we live like dogs and cats." Jeff wildly yells at him as security tries to lead him out. Jim jumps and lands on his injured leg.

On the news, a monkey is lowered into the missing kid's well with a sandwich (WTF? Just lower the fucking sandwich). It also says a body has been found somewhere and it may by Kathryn. Mansion security finds no one in the kitchen. Jim runs through the woods to the car and lets Kathryn out of the trunk. She is pissed because of how she could've died in there and starts punching him. Jim is upset because Jeff claimed the virus was Jim's idea in the institution. The police close in on them. Suddenly Jim disappears. Really young SVU guy. She says Jim needs help, but he did save her life. Back at home, Kathryn can't sleep. She's being guarded by numerous cops. She finds out the kid in the well was actually hiding in a barn. JUST LIKE JIM SAID.

Back to the future, the panel sings "Blueberry Hill" and are very pleased with his work. They say with a little more work, he can get his pardon for his crimes. There are creepy teddy bears on his blanket. He tells the council they're just in his mind and he wants to get well. They inject him as he crazy-laughs. Kathryn tries to tell her supervisor that Jim may really know what is really going to happen. Jim wakes up in the hospital bed and hears the whispers again. He saw the whisperer as a crazy homeless man in 1996. The voice keeps calling him Bob and tells him Jim wants to see that sky and ocean and to be with "her." Kathryn can't sleep soundly. The phone rings. It's the douchey Philly detective again. The bullet from Jim's thigh was from the 1920s at the latest. She goes to a WWI book and finds a photo of Jose. On her crazy wall of photos and notes she finds a pic of Jim reaching towards Jose's body.

Jim is being interrogated by the council again. He says he has experience, so he should go back to the past. He regrets saying the council wasn't real. Jeff's dad chuckles about a monkey army on the phone as animal testing occurs all around him. "Women psychiatrists," Jeff's dad mutters. The pink shirt/bolo tie guy from earlier is working in the lab. Maybe they should upgrade their security? The council, with their plastic-covered lab coats interrogates Jim about the virus sources. Kathryn tries to get into the FAA office. The homeless guy is back. He pretends now he doesn't know who James is. The activists are doing something. Jeff is inside writing things down. He knows Kathryn was his psychiatrist. She spray-paints their building in red until James shows up. He's cold but wants to turn himself in. He claims he wants to get better. She starts to lead him away from the cops she knows are watching. "Is this the source? What is the virus? 5000000 die?" on the wall. Jim's seen it before in the future. Honking.

Jeff tries to justify how Kathryn knows about the 12 Monkey Army. He's NOT okay. Stupid stocking cap. I love dystopianly gritty 1996 America. Kathryn and Jim slink around homeless ghetto areas. James coughs at this $35/hour hotel. The hotel guy is curious about Kathryn and calls somebody. Kathryn's trying to figure out how Jim disappeared before. He keeps claiming the future's in his mind and can manipulate them to get back to 1996. She shows him the WWI photo he's in. "I want the future to be unknown and I want to be a whole person again," he says. She hugs him. Strokes his neck barcode. She asks if he remembers the old phone number from their first encounter. A ridiculous pimp busts into their room. He says it's his territory and attacks Kathryn. Jim beats him with the old timey phone. The other ladies freak out and say nothing to the police. James has cut out his vulnerable teeth--they may be tracking him. "I don't want to go back, ever." They've escaped.

Kathryn and James both dab their bleeding faces as they get off a bus. They go to find a phone. Kathryn's going to try that number on a public phone. Jim recognizes a building. He sees a bear statue. Kathryn is excited. She left a message for a "carpet cleaning" business. He knows the message. Uh-oh. It grows dark. They buy new clothes. The (12 Monkey) Army has a plan and a sketchy bus. They've kidnapped Jeff's dad. "Biohazard" tape on his eyes. He says he took steps after Kathryn talked to him and no longer has virus access. Jeff says it's too late and that also, he's not insane.

Vertigo is playing in the theater.* Kathryn says they have to try to change things. She puts a fake mustache on his face. Somebody shushes them as she gives him a wig and says if he is crazy, in a few weeks, if the outbreak hasn't started, then it doesn't matter. Something about the ocean. A zoo. Jeff's dad looks for him. A scene from The Birds. Is this some kind of Hitchcock festival? Blonde Kathryn in the airport. Jim finds Kathryn in the lobby with a blonde wig. It's her. They have tickets to Key West. She feels as though she's always known him with a mustache and sketchy beard. They embrace. He's so scared. Animals let loose in the morning. Elephants, tigers, monkeys. A bear. The Army let the animals out, a taxi driver tells them. Kathryn thinks it's all going to be okay. The cops are looking for Kathryn and Jim. Jim says this airport is from his dream. DUHHH. She wants to hide him. Sends him to fix his mustache. They kiss, awkwardly. She goes to get their tickets.

WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING. Jim knows now it wasn't the Army who caused the virus. It was someone else, as he tells the carpet cleaners' answering machine. Who is it? The redheaded dude with the bolo tie! Jim re-glues his mustache. Somebody in the bathroom tells him he doesn't belong there. Jim runs into Jose. The future council has found him from his phone message. Jim tries to give him a gun. Kathryn almost recognizes the redheaded dude.  Jose's supposed to kill Kathryn. The pardon's not about the virus at all. Redhead due has weird shit in his bag. Giant vials. "Biological samples" he says. The TSA guy wants to open it. Kid James. Redhead opens one vial. The security people don't want to let Kathryn and James through. Redhead's already opened the shit. She tries to point redhead out. Little James watches Grown James get shot by the police before he can shoot redhead. Kathryn screams and tries to stop the bleeding. James mouths something as his younger self watches him die. Kathryn cries. She sees Little James, who is also crying.

Redhead gets on the plane. LIKE THEY WOULDN'T SHUT DOWN ALL FLIGHTS IF THERE WERE A SHOOTING IN THE TERMINAL WHAT IS THIS MOVIE PRE-9/11 WHAT. The woman next to him in First Class is from the future council. "We're the next endangered species." She's in insurance. Little James watches the plane lift off. THE END.

Okay, whatever. This whole thing has been kind of a chore.


*My first proper outing with my first boyfriend was to a free campus showing of Vertigo in early April 2003 and we held hands very intimately and he put this awesome song on the first mix CD he made me. 

Sci-Fi Classics: Live-Blogging "The Abyss"

This is an undersea movie. LET'S GET WET, 1989-style!

Can you dig it? They can! (For oil, underwater.)

A submarine. Dudes are talking about "Reds." It's the '80s! Cold War party!!!!! Some sort of proximity warning. Numbers. "Nothing goes 130 knots." Something's going to collide with them. It's a light or something? Did they just go through an underground warp zone? Collision blahblahblah. Fire, yelling, water leaks. I would never voluntarily get on a submarine. Almost as bad as a spaceship. Drowning/suffocation is inevitable. The ship is sinking. The captain says, "Launch the boy" I think he means "buoy." The ship is penetrated and water gets all over them and they scream and sink and die.

You didn't know this movie had royalty, did you?

Helicopters land on an aircraft carrier. A LADY arrives. "Queen bitch of the universe," some douche calls her. The lady says they're turning the wreck over to the "goon squad." I don't really know what's happening. Underwater dudes are looking around at something. Ed Harris is their boss. He gets a video call. It's the Navy calling. Their underground drilling company is apparently being utilized to investigate the sinking. They're going to pay them pretty well because they can get there before the Navy's salvage ships can and there's a storm coming or something. Ed Harris is Not Pleased they have to do this. The lady is pissed their submersible drilling rig she designed is being used for something else. She and Ed Harris are exes or something. She is on another submersible or something. I don't know, I don't really care. She doesn't want to be called "ma'am" by her team. She's worried they won't all make it to the right depth. Oh my god, I just don't care. The dudes are Navy Seals, I think. Their commander has a mustache. He's getting the hand-shaking symptoms of water pressure-itis or whatever as they arrive on the oil rig ship thing.

Guys, I hope the dramatic stakes in this movie helps these two near-exes forget all the very good reasons they are breaking up  and postpone their divorce for a few years!

She does not like to be called "Mrs. whatever." No one likes Lindsey. She's worked on this project for four years, and she and her ex were together three. Ed Harris drops his wedding ring in a toilet, but then changes his mind. His hand's all blue from fishing it out of the chemical-y toilet water. The crew is worried about radiation from the crashed sub. Mustache Navy dude is stern. Ed Harris is resentful. One of the Seals shows the nerdy crew guy how the weird fluid they breathe at very deep depths works on his rat, forcibly. They're all going down two and half miles into The Abyss. Lindsey's down to her tank top to pilot a ship. The little exploratory ships have reached the wreck. Not much sign of radiation. There are dudes in diving suits, but not sure where they are, since it's just ships investigating the ship right now. Oh, okay now they're going.  They're launching an ROV. Isaac is questioning some of the water pressure science happening here. The second woman in this movie is a butch black lady.

SRSLY though, how awesome would it be if they busted into some sweet underwater choreography up on that platform?

The sub had a ton of warheads on it. The divers are going to enter the sub through the pressure hold breach. They are now inside exploring. They have to break into some compartment where they find the bodies. Be cool, bro. Do they really think they're going to find survivors? In the missile compartment, Jammer sees sea spiders crawl out of a dude's mouth. He kind of freaks out. Ed Harris is going to stay on the other end of this orange rope from him, no problem. They have to make sure that they clear any compartments that might have air. Jammer's flashlight goes out and he loses voice contact with Bud (Ed). He tugs on the rope until it gets cut off on something. He's freaking the fuck out. Weird lights are maybe happening? Shitty keyboard choral music. Jammer tries to get away. Jammer is seizing. They think too much oxygen. Bud tries to fix the mixture.

