Arnold Schwarzenegger in THE RUNNING MAN Screens at Schlafly Dec. 3rd – ‘Strange Brew’

“Uplink underground, uplink underground. If you say that one more time, I’ll uplink your ass, and you’ll be underground!”

THE RUNNING MAN screens Wednesday night December 3rd at Schlafly Bottleworks at 8pm

You never know what’s brewing at Webster University’s Strange Brew cult film series. It’s always the first Wednesday evening of every month, and they always come up with some cult classic to show while enjoying some good food and great suds. The fun happens at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar in Maplewood (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, MO 63143).

In the 1987 sci-fi spandex and cheese-fest THE RUNNING MAN, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Ben Richards AKA ‘The Butcher of Baker’s Field Massacre’, who becomes a contestant on the reality TV show (hosted by The Family Feud’s Richard Dawson!) “The Running Man” where various criminals play a game in which the prize is a “Trial by jury”, ‘A suspended sentence” and even a “Full pardon”. However nobody has ever won due to the stalker’s painful advantage, this is until Schwarzenegger starts playing. There were few things that young filmgoers like myself looked forward to at the drive-in in the 80’s, one was nudity/sex and two were summer action movies with big body counts. The Running Man at the time was a surreal action flick and although I loved it, I figured a recent rewatch would result in this nothing but a two star nostalgia-fueled 90 minutes. However THE RUNNING MAN has aged in an interesting way. It predicted the reality television craze and although it’s fairly exaggerated, the future elements make this a movie that has aged fairly well. The soundtrack makes it feel really 80’s but I for one loved the imagination taken with the material. As a younger viewer, I doubt I got much of the satire and jokes that basically took shots at us, the main audience, however in hindsight THE RUNNING MAN is a fascinating feature which works not only as a fun Schwarzenegger action flick but also as a sly satire on Reality TV and basically the viewer in general. Today, a gameshow like The Running Man may be closer to reality than anyone would have ever thought possible.

Check out THE RUNNING MAN when it screens Wednesday night December 3rd at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar in Maplewood (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, MO 63143). The movie starts at 8pm and admission is $4. A yummy variety of food from Schlafly’s kitchen is available as are plenty of pints of their famous home-brewed beer.