The Belcourt's Midnight Movie: Weird Science
Plastic Tubes and Pots and Pans
by D. Patrick Rodgers @dpatrickrodgers
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The cornerstone of hilarious science fiction is pseudo-science. While classic cinematic atrocities like The Core and The Day After Tomorrow utilize pseudo-science unironically and are therefore inadvertently hilarious, there is a very special strain of mid-’80s comedic sci-fi that gets it just right. In the heart of the home computer era, as people began to grasp the potential of computers but still failed to comprehend the things they were tremendously incapable of, one movie stands out among the computer-shenanigans-gone-awry genre. No, not WarGames. Weird Science. Question: What do you get when you cross a doll, a bunch of magazine clippings, a brassiere-hatted pre-steroids Anthony Michael Hall (and that other guy) and a state-of-the-art 1985 home computer complete with “Crypto-Smasher v3.10” software? Answer: a scantily clad, babe-a-licious Kelly LeBrock who, for some reason, has a mildly pedophilic interest in two scrawny 15 year olds and the power to transform Bill Paxton into a gooey, toad-like ogre. Thank you, John Hughes, for making emaciated adolescents everywhere think they could create superpower-possessing, utterly devoted mega-babes using a PC. I wasted six months studying computer programming for nothing.
Sat., Feb. 6, midnight; Sun., Feb. 7, midnight, 2010
Sat., Feb. 6, midnight; Sun., Feb. 7, midnight, 2010
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