Commando vs. Rambo: A Political Ad Primer

[caption id=”attachment_1313” align=”alignnone” width=”500” caption=”Schwarzenegger scoping out the 2008 DNC”]Schwarzenegger scoping out the DNC[/caption]

In Mark L. Lester’s 1985 action film Commando, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Colonel John Matrix kills eighty-one people in ninety minutes. Eighty-one bad guys, most of them thin-mustached South American mercs hired by a deposed dictator. Eighty-one bad guys, a few of them former U.S. special ops badasses. Eighty-one bad guys, killed by machete, M16A1 machine gun, circular saw blade, grenade, Desert Eagle pistol, claymore mine, knife, steam pipe, and splintered chair leg.

I miss those analogue action movies of the 80’s, the ones where some former Special Forces grunt is pulled back into service because his wife/daughter/former partner is raped/kidnapped/killed. I first saw Commando in 1987, my freshman year of high school. It was The Rocky Horror Picture Show for as-yet-unlabeled Gen X’ers raised on violent video games, the Cold War, and Malibu from American Gladiators.

Read More

// $(document).ready(function () { // // To get the most commented posts // var disqusPublicKey = "1gK0KABqNLANnjQPocoCIHrCPPiWkNkXanwRBOPF4XDu4NNCuoivLa25x2wZL5g9"; // var disqusShortname = "jetcomx"; // var mostCommentedArray = []; // // $('article').each(function () { // var url = $(this).attr('data-disqus-url'); // mostCommentedArray.push('link:' + url); // }); // // $.ajax({ // type: 'GET', // url: "https://disqus.com/api/3.0/threads/set.jsonp", // data: { api_key: disqusPublicKey, forum : disqusShortname, thread : mostCommentedArray }, // cache: false, // dataType: 'jsonp', // success: function (result) { // for (var i in result.response) { // var countText = " comments"; // var count = result.response[i].posts; // if (count === 1) // countText = " comment"; // $('article[data-disqus-url="' + result.response[i].link + '"]').html('

' + count + countText + '

'); // } // } // }); // });