train I ride

We all know that President-elect Obama has an awfully huge job ahead of him in the next few months.  I suggest he brainstorm with Burt Lancaster's character from the 1964 film "The Train" for a few tips.  In Hollywood-land Lancaster plays a French train engineer by day and Resistance hero by night. In MacGyver-like fashion he manages to halt a Nazi-led train of French artwork hightailing it for the border.  In the moments leading up to D-Day, the real French resistance was a well-oiled machine plotting details as minute as how much draining of oil would be needed to cause a Nazi train to stall just as it rolled onto a soon to be blown up bridge.  Director John Frankenheimer mines the wealth of Nazi stereotypes for full glory, creating bad guys who kill in the interest of leaving Nazi "good-will" in their wake.  Of course, pre-CGI FX films compel you to shout along at the characters as they stumble and fall into plot twist after le plot twist.

I am bringing up this film because of an e-mail I received the day after the victorious Obama election.  A pro-democracy organization urged me to stay vigilant after Obama's victory as even now someone, somewhere was plotting our downfall.  Drat!  Not one 24 hour period had passed and already the Hollywood-like bad guys were crawling out from under their nearby rocks.  I wondered if, similar to the very young witch Tiffany in Terry Pratchett's  The Wee Free Men, I was hopping through hallucinogenic bad dreams, except all of mine were semi-germinating from the plots of early 1960's John Frankenheimer movies?

Follow along with my theory:

1. Manchurian Candidate nightmare. Been there, done that.  Phew, we made it through the election with nothing horrible happening. 

2. Seven Days in May, where perhaps a maniacal never say-die Ted Stevens, in a last ditch effort to be forgiven by the Republican Party, attempts a coup on the Obama White House lawn.  Ted's excuse: he took a wrong turn while big game hunting from a helicopter.

3. Seconds with Pat Robertson as the ailing oldie who mentally inhabits the young body of Jenna Bush, in an attempt to gain the 2012 Republican Nomination.

4. Hopefully these dreams end with Grand Prix and I jet off to race car camp. Now that the price of gas is shrinking it's the only American thing left to do...

Comments

[Nash Rose]

I'd just like to point out that the writer of MacGyver, Lee David Zlotoff, is an alumnus of my college, St. John's College. He is the most brilliant figure St. John's has produced thus far. When pressed, Zlotoff admits that the character MacGyver is supposed to be a St. John's graduate, NOT a physics major as most would have it!

[Charles Atlas]

No Billy Jack? I would think that in a time of crisis we would always want to turn to the man who not only fought the man to do the right thing, he also stood up for the kids as well.

Isn't it time we applied a little hapkido to such vexing problems as the national debt?

There are no greater tools in bringing about true problem resolution than rock solid beliefs and the martial arts.

[K]

No Billy Jack. It was tried, and sadly, all Bill could muster is a fillibuster. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqBynKxAiiI

[QuizmasterChris]

Chilling scenario #4: Democrat backed by Big Business and Wall Street even more than the Republican candidate promises surge in Afghanistan, much larger military, massive taxpayer bank bailout, continued Patriot Act, no nationalized healthcare and names Republicans to his cabinet. Horrifyingly, he keeps his promises...

... oh wait, yeah, that's reality...

[Dale]

I have no movie recommendations (I did rent Syriana this weekend, however). Lately I've been listening to some right wing talk radio and am just amazed at the continued fear-mongering that broadcasters like Neil Boortz or Bob Grant continue to engage listeners in. Despite 7 years of war, staggering debt, people losing homes and jobs, corporate executives raping the American consumer, and the global economy teetering under Republican reign, Obama will just ruin everything for us. Maybe I'll rent Mr. Smith Goes to Washington this weekend.