Tank Girl (1995) / Diary Entry

Made a year before I graduated high school, with Bush on the soundtrack, Lori Petty not long after being Johnny Utah's romantic interest in Point Break and the sister to Geena on the baseball field as Tom Hanks opined that there's no crying in baseball, set in the future where water equals power and Malcolm McDowell's name was in the B-Movie Villain Rolodex for any producer needing that nasty British accent to inform his arch nemesis, "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here"; Tank Girl was gifted to us. Or maybe for those critics who detested it: it was vomited onto us. Talalay was not a highly considered director, after some rather lackluster received films -- "Freddy's Dead" and "Ghost in the Machine" -- so this was sort of her third strike (before television gave her an olive branch). Well, despite a cult following when I watched this ALL THE TIME on cable, the film bombed like a steaming pile on release.

Talalay added a LOT of comic inserts scenes to scenes to I'm sure a lot critical fanfare (in Tank Girl retort: NOT!). There is a lot of energy in this film, a ton of anarchic spirit, with Petty, thankfully, game for whatever was required in the role. That defiance, that spunky, rebellious nature of the character brought to full bloom by Petty...it really helped to embrace this a lot more. I probably would have been less receptive of it. Naomi Watts still had to work at it until Mulholland Drive, but here she is a timid, shaky mechanic wiz trying to eek out a decent life while avoiding one of McDowell's yes men officers in charge while eventually joining forces with Tank Girl. Meanwhile, Ice-T (this was right after I saw him in the Keanu Reeves flop I also have a soft spot for, "Johnny Mnemonic") is a member of a group attacking McDowell's facilities.

Lots and lots of comic inserts.

I have a fond memory of talking to a leftist friend of mine from Canada who told me she thought Petty was HAWT. Haha. She glowingly spoke often about Petty and Tank Girl. Petty's can-do, all-in comic punk heroine seems to click quite well with the alt rock I listened to often as a teenager. That tank, all jazzed up with Tank Girl's personality...this might be a nostalgic trip for some of us. Others, I'm sure, will see Tank Girl as a cosplay icon.