The Ten Movies Most-Likely Referenced On TNIAAM

In the comments of my post about that Otto-hybrid-animal-thing that all of you were horrified over but also went and bought three of because you secretly thought was cool, Voteprime made the astute observation that Big Trouble in Little China must have played an important role in my childhood. And he was right.

BTILC was one of the many (but not that many) movies in rotation on WPIX Channel 11 when I was young. Nowadays I think it's NYC's home for The CW, but back in the day, it was basically a content free-for-all. WPIX just seemed to show random movies and syndicated TV shows all day. Not that I was complaining, I watched it almost religiously.

The upside/downside is that WPIX had a very limited collection of movies that they could run. As such, every month or so they had to reboot the rotation and you got to watch the same movies over and over. The good part was, many of these movies were awesome to nine-year-old me. Conan The Destroyer, Commando, Beastmaster, Cobra, Die Hard...you get the gist.

There were films, however, that stood out more than others. Films that, at some point in my life, I could recite line for line. Maybe still could if I tried. And its those films that seep into my subconscious went writing for TNIAAM. References, quotes and characters find their way into my articles on Doug Marrone, Jim Boeheim and Scoop Jardine...somehow.

Realizing that some readers are young and might not know about some of these films or understand how appreciated they should be (because Freddie Prince Jr. doesn't star in them...) and others just might not be aware of the more obscure ones...I give you the ten films most likely to end up getting referenced on this site one way or another.

Film: Big Trouble In Little China

Why Is It Worth The References: Kurt Russell's crowning achievement as an actor and, quite frankly, human being. It's John Carpenter at his weirdest, and as such, best. (Do you realize how good John Carpenter's career was between 1978 and 1988? He was so impressive that it's downright depressing everything post-'88 was).

BTILC is basically the greatest movie ever made for an 11-year-old boy. Martial arts. Rival gangs, one of which includes a bunch of supernatural villains, one of which who's superpower seems to be the ability to make himself blow up. Sewer monsters. Kim Cattrall at her absolute apex. Egg Shen. Lo Pan. And Jack Burton. Is there anything that Jack Burton says in this movie that isn't instantly quotable? Nope.

Previously Referenced: Quite a few times actually.

Film: Real Genius

Why Is It Worth The Reference: It's depressing to see what's become of Val Kilmer, if only because of what his potential was. Go back to the late-80's. He stars in Top Secret!, showing off his slapstick ability. He steals the show in Top Gun, showing up his leading man chops to come. He proves himself an action hero in Willow. And he absolutely KILLS it in Real Genius, arguably the most underrated comedy of the 80's.

Real Genius is a clinic in snappy, comedic screenwriting. The one-liners and zingers fly faster than you, or Kent, can keep up. If you've ever had a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you, this is your movie.

Couple casting bonuses...Dr. Hathaway played by "That Guy" Hall-Of-Famer William Atherton, who also played the a-hole in Ghostbusters, Die Hard and that one episode of Lost. And of course, Lazlo Hollyfield, who would one day become Uncle Rico and Ben Linus' Dad.

Previously Referenced: I did an entire series of posts based on Real Genius quotes and that was after I had already done it once.

Film: Over The Top

Why Is It Worth The Reference: It's a movie about arm wrestling. And is stars Sylvester Stallone, which means he makes faces like this a lot. And he and all the other arm wrestlers are truckers. And Sammy Hagar sings a montage song. And Robert Loggia is the bad guy. And Stallone's character's name is Lincoln Hawk. And at one point, a guy chugs a can of oil while preparing for an arm wrestling match.

That's it. What else could you possibly want?

Previously Referenced: Comparing Sly's guns to those of Delone Carter.

Film: Krull

Why Is It Worth The Reference: Back before we had Lord of the Rings, the 70's and 80's movie world was full of LOTR rip-offs. Star Wars (think about it), Willow and Krull stand out (though, incidentally, Krull was originally meant to be a Dungeons and Dragons movie). 

Krull was probably the most absurd and therefore awesome of them all. A dude wearing peppermint pants has to go rescue his princess from a creepy alien overlord. He recruits a ragtag group of rebels that include a wizard, a cyclops, Liam Neeson and slim Hagrid. Along the way he also picks up this badass weapon that looks like the most dangerous frisbee ever created. They also ride horses that go so fast they leave trails of fire.

Sold? Sold.

Previously Referenced: A post titled, The Ten Greatest Things About The Movie Krull.

Film: Ice Pirates

Why Is It Worth The Reference: Apparently I'm a huge Stanford Sherman fan. He was the writer of Krull and he also co-wrote Ice Pirates. One of the "great" forgotten screwball comedy/action-adventure movies of the 80's, Ice Pirates is about space pirates in search of ice, which is valuable now for some reason. That alone should seal the deal for you, but I've got more.

