I have a great relationship with my Dad but neither of us are very loquacious. When we are feeling talkative, movies are always our topic of choice. We'll talk about a film for hours, whether it came out yesterday or 50 years ago. When I was growing up he made me watch great films like Young Frankenstein, A Shot In The Dark, and Pale Rider. One film that really stood out to me as a growing boy, was the original Predator.
Dad's taste has undoubtedly influenced my own. To this day I think Predator is THE manliest film ever made and not in some modern day, douchey, how-much-pussy-will-this-get-me sort of way, but in the way that speaks of the art of war and survivalism and what it means to be a soldier. My dad would get especially excited when the "boy scout" trap scenes would come up because he knew I was going ask about them. He would gladly explain to me how a dead-fall worked or how Dutch could make a feasible bow in the jungle. Now I think to myself, 'anything is feasible with huge muscles and a killer jawline.'
Predator was created in a damn near golden age of film. I'm not just saying that because it was the era I was born into or because the 80's were the bee's knees. Filmmakers still had rely on creative special effects teams and great filming locations instead of just using a green screen for everything. Geniuses like Stan Winston created phenomenal make-up effects and costumes and actors like Kevin Peter Hall sweated their asses off in those phenomenal make-up effects and costumes. It's an era in film we'll never see reproduced but thankfully I have an absurd amount of DVDs, blu-rays, and digital media I can surf through, when it comes time to relive that epic showdown between Arnie and the Predator. I get all sorts of manly tingles when he lights that torch and roars into the night like a muddy Austrian bear in heat.
I find that a nice mug of Newcastle Brown Ale goes best with Predator.
