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Soylent Green (1973)
Equalization Date: 2022
Well, after almost 50 years, the equalization date for one of the most revered cult-classic sci-fi films is finally here.
Released in 1973, this film shows an unrelentingly bleak picture of America, and the world in 2022. The world is massively overpopulated with food and housing shortages everywhere. New York City is an overcrowded Hellhole with a population of 40 million. The rich live in isolated sections of the city and pay exorbitant prices for food and lodging. Along with the chronic food shortages and massive pollution, there is year-round high humidity due to greenhouse gas effects. There are no trees left except those being kept in climate-controlled labs. The oceans are dying. There appear to have been massive extinctions of mammals, birds, and fish.
To help feed the population, the government has created a new type of foodstuff called Soylent with variations like Soylent Yellow, Soylent Red, etc. One particular tasty and nutritious variation of this wafer, Soylent Green, has recently been added, but it is much harder to find that the tasteless variations and is always in short supply. When it runs out, huge riots break out, leading to the bringing out of the "Scoops", which are huge crowd-control bulldozer-like vehicles that can scoop up dozens of people at once and brutally suppress the food shortage riots.
Detective Thorn (Charlton Heston), investigating the assassination of a high ranking official within the Soylent Corporation, eventually finds out the truth about the true origins of Soylent Green and is determined to prove his revelations to the public. But officials within the Soylent Corporation are determined to do anything to stop him and a large part of the film is devoted to him escaping his pursuers.
The movie was made during the "population bomb" era of the early 1970s, in which many sociologists predicted that the world population would double by the year 2000. When I first saw this movie in 1981, it truly terrified me, for its unrelenting bleak vision of the near future. It was entertaining but seemed so far-fetched and preposterous. And indeed, as the equalization date drew closer, with a prosperous 1990s and crime way down in NYC by 2000, it would become even more so.
Indeed, like many futuristic movies, many of the themes and portrayals of Soylent Green never came to pass. The actual world population rate increases between the 1970s and 2020s never came near those predicted rates, primarily due to the huge decreases of birthrates among women in many countries across the world over the past 50 years. In fact, in much of the developed world, birth rates have fallen so low that populations are barely increasing or even actually declining. New York itself of course, never even got close to 40 million.
And even though the film takes place in 2022, there are lots of old 1950s and 1960s cars around and most of the characters sport 1970s attire and hair styles.
Despite the premise though, it suddenly does not seem so far-fetched after all. The film did get a quite few of things right and touches on some themes that are very topical today. It has some timely references in the age of Covid-19. There are reference to supply chain disruptions as a result of the short supply of foodstuffs. There is massive anarchy everywhere - in this film due to overpopulation - but in reality due to the Pandemic, social unrest, brutal oppression by hardline regimes, crumbling infrastructure, climate migration by the millions due to droughts and floods, etc. There are references to massive levels of income inequality because the rich live in isolated sections of the city in heavily guarded luxury fortresses. There are not-so-subtle references to climate change in regard to the constant relentless heat and humidity due to greenhouse gases. All of these things are happening right now, albeit on a smaller, yet ever increasing scale.
Though New York did not reach 40 million people by 2022 and indeed may have lost many thousands over the past two years, this films portrayal of massive civic decay across the world suddenly seems eerily on-target. And as Edward G Robinson's character film states early in the film that "People were always rotten" is right on the mark.
Law & Order: Organized Crime: The Christmas Episode (2021)
Baptism by Fire
I went into this episode "cold", meaning I had never seen any previous showings of L & O Organized Crime. I only saw it because I was watching SVU and it segued right into it from SVU so seamlessly, I wasn't even aware it was a new episode until the opening credits.
Nevertheless it was intense from beginning to end, never really letting up for a moment. I am really not familiar with Stabler's children - they were all so young when I last saw them on SVU. But Nicky Torchia is perfect in the role of Eli, who only wants his father to be there for him and come back from the edge.
Will Stabler be able to step back from his investigation enough to see that his family is hurting? Or will his vendetta against Wheatley consume him. With the cliffhanger the end of this episode, we will have to wait until January to find out.
In the meantime, I guess I will now be binge watching previous episodes of the show and hopefully will be caught up in time for the next new episode in January.
Desperately Seeking Santa (2011)
"Sexed Up Santa"
Jennifer Walker (Laura Vandervoort) is head of marketing at a big South Boston Mall. She is in line for a big corporate gig at the parent company that owns the mall she works at as well as many others in the Northeast. However, due to flagging sales as a result of competition from other malls and online shopping, she is given an ultimatum from her boss: Find a way to bring attendance back up for the Christmas shopping season or her mall will be shut down and hundreds of employees will lose their jobs.
So, with less than a month to go to turn things around, she gets the inspiration to really spice things up. Why not have a Sexy Santa Competition to bring lots of young women shoppers to the mall instead of staying at home? A PG-13 level Chippendales-like competition ensues in which a bunch of hunky guys dance around shirtless in front of thongs of women who will decide who will become the next Mall Santa.
Jennifer can be quite the Scrooge, coldly firing the traditional old school Santa - who had been a staple at the mall for years - in order to bring in Sexy Santa. In one early scene she cuts in line at the outside coffee stand without any regard for those that had been waiting longer in the cold. One of those waiting is a young man called David Moretti (Nick Zano) who calls her out for cutting when he and all the others had been standing and shivering for so long. The insults fly and Jennifer walks off in a huff. But lo and behold, guess who turns out to be one of the contestants for the Sexy Santa competition!
As can be expected, there is much early tension and animosity between the two leads, given vastly different backgrounds. Jennifer has always been Corporate while David is just a family guy, an aspiring EMT, helping run his father's family pizzeria.
But just as predictable, she slowly warms up to him and it seems like they will build up a budding romance. However, she does already have a boyfriend, just another "suit" that works at the same big conglomerate she does. Complicating matters even further is the fact that the Moretti's Pizza is about to be shut down by the very same conglomerate that Jennifer works for, in order to build luxury condos.
Will David be able to save his dad's restaurant that has been in business for over 75 years? Will Jennifer be able to save South Boston mall, a place she has worked for over 20 years and who fiercely protects her co-workers? And just how will she break the news to David that it's her own company that has used nefarious means to help get Moretti's to shut down.
Originally airing on ABC Family, this movie was rated TV-14 and quite a bit more "sexed up" than the usual Hallmark Channel Christmas fare, The women generally wear more revealing outfits than in Hallmark movies and there are lots of guys dancing around shirtless (and not to be outdone, "sexy Reindeer" women dancers). You see adult women sitting on Sexy Santa's lap, and there are a few language references such as "ass", etc. There are a couple of gross out scenes during the dance competition and corny quotes all around.
The music, especially early in the film, was grating and annoying, and there are too many supporting characters and archetypical corporate caricatures. The potentially intriguing subplot of a small businesses trying to take on big corporate conglomerates seems too pat, like they had to use that as filler for a thin story-line. The main two leads are likeable enough, but somehow their budding romance does not seem convincing.