Lindsey's ship shuts down and she sees a ball of light flit out from the crash site. It's like a pink sea bug thing? Her power comes back on and she has to go save the divers. Seal: "Look, I'm just a medic." Jammer's going to be in a coma, I guess. Lindsey's developing some film. Bud asks her what she saw. She doesn't want to say. She doesn't know what it is. The Seals think it could've been a Russian bogey. They're ordered to move to "Phase 2" which involves arming a warhead. The TV news claims it was a Russian ship that sank the sub. On the surface it's stormy. Cuban and Russian ships are monitoring shit. "Hippy," the rat guy, is nervous. The Seals have stolen a craft, I think. The hurricane on the surface is all hurricaney. It's dangerous for the dudes to be swimming right now or something. They follow arming directions from a "SECRET" set of directions. Mustache's hand shakes again. He wants no one to touch his bag full of nuclear warhead. The black lady is being sent down to do something else now.

If you were going to costume a butch oil rig worker, this is exactly what you'd pick out, isn't it?

She's trying to disconnect some umbilical cable, but the water currents are like intense or whatever. The rig is being pulled to the abyss. Topside, the winch gets destroyed, so that's not good. They're not connected to the top anymore. Sirens and lights in the rig. Whatshername's ship almost gets hit by crane parts. Hippy puts his rat in a ziploc bag to protect him. The crane crashes down right next to the rig. Uh-oh, now it's falling over the edge and it's going to pull them down, too. Ruh-roh! Sparks, fires, water leaks. Lindsey finds an oxygen mask. A Seal yells to Hippy to seal a room that has flames. Is his warhead going to go off? Hippy's rat in a bag starts to float away and he grabs it right before a little ship crashes into a doorway. Another dude gets smooshed under it in some water, I think? I don't know. Whatever. Water crashes into some room. Someone? seals the door and they're trapped, drowning.  Bud can't open it. The hose has to be cut inside. Water starts to crash down on him too and he runs. His fingers get smashed in an automatic door as water fills in behind him. A couple of the other dudes cut the hose motors and try to pry him out. He gets out and water pours in after him. They get to another chamber and are able to shut the hatch. His wedding ring kept his finger from getting actually smashed. SYMBOLISM?

The team can't reach anybody on the radio. Mustache tells Bud he was under orders and had no choice about something. Lindsey is trying to fix some shit. They're not going to have heat or enough oxygen to outlast the storm. Bud's glad she's here. She's not. She has to go outside to do something reparative. The video feed from the ROV with her keeps cutting out. The power goes out. The weird pink glowy thing comes up behind her. It's like a glowing ship/fish with lights and other stuff inside. It goes away and the mother ship comes up out of the Abyss. It's mostly pink and glowing and clear and has flashy lights. It's checking her out and making whirring/purring noises. She pets it? It starts to move away and then suddenly jets when she tries to take a picture. The little one is playful. Once they're gone, the power comes back.

Lindsey tries to explain what she saw. She says it's not human and it's intelligent. Hippy is pumped about UFOs. Underwater. UUFO. UUSwimmingO? Bud pulls her aside and accuses her of inciting hysteria. SEXIST. She tries to describe how it glided and was beautiful. It was a living machine. She needs Bud to believe her. "We all see what we want to see," she says. The Seals see Russians. Bud is not feeling it.

The Seals are doing surgery on the missile they recovered. An ROV looks in their window. Hippy's spying on them. He records the video feed on VHS. Hippy seems like he pretty much knows what's up. Lindsey overhears and is pissed. She tries to break into the Seals' room. She uncovers their missile and is PISSED that it's on her rig. Mustache sweats and tells her to make an about-face. A Seal grabs Lindsey and Bud puts on an alarm to alert the others. Mustache is named Coffey, but I'm going to keep calling him Mustache. Mustache is also played by Michael Biehn, Designated Sexy Dude in '80s Sci Fi Films, but with sinister facial hair here. Mustache's shaky hand was gripping a handgun. He says they can't trust the crew."We're going to have to take steps." Doesn't sound good. Hippy tells everyone Mustache's hand is shaking.

Lindsey wants to send down another ROV to get evidence that it's not Russians down there before the Seals mistakenly nuke the ocean. Mustache watches her argue about it with Hippy on a security monitor and hears everything they're saying. The crew tries to get some sleep. Hippy gets the ROV ready to go explore and then goes to bed. A pink light comes into the diving pool. A shape forms out of the water and moves down a hallway on the rig. It opens a hatch and sees people sleeping. It finds Lindsey and she tries to wake up Bud as a weird water worm looks at them. Butch Black Lady wakes up. They also wake up the bearded dude. He's about to throw a plant at it. It's looking at Lindsey. The end of the pillar of water mimics her face. 1989 CGI! It's not bad. Then it makes Bud's face. She touches it and tastes it, Mulder-style. It's seawater. Then the pillar retreats and they run after it. There is playful music playing. Isaac calls it whimsical. The water worm has found the warhead. Mustache and his surviving bro see the originating end of it at the pool and shut a door, cutting it in half. It retreats back into the ocean. Nice one, Mustache. RUDE.

