The Flux Capacitor

Ah, the 1980s, that glorious decade in which the world was a happier place. (I didn't realise about Thatcher stealing our milk and cookies until after the event so leave me in my blissful oblivion.)

Forget your peace-mongering hippes of the Sixties, step on the hairs of the chinny chin-chins of the Seventies punks, I for one am proud to be part of the 80s' Generation Betamax where nothing was worth worrying about coz there was too much hot damn great stuff on TV and too many annoyingly catchy tunes spurting from the nearest walkman, where you need not worry about your over-the-head marseev headphones coz, well, you all look stupid.

After much contemplation, deep thought, 3am-bouts-of-Superman 1 and 2 and mmm-ing and ahhh-ing, I've come to some striking new conclusions about everyone's favourite reporter Lois Lane.

See, the thing was, I always hated her. Couldn't stand her. Demanding valuable time off Superman and getting him to turn the world around for her just coz she died by stupidly falling into a ravine - well what about the rest of the frickin sorry world ay?

However, turns out, she really ain't that bad. I mean look at it. She's like a high powered driven career gal who only wants a story. Getting stuck on falling lifts on the Eiffel tower and falling off broken helicopters perched on skyscrapers, is really just part of the game. It's really not her fault Clark Kent/Superman/Whatever falls in love with her. And it says a lot when the only bloke she'll settle for is a superhero. It's not like she asked him to spin the world back the other way so she wouldn't fall into the earthquake. He did it off his own initiative because he couldn't be bothered to stop other car accidents/earthquakes/apocalypse scenarios. And thus, the Adam and Eve-ness of it all is actually all about Superman being a selfish bustard.

And totally unreliable too. If he'd just done his job properly in the first place he wouldn't have had to turn the world back and reverse time. And how many frickin times did he drop Ms Lane on their travels at 35,000 feet?

And ya gotta hand it to Lois. She's a gutsy lass really. I mean, not many kids would chuck themselves off Niagara Falls to prove a niggling suspicion that two people you knew might be the same person. (Well, Piers might.) She's dedicated, I'll hand her that. She's just very stupid and lacking in common sense. The plummet from Niagara was somewhat unwarranted when all she needed to do was casually knock Kent's glasses off at the next office Christmas party.

And the outcome? She cannae handle seeing Kent at work everyday so he erases her memory - well, dude, she'll get over it won't she!!!! Give her some credit, she chucked herself into a waterfall for you!! Go on Superman, you crawl back to Lana in smelly scuzzy Smallville and her stupid spoiled brat kid. Lois is too frickin good for ya.

Who remembers in Mallrats when Shannen Doherty prances past a Tremors poster in a huff?

Thought you'd recall that more clearly than the actual film itself, even though it should be embedded in the memory of every 80s child out of sheer principle.

Why?

Because it's so friggin great! Have you ever seen anything constructed by comedy and bad special effects so beautifully? With the wonderful wonderful Kev Bacon Sarnie to top things off?!

It is not Mr Pork Crackling, however, who I wish to draw your attention to, but the spectacular, wonderful Fred Ward. He gets the best lines. He pole-vaults from rock to rock with such elegance, avoiding the man eating giant worms.

And he has the priveledge of the all movie-stealing line running through the desert for his life annd limbs intact, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! AAAGH!ooo-ARGH!!!!!!!!....GOD DAMN PRAIRIE BURLS!"

HE even came back for the sequel. He deserves some kind of academy award for having only ever appeared siginificantly in Tremors and its magnificent sorry sequels. Mr Ward, I salute thee, you cowboy, you.

That is, I did, until someone made me sit through Sweet Home Alabama. You've just dashed all my illusions Fred.