BENNETT LETS OUT SOME STEAM.

A lot of you must know by now that this summer has been pretty excruciating for me. I’ve had some difficulties outside the cinema lately, but in the cinema, the problems seem to be a lot worse. I think I may be the only one however, as countless people have told me that Clerks II has more “heart” than a Children’s Hospital, who thinks this summer has been a complete waste (outside of Over the Hedge). So I’ve been finding myself searching in the past at things that used to make me smile when I was younger (and hasn’t been raped by a terrible sequel years later).

You can’t forget 1985. Arnold Schwarzenegger blew up the screen with director Mark L. Lester in Commando. This is a film we can all relate to. Every one of us. You see, Schwarzenegger plays John Matrix, an ex-elite special ops type guy, living up the sweet life in the middle of the woods with his daughter, played by the young Alyssa Milano. When a member of his old crew kidnaps her, he is forced to fly to some country in order to assassinate some leader. If and when this mission is accomplished, John can go back to sharing ice cream cones with his daughter in the woods.

But like you and I, when someone takes Alyssa Milano, you fight back.

Matrix: Don’t disturb my friend, he’s dead tired. (A classic one-liner tossed out by Schwarzenegger after he breaks a dude’s neck on an airplane.)

Matrix jumps off the plane and makes his way around, collecting guns and kidnapping stewardesses, and plans the ultimate rescue. After a series of mishaps, he finally makes his way to the base of his daughters captures and, as the Misfits once sang, all hell breaks loose.

The last 20 or so minutes of this film are insane. I mean, imagine Alyssa Milano lives in your household. Whether she is your daughter or your girlfriend, you’d probably do all you could to save her when a group of renegade militants comes and takes her away. If she were my girlfriend, I’d blow up a small country to, just as Schwarnegger does. When I was younger, I put myself in this position. I was Milano’s boyfriend and Bennett and his group of a******s took her away from me. I’d play out the events of that film in my own head but I’d replace Schwarzenegger with myself. Imagine Commando starring me instead, as a 7 year-old kid saving the day. That’s the movie that played continually in my mind back in the mid-to-late 80s.

Imagine me saving Alyssa Milano. Waltzing in to some evildoer’s lair, blowing up everything in sight. Throwing a large pipe into a man’s chest, then telling him to, “let out some steam.” What happen to films like this?

I wrote an angry blog about AMC (the “American Movie Classics” channel) for their lack of showing actual classics a few months ago. But this past Sunday, they showed Commando proudly, and they keep showing it non-stop.

Now, who am I going to have to punch in the face to get them to stop showing Milk Money?