"So raise your hand if you think that was a Russian water tentacle." Nice one, Queen Bitch! Mustache is so sweaty and paranoid looking. Eyes very shifty. Hippy thinks Lindsey saw their ships earlier. Mustache is slicing stripes into his arm with a big ol' knife. He tells his guy, "It went straight for the warhead, and they think it's cute." Inaccurate. There is a stuffed Garfield with suction limbs on their porthole. Mustache is arming himself. He's freaking out because they have no contact to the surface and it's all up to them now. This is going to end so well, you guys. Hippy makes his way down to the pool and sees that the Seals have armed his ROV with the newly-armed warhead. Mustache catches him lurking. The Seals pull guns on the whole crew. There's a Coke fountain machine. Mustache grabs his injured bro to help. Lindsey tries to talk to him and he throws her.  He puts duct tape on her face and throws everybody in the kitchen. There's three hours on the warhead's timer. Injured Seal says they don't have enough time to get a minimum safe distance away by then and Mustache disarms him. THINGS ARE SO FUCKING GOOD.

The injured dude tries to convince his Navy bro not to comply with Mustache's fake crazy orders. Jammer is awake and lets everybody out of the kitchen. He thinks he saw an angel down there. Mustache has tied up the door wheel thing. They have to find another way to sub-bay. Bud is going to swim to Hatch 6. Lindsey is worried he'll freeze. Beard's going to go with him. They strip down and go under. They're, like, legit outside right now. They find the hatch they want and open it. There's some air at the top of the pressure hatch. Beard is going to stay here while Bud goes on to some other place. Oh, he swims up into their pool. He sees Mustache playing with some chains and tries to quietly pull himself out. He's so cold. The crew is duct taping one of the Seals up. As the crew watches on a security monitor, Bud approaches Mustache with a large blunt object. Mustache pulls his gun and the trigger, but it either isn't loaded or malfunctions. They hit each other. Apparently the taped-up Seal took out his bullets. But now they're in a knife fight. Mustache gets the upper hand and starts choking Bud. Apparently Beardo made it through the water too and punches Mustache off Bud. Mustache jumps into one of the little ships and they try to pull the armed ROV off as he drives it away.

Let us not worry about which plot points have brought his shirt to this state, just appreciate the gifts you've been given..

Beardo shoots at the ship in the pool. Bud puts on an underwater suit and gives chase. Lindsey gets in a ship to follow also. Mustache is NOT looking good. He's stuck or something and Bud is able to start trying to take the thing off. He ties a rope to the ROV just before Mustache releases it. He ties it to the rig. Mustache better have some giant scissors on there. His pincers are not very good when he crashes into the building. He elbows to death a tape player that just started playing. Mustache starts chasing Bud himself. His torn shirt keeps getting more and more messed up.  It's half a shirt now. Lindsey crashes her lil ship into Mustache's. Mustache's has a fire. She picks up Bud but not before he says "I'm comin', Baby. Keep your pantyhose on." You should continue to divorce him. The rope comes undone, but they're able to grab it with the sub's arm until Mustache rams them and they lose "Geek," the little ROV. A chase ensues.

Ramming, Bud giving "Baby" directions. She causes a minor avalanche to get in Mustache's way and then rams him while he can't see and crashes him into some rocks. The two little subs are now stuck together and Mustache's is going over the edge. It doesn't pull theirs, though. He falls and then his craft implodes. The craft Bud and Lindsey are in is all broken. They won't be able to catch Big Geek in this. They're being flooded in the meantime. He's got a wetsuit on, but she's really cold. They should share a suit. She won't survive before he swims to the rig and back. He wants her to put the air helmet on and swim, but she wants him to wear the whole suit and pull her body back. She says she can be revived with hypothermia. He is reluctant, but it makes the most sense. He kisses her. She's cold and crying and about to drown. She's pretty dead and he's pulling her body back to the rig. The crew preps all the first aid stuff. They pull her out and start shocking her and stuff. They put hot packs all over her and pump air into her. Also, we see her really cold boobs. Bud keeps trying compressions, but she's gone. They didn't actually try the adrenaline shot he asked for. She's pretty blue. Maybe the sea alien will cure her. Bud freaks out and keeps trying CPR. They shock her again. He yells and slaps her to fight. He shakes her and she starts to breathe. She coughs and they all laugh. HAHA NEAR DEATH, AMIRITE?

She wakes up again later and they stroke each other's faces. How much longer until the warhead goes off? Okay, now they're prepping Bud to go disarm it, there's about an hour left. He has to wear contacts to see through the weird breathing fluid. They're putting weights on him to drop him to the bottom. He can't talk with the fluid, but he'll have a keyboard and can hear them talk. It's kind of freaky when he has to adjust to the liquid inside the helmt. Supposedly your body will remember breathing liquid in the womb.

He's calmer now and says it feels weird. He's basically wearing a full-on space suit. One of the dudes is wearing a Packers letterman jacket. OBVIOUSLY. Bud's holding onto a little tiny ROV and it's going to lead him straight to Big Geek with the warhead. Bud goes off the edge and lets Little Geek and the weights take him down in to the Abyss. Bud's currently setting a record for the deepest suit dive. He's one mile down and occasionally bumping off the side. He's having hand shaking stuff. The team wants Lindsey to talk to him, emotionally. Gross.

Ugh, worst almost-ex-wife ever, amirite?

