The Americans

I can't find anyone to talk about The Americans with, and this makes me very sad. The day after an episode of Mad Men or Breaking Bad airs, you can hardly swing a dead cat without hitting someone who's dissecting every single aspect of the show. But when I ask around the office if anyone has seen The Americans, they respond as if I just asked them to discuss last night's Sean Saves the World. I just don't get it though, because The Americans combines the period-specific fetish for fashion, automobiles, and design of Mad Men with the nail-biting tension and violent action of Breaking Bad. Plus it's about Russian spies! Needless to say, it's incredibly awesome.

Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell) are just your average, sexy, American couple living in the suburbs outside of Washington D.C. in 1981. By day, they run a travel agency together and raise their two children. By night, they are ass-kicking spies for the Soviet Union whose hand-to-hand combat skills are second only to their impressive array of wigs and disguises. On top of undertaking dangerous missions and maintaining the elaborate charade of their day-to-day lives, Philip and Elizabeth must come to terms with their arranged marriage. Do they really love each other, or is love a complication that spies just can't afford? Oh, and the FBI agent in charge of investigating the KGB in the Washington area just happens to be their new next-door neighbor.

It's safe to say that I have a soft spot for the early 80s. Much like baby boomers watch Mad Men and see themselves in Sally Draper, I much more identify with young Henry Jennings. The period details of The Americans might not be as distinctive as those in Mad Men - it takes place during the brief time between the trademark aesthetic weirdness of both the 70's and 80's - but you can't miss the Star Wars sheets, the giant boxy sedans, and turtlenecks, turtlenecks, turtlenecks. Which is to say nothing of the tunes - as has been noted elsewhere, The Americans' use of music rivals that of Eastbound and Down or Breaking Bad.

Speaking of Breaking Bad (again), The Americans takes pretty much everything that has come to define awesome cable dramas and improves on it. Yes, the main characters are involved in a web of lies and schemes that threatens to fall apart at any moment, but the Jennings' delicate balancing act makes the lives of Walter White and Don Draper look positively uncomplicated by comparison. The show's got plenty of sexy, sexy sex, but as graphic as it gets (and good lord, does it ever), it somehow never feels gratuitous (I'm looking at you, Game of Thrones). You want moral ambiguity? In their quest to win the Cold War for the Motherland, Philip and Elizabeth leave a trail of broken hearts and necks in their path while still making you root for these crazy kids.

There's so much more I could say about The Americans - I haven't even begun to touch on the many badass spy missions or the tragic travails of all-American FBI guy Stan Beeman - but you really just need to see it for yourself. Not only will you give it a tiny but much-needed ratings boost, but maybe I'll finally have someone to talk about season two of this awesome show with.

Fifty/Fifty

The Cannon Group was a film production/distribution company formed by a pair of Israeli cousins whose specialty it was to make big, dumb, and (most importantly) cheap movies throughout the 1980s. They are responsible for some of the most awesome B movies ever, including American Ninja, The Delta Force, Cobra, and Masters of the Universe. They finally bit off more than they could chew when they got the rights to make Superman 4: The Quest for Peace and realized too late they were way out of their league (the movie, if you've never seen it, is a giant stinky mess). A series of financial disasters later, Cannon resurfaced for one last gasp in the early '90s and released a few final films - one of which was 1992's Fifty/Fifty - before fading into the history books.

Fifty/Fifty (directed by character actor and Air Bud director Charles Martin Smith) tells the story of two former CIA operatives (Peter Weller and Robert Hayes) who bump into each other while playing on opposite sides of a failed third world coup. After they escape the island together, they are hired by the CIA to return to the generic dictatorship and train the rebels there. The duo heads back into the jungle and whips the locals into fighting shape, all the while cracking wise and flirting with the rebellion leader's niece, who also happens to be the least Asian-looking woman in the village.

I expected to enjoy this movie for purely ironic reasons, but holy crap was it so much more. The action is awesome and cool-looking, featuring gun battles and helicopters and tanks and grenade launchers and explosions and all sorts of badassness. Weller and Hayes are great, which sadly comes as a surprise because they're two actors who will never really escape their iconic roles (Robocop and Airplane!, respectively). Their chemistry is fantastic, and their "buddy cop" dialogue rivals that of any Shane Black script. Plus the locations were pretty beautiful, perhaps owing to the fact that Cannon probably owned a
secret jungle island somewhere.

Some things about it are weird, though. Weller and Hayes train the residents of the rebel village in what is meant to be a heartwarming training montage, although I couldn't help but think that instead of facing the rich kids' team in the championships, these people were going off to face almost certain death. And lo and behold, [SPOILER ALERT] THE ENTIRE VILLAGE, including the not-so-Asian love interest, is killed before the ragtag bunch even makes it to the President's palace. I mean sure it makes it more dramatic when the CIA cancels the mission at the end but Weller and Hayes DO IT ANYWAY, single(double?)-handedly mowing down the President and wave upon wave of his cronies in a hail of hot lead and bursting squibs, but come on guys. I was really starting to like that one weird dude with the eyepatch.

So why is Fifty/Fifty so awesome? Well first of all, much like Smith's Trick or Treat, it's a cheesy 80s genre film that's much better than it has any right to be. It's a competently made movie that has lots of great performances and practical effects. But more importantly, it's a great example of the kind of action flick that simply doesn't exist anymore - a big, kickass movie where the heroes smoke cigarettes, drop the f-bomb, and actually kill people. And that, my friends, is awesome.