#690 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Thursday June 22)
Good morning,
While we are several days past Fathers’ Day, there’s a little more to be said on a Dad-related topic.
DAD MOVIES—THE GENRE
Jake sent me an article about the best “Dad Movies,” courtesy of Maxread on Substack. It’s a great meditation on an entire genre of 1980-2000 great movies. Here’s the description:
“If you're anywhere near me in age, you know the kind of movies I'm talking about: Movies set on submarines; movies set on aircraft carriers; movies where lawyers are good guys; movies where guys secure the perimeter and/or the package; movies where a guy has to yell to make himself heard over a helicopter; movies where guys with guns break the door into a room decorated with cut-out newspaper headlines. Movies starring guys like Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Costner, and Wesley Snipes... Movies where men are men, Bravo Teams are Bravo Teams, and women are sexy but humorless ball-busters who are nonetheless ultimately susceptible to the roguish charm of state security-apparatus functionaries. Movies that dads like.”
He goes on to describe the genre further:
“Though the genre is capacious and its borders porous, Dad Thrillers share certain thematic and narrative concerns. They are generally stories of men, often with families, professional degrees, and successful careers, who find themselves unexpectedly battling bureaucracy, conspiracy, irrational violence, imminent natural disaster, or some combination of the above as they confront an existential threat to their, their family, their country, or their planet's safety.
Their themes are functions of the global political economy of the 1990s, and reflect Hollywood's interpretation of the major male socio-political anxieties of the era: the breakup of the Soviet Union; the rise of "non-state actors" including terrorists, paramilitaries, militias, and NGOs; the growth of the internet and surveillance networks; the aging into political and economic power of the Baby Boom generation; women unfairly suing you for being a sex pest; velociraptors; and so on.
Not just anything with explosions or spies counts as a Dad Thriller: The Dad Thriller is adjacent to, but distinct from the blockbuster action, science-fiction, or disaster movie, specifically due to the veneer of political or moral sophistication attached to the Dad Thriller…”
THE MOVIES—THE EARLY ENTRIES AND THE PROTOTYPES
Among the wellsprings of the genre are, of course, Die Hard, Presumed Innocent and The Hunt for Red October. I don’t buy the entire list, but wholeheartedly endorse a number of his choices, including The Fugitive, Air Force One, Patriot Games, Crimson Tide, Michael Clayton, Casino Royale, and Batman Begins (actually, the entirety of the Nolan Batman trilogy).
CATEGORIZING THE GENRE
The author lists several subsets that act as Venn diagrams to get to the “perfect” examples of the genre:
Movies that are Die Hard in one form or another
Movies with Jake Ryan
Movies With Guys With Freaky Rooms filled with Photos and Cut-Out Newspaper headlines
Movies where the President is a character and seems like a good guy
Movies where aliens and/or dinosaurs reflect existential anxieties about capitalism, democracy, the end of history, and the looming disaster of climate change
Military bullshit
Alec Baldwin
General Boomer Psychosis and Paranoia
Movies about doctors in distress
Movies where cops and the guys they’re trying to catch are not so different
Action-comedies about the terrifying but also funny power of the deep state
Movies where the bad guy is a disgruntled cop or soldier
Movies where nukes and/or vital intelligence are loose and for sale to eil oligarchs on the black market in the former Soviet Union
SOME OTHER DAD GENRES
Lone Heros
Though perhaps not quite of the same genre, I’d add the Daniel Craig James Bond films, Gone Girl, Unforgiven, The Departed, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino, Dirty Harry, Indiana Jones (the first and third installments), Taken (the first one only—none of the tripe that followed), and John Wick.
But the Dad Movie isn’t just a thing of the 90s. It is preceded by the lone men with principles who stood up to evil, like Silverado or, earlier still, Shane, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, Casablanca, The Outlaw Josie Wales. There are many others. I think I’ll sit back in my Barcalounger and take one in…
Time Travel
You can’t beat my three favorites: Frequency, starring Dennis Quaid, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (where our rough time period is where the journey comes), and Back to the Future (the first is the best but I like all three). I’d add Looper (though Jake disagrees), Interstellar, Somewhere in Time (somewhat creepy way of traveling and a weird ending), Star Trek: First Contact, and Edge of Tomorrow. For “fun” time travel, Hot Tub Time Machine and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Though not really a time travel movie, as much as a time-repeating movie, Groundhog Day. Finally, there’s the “let’s reboot the entire history” of Star Trek, with Chris Pine.
Have a good day,
Glenn