She talks to him at 12,000 feet. He can't type right. She tells him to listen to her voice. Little Geek breaks and Bud keeps falling. He bounces off the cliff wall and tumbles down. He's got a flare to light the way. Lindsey tries to talk him through. "I'm with you. I'll always be with you." OH WHO'S NOT GETTING A DIVORCE NOW? Beardo chimes in. Bud finally types back that he feels a little better. He sees lights. The Seal guy thinks he's hallucinating, but it's the aliens. The Navy guy will tell him how to disable the bomb. Bud's flare goes out and now he's using a glow stick. Underwater rave! This green light isn't helping him see the right light colors on the wires. He almost cuts one and then tries the other, maybe? No explosion. He only has five minutes left on his air mixture, but it took him thirty to get down there. Lindsey wants him to head back now, but he says he knew this was a one way ticket. "love you wife" he texts. She loves him blahblahblah. I guess he's just going to chill by the lights now and wait to die.

Bud sees some pink lights come at him. A thing that looks like a glowing manta ray comes towards him. An alien dude looks at him from inside (I think) and extends a hand. It has only three fingers and flaps him away to their underground city or whatever. Inspirational music. Not great CGI here, but good for 1989. They fly down into a tunnel. Bud is getting sleepy. He lands somewhere and it seems like they're making him an oxygen room by moving the water away. He takes off his helmet to breathe. He throws up the water mixture stuff and coughs a bit. He takes off the air tanks and sees some of the glowy ray dudes floating next to the water wall. "Howdy." They show him his last messages again. Choral-type musicks. He salutes them. An alien face fades into clouds in front of the sun. Triumphant music.

The ship on the surface is trying to contact the rig now. They debate how to get them back. Suddenly, they get a message from Bud. He's okay and has new friends. Suddenly the rig starts to shake. Pink light approaches. The big ship is rising up out of the deep. It rises out of the water and is a big purple/pink thing rising up underneath their ship. It's the whole spaceship. All the dudes are like, WTF? The rig is on top of it, too. The survivors climb out. "We should be dead," Lindsey says. "We didn't decompress." Bud climbs out of tunnel with his arms raised triumphantly. They walk to each other and start to make out.

Blahblahblah the end. So long. Literally, I'm not saying goodbye, that movie was just so. long. Ugh, James Cameron, get an editor.

Sci-Fi Classics: The Terminator

Okay, I've never seen this shit and this disc has been sitting here for over a month, so it's time I guess: The Terminator (1984).  Hadn't gotten to it in the past three decades, I guess.

Cheesy dark post-apocalyptic landscape. A model tank rolls over skulls on the ground. Robot things shoot lasers. Ships in the sky shooting lasers. "The machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire" says the screen text. The machines are going to come back to our time to destroy humanity once and for all or something. Pretty sweet '80s special effects.

Okay, post-credits I believe we're in the present day. Los Angeles 1984 1:52 a.m. A guy driving a dump truck is picking up garbage. Apparently he missed a bunch on the ground, too. Now the trash is blowing and his truck is being struck by lightning or something. On the ground nearby we see NAKED SCHWARZENEGGAR! He does not have the body of a real person. Remember when he was governor of California? How does a guy have muscles like that? More ass shot as he walks to the edge of the building and observes the city lights. Drunk punks fight over an observatory thingy. Is that one guy the alien bounty hunter? Blue hair might be Bill Paxton. [I checked, it was.] Naked Dude demands their clothes. There's resistance and then stabbing.

Like L.A.'s homeless population doesn't have enough problems as it is.

In a trash-filled alley, a drunk bum tries to avoid more lightning. Another naked dude appears on the pavement. HOT. Apparently time travel gives this guy a five o-clock shadow and back scars. Very brief ass shot. He gets pants from the bum and cops start to chase him because he's a naked guy in an alley, I guess. He is too fast for L.A.'s finest. He jumps out on the cop and demands the date from him at gunpoint. May somethingth, but he doesn't get the year before the squad car pulls up. He runs into some kind of giant department (thrift?) store or something. I hope he finds a nice ladies' jacket to transfer his soul into. Conveniently this place is full of clothes and some sweet Nike shoes for him. Our blond no-longer naked guy climbs off the fire escape like he's in fucking Cirque du Soleil and steals a shotgun from the cop car. How does he know how to use all this antique weaponry? Did they make you take that class before you're allowed to time travel? He just looks like a really ripped bum with no shirt under his trench coat now. He also apparently knows how to use a phone book. WHAT IS THIS, THE '80S? Oh yeah, it is.

In the most '80s scene possible, our heroine pulls up to work at the burger place on her scooter with AMAZING high-waisted, pleated, black acid washed Guess jeans. She's our Sarah Connor. Schwarz shows up somewhere with a giant chain/studded leather jacket that somehow fits him, breaks the window on a car, and is able to basically hot-wire it. Sarah Connor is bad at waitressing/the customers are all assholes. So much feathered hair. A small child puts ice cream in her apron pocket. Awesome. Fellow waitress: "Look at it this way, in 100 years, who's gonna care?" Schwarz goes into a gun store to buy some guns, included an Uzi. He's very familiar with these guns. The store owner tells him there's a 15 day wait on handguns, but rifles can be bought right now. OBVIOUSLY, GUN LAWS YOU MAKE SENSE/KEEP ERRYBODY SAFE. Meanwhile, Schwarz loads the Uzi and blows the clerk away. In an alley, the blond guy saws off his rifle. Schwarz throws a guy who I'm pretty sure is Hagrid out of a phone booth and looks up Sarah Connor in the phone book, too. He pulls up to a house and a small dog barks, like, a bunch. A lady opens the door but doesn't take the chain off. He breaks in anyway as she identifies herself as Sarah Connor. He shoots her in the head.

