Late last night, I watched They Live! on TNT. I don't think I've ever seen the whole movie before. In fact I think I've managed to see just the last 10 minutes of it, twice. But what a superb film it is!

Synopsis
Our hero, Nada - a living tribute to the art of badly highlighted mullet haircuts, and an unemployed construction worker - stumbles across dodgy dealings inside a church. After a raid on the church by some overly-violent cops, he goes back and discovers a stash of 'special' sunglasses. These glasses enable the wearer to see how things really are.

Nada is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like "Stay Asleep", "No Imagination", "Submit to Authority". If you've ever lived in Swindon (in the UK), or Highlands Ranch (in metro Denver, USA), then you'll know the feeling.

Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.

Commentary
The rest of the movie involves him trying to convince his friend Frank - another construction worker - of what's really going on, plus the battle of a bunch of rebels, who want to expose the aliens.

Nada's method of convincing his buddy to join his cause, is to spend an inordinate amount of time, in a back alley, with the two of them beating seven sorts of shit out of each other. The main crux of his argument being that Frank should put the sunglasses on, and he'd see what Nada meant. For reasons known only to the screenwriters, Frank continually refuses to wear the sunglasses, but gives no real reason as to why. Instead, they start knocking chunks out of each other. Despite the fact that Nada manages to knock Frank flat, numerous times, it doesn't occur to him to put the sunglasses on Frank whilst he's out cold, until they've fought for a good 10 minutes or more. Finally, he puts the glasses on Frank, and viola...Frank sees the subliminal mind-control stuff too.

Throughout the move, I came to loathe Nada. It wasn't just the mullet haircut, although that didn't warm me to him. It was the fact that despite that fact that it was bleeding obvious that these aliens he could see where a bunch of evil scumbags who wanted to do him harm, He'd wander around totally giving the game away, as to the fact that he uncovered their existence. He'd be saying things like, "My god you're an ugly alien, I can see what you're really like.", and then act all surprised when the cops - aliens to a man - were called, and wanted to shoot first and ask questions later.

Here's a thing. We're told that the aliens are evil, and are keeping humans subdued. OK, so most of the people in positions of authority and power are aliens (can you spot the subtext here?), but apart from the subliminal messages to "marry and reproduce" etc... what were they doing that was all that bad?

Life seemed to be going on as normal, humans weren't being used for experiments, or for food or as a fuel... so what was actually the problem?

I suppose it was more of an ambient evil. The constant subjugation of the masses via the media, but who's to say that isn't already going on?

Oh my God! I'd better start working on those sunglasses!