Top 5: President Movies

In honor of last week’s upgrade to an All New All Different President, I decided this week’s installment of Top 5 would concern movie presidents. However, as I wracked my brain, I realized that movie presidents are a ridiculous lot. And why shouldn’t they be, as real life presidents are usually pretty ridiculous themselves. Therefore, here is your Top 5 [Ridiculous] President Movies.

5. Air Force One – You probably think that nothing could be more badass than a United States President squeezing into a flight suit and letting a trained pilot land him on a Mission Accomplished banner so he might wave his overly ambitious codpiece at scores of uneducated and destitute cannon fodder on an aircraft carrier. You would be wrong. In 'Air Force One', President Indiana Solo regulates on a group of Russian terrorists who hijack Air Force One in an attempt to convince the president to negotiate with terrorists. The President doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. He sends Ambassador 9mm to settle problems.

4. Escape from New York

– In the distant future of 1997, New York City has become something almost as bad as the gentrified center of commodified culture it is today. The island of Manhattan has become a lawless prison. When the President’s plane is shot down over the city, his escape pod lands in Manhattan and he is promptly held by the villainous New Yorkers! ‘Escape from New York’ doesn’t go too much into the man’s policies, but judging by the rescue effort, he couldn’t have made too many friends. Rather than a group of highly trained and well-equipped Special Forces commandos, they send a cranky one-eyed hobo named Snake Plissken.

3. Bad Dudes – If your president is kidnapped by criminals, you send a bad dude to rescue him. However, what if your president is kidnapped by NINJAS? That’s right, you send Bad Dudes. Plural. In ‘Bad Dudes’ the evil Dragonninja sends a bunch of ninjas to kidnap President Ronnie. The Secret Service immediately finds Blade and Striker, two tank-topped and sweat panted brawlers. "President Ronnie has been kidnapped by the ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue Ronnie?" Yes, please.

Some movie nerds may point out that ‘Bad Dudes’ is technically not a movie and is in fact a 1988 Data East Arcade Game. Cry me a river fanboy. Anyone who finished the game and saw the brilliantly cinematic end sequence involving President Ronnie eating cheeseburgers with the Bad Dudes knows what time it is.

2. Bananas

– I think the only thing that might hasten the arrival of the Robot/Zombie/Alien Apocalypse faster than a United States President convinced the Rapture will come in his lifetime, would be a President Woody Allen. In ‘Bananas,’ Woody Allen—because seriously…no matter what his character’s name might be, it’s Woody Allen—travels to the fictional Latin American country San Marcos where he joins with a group of rebels in order to impress a political activist back home. Allen’s character quickly becomes the President of San Marcos and hilarity ensues. Seriously, if 99.44% have seen Woody Allen’s movies, there aren’t enough of you watching them.

1. Idiocracy – President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho. I shouldn’t really have to say anything else, but since this film only played in six theaters, here’s the rundown: An Army librarian is put into suspended animation for a year to test a government hibernation program. Due to a series of events, the program is forgotten and our hero pops out of hibernation 500 years later into a world of morons. Apparently, intelligent people don’t reproduce, while morons spawn like rabbits. Natural selection has peopled the country with a people whose president is the machinegun wielding Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, who made his name in porn and professional wrestling before the Presidency.

Note: Before any of you blow up my inbox asking about ‘Duck Soup,’ I disqualified that particular movie because, if I included it, it would have taken all five slots. Gotta give the other movies a chance.