First I have to travel through time and battle a cyborg, THEN I have to be a sexy space marine and fight slimy aliens. Ugh.

At the burger place, Sarah's friend is like, "The murder news is about you!" Her friend is a dick. Blondie hot wires a car by a sketchy construction site. The interior is so delightfully maroon. He is intrigued by the big crane that the humans can still manage to control. He imagines many, many skulls being crushed in the future by the robots. He's back there now, fighting in the man-machine war. I don't understand how so many people could have been standing in the same place and got their heads blown off largely intact but also in a pile. Blondie and some lady soldier are fighting and hunker down in the ruins with some other grizzled looking dudes. They throw some kind of explosive cartridges at the big robot. The lady gets caught and lasered, but then the cartridges explode and the robot thing blows up. Somebody picks up Blondie in a trashed old car with a laser gun attached to it. A laser plane shoots and chases them. Blondie crashes. He wakes up from his flashback holding his sawn-off shotgun in an '80s car.

Sarah and her friend are getting ready to go out. Sarah wears a sweet Jetsons nightshirt. A creep says gross sexy things on the phone. It's her roommate's boyfriend. GROSS. Ask first with land lines. An amazingly grizzled looking cop stirs coffee while crazies crazy in the police station. The good android from Aliens is his assistant or something. OMG, back at the girls' apartment, their hair is so fucking tall. Sarah has a lizard named Pugsley. Uh-oh, they listen to answering machine messages and Sarah's date's cancelled. She dresses down to go to a movie by herself as the sleazy boyfriend shows up to pick up Ginger. Sarah's scooter is parked in a very sketchy parking garage. Her silk violet Members Only-type windbreaker is the '80sest thing to ever happen. Blondie is watching and follows her out. I believe he's here to protect her from Schwarz because of how I've managed to soak up some of this plot over the last 30 years without ever actually seeing the movie.

The cops are trying to get hold of all Sarah Connors, I think. Nobody answers at our girl's place because Ginger's got her headphones on while her boyfriend fucks her and the phone rings in the other room. Another Sarah Connor's been killed according to the news at the pizza place where our girl is eating alone. FUCK. She goes to the phone book to see that she's the next Sarah Connor listed, I think. Blondie's watching and following. Of course he freaks her out because of his trench coat and sketchy looks. She ducks into a club called "TechNoir" and has to pay a cover charge to come in and use the phone. The '80s are happening all over this place. She tries to call the police, but all their lines are busy, apparently. Schwarz shows up at her apartment building. In her little purple silk short robe and listening to her walkman still (with a shoulder strap), Ginger dances out of the bedroom where her boyfriend's crashed. Pugsley scares her in the kitchen. Schwarz comes in the open sliding glass door. The boyfriend, in sweet striped briefs, attempts to fight him off, but he's not going to win. Ginger can't hear, I guess. Her boyfriend gets thrown out, all bloody, and she attempts to run away as Schwarz shoots her. Phone books: both too much and not enough information. He shoots her a shit-ton of times. Sarah calls and leaves a message on the answering machine and Schwarz hears it and figures out he didn't actually get Sarah.

Pretty much just like this.

Sarah finally gets through to a detective on the phone and he's going to send a car for her. I'd get drunk now. Why not? She's about to die. Any bar that has a chain link fence wall is amazing. Schwarz smashes the fist of the bouncer after not paying the cover. Sarah drinks Canada Dry. She knocks it over at a perfect moment and Schwarz misses seeing her as she's leaned over. She sees Blondie though and is scared. Schwarz spots her, in slow motion, Blondie gets him first. Gunshots. Schwarz isn't dead. Sarah runs. Schwarz just kind of shoots indiscriminately as the club empties out. Blondie is apparently trained for guerrilla warfare. He pumps some into Schwarz . BULLETS HAVE NO EFFECT, TAKE A DRINK. He tells Sarah to come with him if she wants to live, and they run out the back. Her jeans are amazingly terrible. Schwarz's vision is infrared or some shit. Blondie ignites some gasoline with his gun, but Schwarz jumps on their car and punches through the windshield at her. The cops show up as they manage to throw him off. The cop who thinks this was a hit and run gets thrown out of his car by our cyborg friend. Schwarz is now in auto pursuit.

In the Connor car, Sarah starts to freak out and Blondie tells her to do exactly as he says. He's driving on the sidewalk without his lights on. SAFE. He says he's Reese, here to protect her from a termination order. He explains that Schwarz is a Terminator, a machine, not a man. She has to live. Actually, Term's not a robot, but a cyborg. The cops catch up with them since they think they were involved in a hit and run. Chase through sketchy alley. Reese does some sweet driving to get away. I'm glad we went 40 minutes without knowing his name. The outside of the Terminator is flesh, the inner part is just machine. These new machines look human, unlike the earlier versions. Sarah says they can't make those things yet. He tells her it's from 40 years in the future. She tries to run. Reese grabs her and calms her down. He's not sure if he can stop the Terminator with their old-timey weapons, but I believe they'll figure something out.