Hot Anjelica Huston.

At some point the ice pirates in question end up getting captured and find themselves on a conveyer belt that will lead them towards a machine that cuts off testicles and turns you into a subservient man (really). They avert the testicle-chopping but end up pretending to be the servants, who look like this.

Space herpes.

At one point in the film, time begins to randomly speed up. The "special effect" used to show time speeding up in spurts is just making the film move faster, which, is not a special effect at all. Oh, and every 20 seconds or so, each character just grows a beard. And yet it somehow works in a B-movie way.

Previously Referenced: To represent how I felt after we lost to the Seton Hall Pirates.

Film: Tombstone

Why Is It Worth The Reference: In the closing moments of Tombstone, a voiceover tells us that famed cowboy actor Tom Mix wept at Wyatt Earp's funeral. I always found that to be a strange piece of information. Of all the things the film could have told us in that moment, of all the amazing pieces of information about Wyatt Earp's life...they chose to close the film with a note about how an actor cried at his funeral. It's weird and not really the right piece of information but then again I think it sums up Tombstone as a movie perfectly. Unlike films like Wyatt Earp or Unforgiven, Tombstone is so self-aware that it was a Hollywood movie full of characters and not actual people (despite being based on actual people) that it made made sense for the audience to accept its over-the-top ridiculousness and badassery as normal and totally real. It's the kind of movie that wants you to know a famous actor cried at the funeral of its hero.

Anyway, Val Kilmer once again simultaneously amazes and depresses with his performance as Doc Holliday. He's so good here (quite frankly I will never accept anyone else as Doc Holliday ever again) that it make current-day Val Kilmer seem impossible. Everything he says in this film is the most quotable line you've ever heard. He's funny, he's a badass, he's fragile, he's powerful and he's everything we could ever want from our cowboys. Not bad for a skinny lunger.

Previously Referenced: In How To Grow An Orange and in a couple of headlines.

Film: Clerks

Why Is It Worth The Reference: I watched Chasing Amy for the first time in a long time last week and I have to say...it doesn't hold up. I don't know if it was the 90's look and feel, the stilted dialogue and wooden acting that comes with most Kevin Smith's direction or just the sight of Ben Affleck as a small-town comic book artist (likely all three) but the film already feels like a relic (and I say this as someone who used to swear by this film). I haven't watched Clerks in just as long of a time but I'm not as concerned with that film holding up because, quite frankly, it never held up to begin with. The bad acting and stilted dialogue in Clerks was always part of its charm. If anything, all of its imperfections seem to age the film like a fine cheese. Or fine piece of Chewley's Gum, as it were.

And for the record, while Clerks 2 did have it's moments, it remains wholly and completely unnecessary.

Fun fact: I met the actress who played Caitlin Bree at my friend's wedding in NJ last year. She was his wedding planner.

Previously Referenced: Anytime we mentioned the now-defunct Syracuse Bullies a.k.a. Syracuse SnowBallers.

Film: Enemy Mine

Why Is It Worth The Reference: I feel like Enemy Mine has completely disappeared from our collective consciousness. There was a time it was on TV every weekend (or so it seemed). As far as I can tell, it hasn't been on TV in a decade. I'm not quite sure why. Wolfgang Peterson directed it, Dennis Quiad remains relevant and Dracs look cool (until they get preggers). Maybe it's the Lou Gossett, Jr. Factor. Lou seemed to fall out of favor in the early 90's and hasn't been in a relevant film since (save for Iron Eagle IV).

Previously Referenced: In an Andrew Robinson: Euro QB post when it was discovered one of the teams in his league is called the Dracs.

Film: The Running Man

Why Is It Worth The Reference: It's The Running Man. I don't need to explain this to you. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Jim Brown is in the film playing a character named Fireball.

Previously Referenced: When discussing what Jim Brown's statue should look like.

Film: Total Recall

Why Is It Worth The Reference: What's the consensus on Total Recall? That it's all a dream? Pretty sure that's what we concluded, right? No? I mean, he wanted Selena to be brunette, athletic, sleazy and demure and he was indeed brunette, athletic, sleazy and demure. Now I'm not sure though...

I remain steadfast in my belief that Cohagen is among the best villain names of all time. I don't know why, exactly. What was Cohagen's first name? Was it Benedict? Cause I think if his full name was Benedict Cohagen, he'd easily have the best bad guy name of all time.

Previously Referenced: As a throwaway comment in this Doug Marrone post. I'll do better.