After far, far too long a time, I finally popped the movie Dark Star (1974) off the reader-requested review queue at 366 Weird Movies. Not only is it a long-standing cult favorite for being the first theatrical release for both John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon when they were still film students, it’s also a quirky and unique sci-fi comedy whose “hippies in space” motif is just enough to flirt with the list of weirdest movies of all time.
I’ve always felt a connection with this movie. Not the least because I actually lived in Arizona, which the theme song mentions. In fact, Benson Arizona is a real place, doubtless flabberghasted to have an obscure 1970s sci-fi movie reference them so randomly in a theme song. I suppose any resident of Benson should recognize this familiar landmark:
Which I can’t resist posting since I’m also a mid-century commercial sign junkie, to name another popular viral post of mine.
Anyway, that theme song is one of the only standing examples of nerd-country, if you can believe that’s a genre. It’s a country-and-western song which references quantum physics in space travel – which is also mentioned in the movie when Lt. Doolittle mentions that they’ve been in space for decades but have only aged a few years.
Here’s a 2-hour documentary on the making of Dark Star, lovingly done with a parody video log at the beginning.
“It’s been 40 years, and we’re still out of toilet paper.”