Reese and Sarah sneak around the parking garage looking for another vehicle to get away in. When did he get a shirt? Sarah: "Why me?" Reese explains there's a nuclear war in a few years and almost everything is destroyed. Defense network computers turned on humanity. Reese says he grew up after the war, starving, hiding from robotic killers, etc. He's got a barcode on his arm. Some humans were kept alive for slave labor. "There's some subtle Holocaust parallels here," Isaac says. Somebody taught them to fight back: Sarah's unborn son John Connor. Uh-oh, Terminator's rolled into the parking garage and starts shooting at their car. Reese accidentally hits the cop car and it follows him out, but Terminator's following them both, just shooting and driving. No other cars on the road in L.A. at like 11 p.m. or whatever, I guess. Oh, there's one. Reese yells for Sarah to drive as he stands out the window and shoots. The cop car hits a wall. More cops show up. Reese wants to fight, but Sarah convinces him they'll kill him if he tries. The police approach the crashed cop car and find nothing and no one.

Grizzled black detective guy comes to comfort Sarah. He's smoking hard. She's just found out her roommate and her sleazy boyfriend are dead and she cries like a human BABY. Dr. Silverman, a criminal psychologist, is apparently evaluating Reese's case now. Schwarz climbs into an empty apartment. His left eye's all bloody and he has some other injuries, but I feel like the robot parts can fix that shit pretty easily. He cuts through his own arm wound with an Xacto knife, takes some scissors, and fucks with his arm movement metal thingies. Under interrogation, Reese tells us he fought 2021-27 before coming here. The detectives are like, whatever okay sure. Do not like. Dr. Silverman is trying to follow Reese's story. Connor sent Reese back into the past to protect his mother. The time travel facilities were destroyed, though, so they're stuck there and nobody else can come back.

Terminator does surgery on his own eyeball. Yucccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkk. We see a laser eye behind his clearly fake face. He puts on terrible sunglasses to cover it. He's got some guns stashed under the mattress here somehow. Reese says he couldn't bring weapons because only living flesh can go through time. Reese is frustrated because the Terminator will get Sarah. Sarah is freaked out watching the video of Reese's interrogation. She's going to fuck him and create John Connor, right? Sarah's mom is going to come and comfort her. The detective claims she'll be safe sleeping on the couch in the lounge at the police station. NO, SHE WON'T.

Right?

Doc Silverman gets a page as Terminator walks in wearing a new sweet leather jacket. He claims he's Sarah's friend and wants to see her. The cop at the desk says he has to wait, but Terminator says, "I'll be back" and stalks out. A few minutes later, desk guy fills out forms as Terminator crashes into the front office with a car. Sarah awakens, terrified, of course. Termy just walks down halls shooting everybody. Det. tells Sarah to "stay here" in a back room. Termy breaks a main electrical line and the lights go out. Reese manages to overpower his interrogators and break out. Hot good Aliens android guy is hot. In a hot creepy way. Termy just shoots and shoots. Bullets have no effect, officer. Detective gets killed trying to shoot him. Skinny hot android dude, too. Sarah hides under a desk. A punch through the glass. It's Reese. Sweet, sweet synthesizer as they escape through a burning and destroyed police station. They drive off in an awesome brown Gremlin. Terminator follows on foot, walking. Real villains don't have to run, DUH.

ROOOMAAAAAAANCE

Sarah and Reese have run out of gas in the woods. They push the Gremlin off the road and head into some kind of sketchy tunnel with a flashlight from the car. She shivers and he comes over to warm her up. His first name is Kyle. He says going through time, there's a white light and pain. She finds he's bleeding. She wants to treat his wound, if you know what I mean. He claims it's not a big deal. She's grossed out as she cleans his wound and wants him to talk to distract her. She asks about her son. He's got her eyes. Kyle would die for him. They don't know who the father is because it's KYYYYYYYLE, obvs. He volunteered to come back to protect her because she's such a legend. She says she can't be the "mother of the future" because she can't even balance her checkbook. She doesn't want this "honor." Her son's message is basically like, "Good luck." Kyle compliments her field dressing. Is she not wearing a bra? Impractical. She wants to know where he's from. He describes how they hide during the day.

FLASH FORWARD. These shitty scale models are MAZIN. The survivors are up to something. They have military dogs, apparently. We see some shabby looking kids hiding underground in their headquarters. Looks pretty grim. A little girl watches as a fire burns inside a TV set. Crying. A kid stabs a rat to eat. Reese sits down and finds a picture of Sarah in his pocket to stare at. Interesting. A Terminator has broken into their place and just shoots errybody. Reese shoots back. His picture of Sarah falls in the fire. Her face melts away. Back to the past, she wakes up in his arms. HOT. She was dreaming about dogs. Canines can sense the Terminators--OBVIOUSLY. Do they really need help with that? Because, like, Schwarzeneggar does NOT look like a real person. Anyway, Sarah and Kyle emerge from whatever abandoned building they were sleeping in. They should both shower and then fuck.

