tomburkulosis

By now you’re probably familiar with the concept of Manly Movie Mondays: after just one installment, it is already The Internet’s most well-respected manly movie recommendation series. (Yes, that’s “The Internet” with a capital T and a capital I.)

This week’s recommendation is Midnight Express, an undeniably manly movie based on a true story that teaches you how to deal with the consequences of being an idiot and trying to smuggle hashish out of Turkey. We all do stupid things every once in while—hopefully not as stupid as, say, trying to smuggle hashish out of Turkey—so it is good to be reminded every once in a while of what can happen as a result.

As often happens in Hollywood, however, “based on a true story” in this case means “mostly fictionalized.” All the truly gnarly scenes from this fine motion picture were made up by Oliver Stone. But what the hell does that matter? I am pretty sure that most of Surviving the Game was fictional too. That doesn’t mean if I’m being hunted by a gang of sadistic bankers I’m not going to try to throw them off my trail by sticking lit cigarettes in trees. 

Similarly, after watching Midnight Express, I now consider biting out someone’s tongue a fully viable—practically reasonable—method for dealing with prison house snitches. And this is just one of the many techniques you can learn for living in hellish foreign prison conditions* from watching the movie!

It also features some solid acting from Brad Davis and a big supporting role from everyone’s favorite supporting actor, Cousin Eddie. Queue it up on Netflix and check it out before I hit you with some new manliness next Monday.

*Hellish, but, as far as Turkey is concerned, highly fictionalized. Apologies to the Turkish people. But I’m sure gnarly prisons like this exist somewhere in the world. You should try to stay out of them.

This post marks the first installment of Manly Movie Mondays, a weekly series that is exactly what it sounds like. Every Monday from here on out, I will recommend a movie of exemplary manliness. It might not be a good movie—this one isn’t—but it will feature manly men doing manly things such that you just might learn a thing or two about being manly from watching it.

That said, Surviving the Game is a movie—nay, a film—adaptation of The Most Dangerous Game, a classic short story by Richard Connell. If you haven’t read it, you probably went to public school. (Note: I went to public school.)

Between that knowledge and a quick glance at the poster above, you probably have a pretty good idea of the plot of this movie. If you don’t, I’ll tell it to you: Rutger Hauer and his crew (which includes Gary Busey) hunt Ice-T for sport. If that doesn’t sound awesome to you, I don’t know what to tell you. I wasn’t a critical studies major.

Anyway, the key manly aspects of this movie include: hunting (!), surviving (!!), and lots of really screwed-up father-son relationships. A perfect example of the latter is the following masterpiece of a monologue by Gary Busey. If you only know Busey from his guest appearances on Entourage, (A) you’re probably a horrible person, and (B) prepare to have your face rocked off:

Perhaps the best thing about this cinematic masterpiece is that it’s available on Netflix Instant, so you can watch it whenever and wherever you want. I also feel like it is always playing on TBS or TNT or one of those channels, but you’d be doing yourself a disservice by viewing a chopped-up, edited-down version. So fire it up, and enjoy it for what it is. Then come back here and let me know what you think.