This week we swing back to the glorious ’60s with a mid-century mod extravaganza,
Blast from the Past
Starring Brendon Frasier, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken and Sissy Spacek
Duck and cover kids, because the laughs are flying! Ok that was corny as hell, but it’s in the spirit of this goofy flick. It’s all about a typical, mid-century California couple with a typical, 35 year-stocked underground bomb shelter which houses air scrubbers, a hydroponic garden and an exact duplicate layout of their surface home right down to the corner bar with the martini shaker. A series of events drives them down into the shelter, and once the automatic locks are set, they’re forced to stay for 35 years until the radiation has dissipated.Not long after that their son is born. They name him Adam.
Thirty-five years later, as the supplies finally begin to run short, Adam is given the task of returning to the surface to check out the situation and get more supplies…and find a nice girl to bring home so they can start repopulating the world.
Ok, I think you’re starting to catch the drift. In 1962, the quaint little house was situated in suburban LA among palm trees and orange groves. But by the late 1990s the section had deteriorated into a disgusting, miserable area of failed urban sprawl. When Adam reaches the surface, he finds nothing to be normal, and assumes the weird people are mutants deviated from the nuclear fallout, and that the poor condition of the streets and building is due to 35 years of war. Well, I guess he wasn’t too far off.
As the saying goes, hilarity ensues as Adam (with his 50’s manners and knowledge of culture up to 1962) tries to blend in with the modern times and get the supplies necessary to sustain his family in the shelter for another 35 years.
I think this movie is great on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start. Frasier makes a great 50’s guy from his look to his mannerisms. He can even swing dance. Alicia Silverstone has the right amount of modern wise-ass mixed with a 50’s sitcom innocence. The movie really shows the complete difference between the old days and the modern without over-doing it. Even though the whole thing seems fantastic, it’s all pretty believable. And funny.
As usual I won’t give away any important plot points for jokes. Suffice to say when a swingin’ kat from 1962 lands feet first into 1998, you’re going to have some funny situations. They pull it off great in this flick.
Martinis for drinks, of course, and for food…how about some Atomic Wings? Or maybe just popcorn.
oh well, Alicia silverstone is matured nowadays but when she was still younger, she is the sex symbol of hollywood `;~
how could we possibly forget Alicia Silvertone, she use to be the sex symbol of the 90s’`,
She was and still is a hunney!