Back in his sketchy apartment (How did he get an apartment? Did he kill a guy? He probably just killed the guy who lived here, right?), an even-worse-looking Termy leafs through Sarah's day planner. RUDE. I think his face might be rotting. He selects an address to go find her. Sarah and Reese check into the Tiki Motel with sweet wood paneling. It's got a kitchen, which is apparently necessary. He's going out for supplies, but leaves her a handgun. He's so '80s hot. She's on the phone with her mom, and doesn't want to tell her where she is. Finally she gives in, but it's Termy mimicking her mom's voice to get the phone number. BAD DECISION. Reese brings home supplies for plastique, which I'm assuming is an explosive. Termy heads their way on a motorcycle. Fun bomb-building. Best first date ever, amirite?

Later, she knows they'll be found and "it will never be over." He's shirtless and she says he must be disappointed because she's scared and shaking, not a real badass. She asks about his girlfriend in the future. He claims there wasn't anyone special. Ever. She feels really bad for him. "Pain can be controlled," he says. He tells her about the picture. "I came across time for you, Sarah. I love you. I always have." He regrets saying it, but she's like, "Whoa," basically and starts kissing him. He kisses her back SO HARD because that's how they do it in the future. He holds onto those sheets so hard as they fuck. Ladyboobs. They clench each other's hands. HOT. Isaac thinks Termy's outside jerking off. NOPE, he's still motorcycling towards them. They're getting ready to leave. They hear a dog bark and know he's near now, because dogs have no other reasons to bark. Termy busts in to shoot, but they've already run out. They steal a guy's truck and ram Termy with it and then drive away.

This musicccccc. He chases them on the motorcycle and shoots at them. Reese switches with Sarah so she's driving as he lights one of their bombs and somehow neither of them has been shot. He says to drive faster and he throws back an explosive, then another. Terminator keeps missing them. Kyle gets shot. Sarah tries to knock Terminator off his bike with the truck, but then flips the truck. Terminator gets hit by a semi-truck, but he holds onto a pipe and is apparently okay. Sarah watches from the crashed pickup. Termy scares the passenger in the semi with his fucked up face. Sarah starts dragging Kyle's body out as Termy turns the oil tanker around to hit them. They get out just in time. Kyle is awake again and throws a pipe bomb in the truck's exhaust pipe. Sarah continues to run and Kyle jumps in a dumpster. EXPLOSION. Termy burns something serious, but continues to roll around a bit. Sarah breathes hard. She and Kyle find each other in the smoke. He collapses. She thinks they've won. WRONG.

A super-gigantic metal robot skeleton emerges jerkily from the flames because '80s animation and they run. The metal Termy limps a bit. Terrible special effects, take a drink. Sarah and Kyle hide in some kind of underground factory or something. He turns on the equipment to interfere with Termy's tracking capabilities. Kyle collapses as Termy punches through the door. She yells, "Move it, Reese. On your feet, soldier!" HOT. I'm a little bit concerned right now. I have anxiety. I want Sarah and Kyle to be able to bang more than once, you guys. FUCKING FUTURE STOP FUCKING WITH OUR LOVE LIVES UNLESS IT INVOLVES SENDING HOT DUDES BACK WHO ARE ALREADY IN LOVE WITH US THEN OKAY BUT NO ROBOT WARRIORS. Isaac: "Hey, remember when there was actually industrial production in the U.S.?" NOT REALLY, I was less than a year old when this movie came out. Also, too soon.

This really just reinforces my "no touching" policy here.

The Termy's on them, Kyle tells Sarah to run as he starts to beat him with a pipe. He's losing, but he finds his last pipe bomb and puts it in the robot's side. SPLODEY. Nice. Sarah's okay, but her leg is hurt. She pulls a piece of metal out. That's not smart if you don't have immediate first aid. She pulls herself over to Kyle. Who is probs dead. Yep. Terminator is NOT DEAD, however. His upper body army crawls after the injured Sarah. He approaches her quickly on a conveyor belt. She climbs into a duct or something, maybe as his metal hand grasps at her foot. I think the hands are the coolest part of the Terminator. She comes out the other side and slams some bars in front of him. She reaches for a button and says "You're terminated, fucker." Lightning as he is smooshed by the machine. His eye lights go out. She's all "traumatized" or whatever. Sirens outside. She cries on a stretcher as Kyle is zipped up in a body bag.

Desert, mountain nature scene. Pregnant Sarah records tapes for her as-yet unborn sun. She's got a sweet jeep, a dog, and a gun on hand. Her jeep says "RENEGADE" on the side. She attempts to to speak Spanish to the gas station guy. She goes ahead and tells John on the tapes that Kyle is his dad. A little Mexican kid with a Polaroid takes "the" picture. THERE'S A STORM COMING. You said it, niño. Sunglasses, drives away. Dark clouds over these Mexican mountains that are clearly painted.

I couldn't help myself.

Hey! Better than I expected.