Yep -- back at Hollywood Video buying up their old DVD's for chump change. What do you know, no one bought The Running Man. Film4.com calls it "an arcade-game romp done with flair." I must agree! There is a certain delight to this film. .
A funny scene appears when Richard Dawson tells someone on the phone that they're not doing Gilligan's Island. Obviously the person on the other end doesn't know what Gilligan's Island was -- so he gives us a quick humm of the familiar tune. Now, how likely is it that people might someday forget what Gilligan's Island was?!
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From the headlines
It's like the opening lines, though not presented with that awesome scroll Star Wars had, came straight from our news cycle.
.* "By 2019 the world economy has collapsed." Wow, we're seven years early on that one.
* "Food, natural resources and oil are in short supply" I won't comment on that, since right now we're trying to cut the supply of oil from a certain well!
* "Television is controlled by the state." I just read a story headlined "Journalism 'Reinvention' Smacks of Government Control, Critics Say." http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/02/journalism-reinvention-smacks-government-control-critics-say/
The Bachman GoldmineStephen Jones gives an interesting account in his book Creepshows. George Linder, her writes, was excited when he found a book -- the Running Man -- by little known author Richard Bachman. "I contacted the authors agent and was a bit taken back to learn that he was asking a comparatively great deal of money for the option on the book which had less than 100,000 copies in print. I mean, who had ever heard of Riahcard Bachman?" Linder secured the option for $20,000 and Jones notes the irony that just a couple of years later Linder found out that Bachman was actually Stephen King. "I felt like I'd found a Rembrant in K-mart!"
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Governors Convention:
Both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura appear in this. Arnie is Governor of the great state where I live, the very broke California.
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And Jesse was governor of Minnesota. Minnesota, by the way, is the land of another famous writer, Garrison Keillor. Jesse plays Captain Freedom, a workout television show host. The spandex costumes and Jesse's unitard were hysterically 80's.
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Of course, the movie features Arnie, with no mention of Stephen King. Schwarzenegger looks right at the game show host Damon Killian and says, "Damon, I'll be back." He also used the I'll Be Back line in Commando, Raw Deal, Twins, Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop, Last Action Hero, Jingle All the Way, The 6th Day
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Costumes:
Something has to be said here for the mix of 80's daily wear mixed with 80's sci-fi uniforms. Here's a vision of the future: Only the police get the new clothes! In particular, Arnie looks just great trying to get on a plane in his Hawaiian shirt and white top hat. Ambers costume looks like left overs from Disney's Tron.
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The Always Unfair Comparison To The Book
IMBD notes that King wrote the novel The Running Man in 72 hours. Now here's the funny, or not so funny, thing. The book was really good. King did in 72 hours with a typewriter what Hollywood couldn't do for millions. Go figure.
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King's novel, written under the Bachman name, has an intense urgency to it with each chapter giving a countdown number.
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King told Cinefantastique, "It was totally out of my hands. I didn't have anything to do with making it... It doesn't have much in common with the novel at all, except the title."
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However, the Apollo Guide has this thoughtful paragraph in their review. They actually think that King's novel was made stronger by the movie! Anyway, this is a good note to end on: "Of all the King adaptations that deviate considerably from their respective source material, Paul Michael Glaser’s film stands head and shoulders above the rest. Whereas most changes made to King’s tales seem borne from low budgets and lazy screenwriters, this adaptation (courtesy of Die Hard scribe Stephen De Souza) uses the novel as both inspiration and jumping-off-point, confidently respecting the source material while forging ahead to become a very different (and more than a little successful) piece of work."
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