The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, June 1-7
First Blood (1982)
Directed by Ted Kotcheff
Brewed with radically robust beasts such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and certainly Sylvester Stallone, the 80s marked a new pinnacle for big-budget action-packed machismo. Few from this era have stood the test of time, and while a hand full have been deemed so-called “cult classics,” First Blood’s in a league of its own, or perhaps, more up the alley of Bob Clark’s own horror cult classic, Deathdream, wherein a man killed in Vietnam inexplicably returns home as a zombie that can only survive by shooting blood into his veins, illustrating the uncompromising desensitization faced by soldiers after the war.
John Rambo, a seemingly gentle but grubby man, seven years out of the war, is searching for his only Green Beret buddy known to be alive. His inquiry leads him to the small town of Hope—“Gateway to Holidayland” as a sign proclaims, but here Rambo only finds hell. After he’s taken for a drifter by the local sheriff, interrogations lead to beatings and, provoked by torture flashbacks, Rambo violently breaks free. In short, via a combination of camp and virtuously depicted misery (the latter reminiscent of the director’s 1971 masterpiece Wake in Fright), Rambo, with a dispelling wave of primal instinct, fights off the local police force as well as an entire army reserve, leaving the town ablaze. Wait for the keystone moment: a monologue from Stallone frantically distills the atrocities of war and his utter displacement, a testament to his acting skills beyond Rocky (seriously), and cements a bold recognition of lingering terror, so much so that it brought this author (a child of the 80s) to shed a tear. Samuel T. Adams (June 7, 7:30pm at BAM, followed by Kotcheff Q&A)