“Videodrome” the ultimate vhs film about vhs films – who else but David Cronenberg could fetishise the VHS cassette and make a horror movie out of it.

Videodrome – released in 1983, in pre-certification VHS era, is a continuation of Cronenberg’s  fascination and continued exploration of “body horror”. Inserting a VHS cassette into James Wood’s abdomen was an apt visual metaphor for the theme of the movie and really the movie industry as a whole at that time.

Distributors describe that being in the VHS distribution biz in the early days was a bit like being a crack dealer. In those days VHS titles were sold to video stores not direct to the public “for rental only” was the classification at $60 -80 per title and it was easy to sell 20-40,000 units and everything sold. Later  it was harder to sell no name titles but for a while it was big business and lots of independents got in the game and did very well.  I think Videodrome realty captured the zeitgeist of the times. I remember seeing the film on VHS in 1985 and thinking it was pretty out there and it  still is 25 years later. I recently  re-watched it on dvd – it looks and sounds so much better but it was more shocking  first time around on VHS.

I saw David Cronenberg talk at the 2005 Cannes film festival the year he was promoting a History Of Violence which is ironic given that a History Of Violence was the last studio film released on VHS. He  said among other things that when you start directing you won’t know if you have anything to say  until you have made three films or so – it really is a leap of faith when you first start. His body of work up to Videodrome is very consistent- Shivers,  Rabid,  Scanners – all great films made by an auteur getting better each time . It seems he did have something to say after all and still does to this day.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) another great film from the VHS era

The infamous David Begelman was involved in financing this movie- at 12M it wasn’t cheap given how bizarre the story was but it got made, died at the box office on release but has lived on first as a cult fav on VHS then on DVD. If it had been made in the 70’s it would have sunk without a trace or survived on the Grindhouse – or drive in circuit for a while.  Luckily for everyone VHS gave this film a lifeline and it survived as the word spread.  In the digital era would this film have made it?  The difference is that in a video store you could browse and talk to the staff to get recommendations- check out the box then take it home to watch. In the digital download you could hear about it on twitter or facebook  but if not you would be lucky to come across it given the vastness of that space. Looking back the video store as it was in the 80’s really allowed films to find an audience I think that is not the case now despite all the golden promise of the Internet download era.

Great crazy movie!

The end credits are really cute.

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Why is the 1978 version of Piranha better than the 2010 version- John Sayles wrote the script (always a good thing), the special effects are cheesy and it is funny.

Back in the day Indies would do cheap knock off versions of big Hollywood hits – now the studios do exactly the same thing to their own films except they are not cheap and they are called franchise movies and the law of diminishing returns hold true is almost all cases. It is ironic – Piranha 2010 is a big budget studio remake of a an cheap Indie film  which itself was knock off  a big budget  studio film JAWS. It seems to have gone full circle.

The 1978 version- John Sayles wrote an excellent script – Joe Dante directed, his second feature, very competently and it holds up today. They were making a parody so they didn’t need great special effects in fact the cheesier the better (which they were)- it adds to the fun. Not for everyone.

Flash forward to 2010 and we have the 20M remake- is it any better? I must admit to watching it and having a chuckle at a few points- it looks fantastic but its kinda blah when you get down to it. They went to town on the CG Piranhas which didn’t really help- plenty of splatter and body parts some of which were funny- Elizabeth Shue almost makes it watchable but the script wasn’t that good .  Is it better- no!

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951) a gentle movie that is so sweet that you love the bad guys and hate the good guys.

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB is so great its hard to start except to say that the restrained Britishness of it works a treat – much copied but never bettered.  If it had been made now they would have got away with it – but as it is it is a slightly sad ending to a grand caper.

The only visual effect in the film is a riotous scene running down the stairs of the Eiffel Tower – by todays CGI standards it looks fake but its such a joy to watch Alex Guinness and Stanley Holloway behaving like naughty school boys that it works.

 

The director Charles Crichton  directed “A Fish Called Wanda” nearly 40 years later aged 79- he had lost none of his deft touch after all those years.

 

 

 

200 MOTELS a surrealist documentary from Frank Zappa that might just be genius…or complete crap. Hard to tell!

Frank Zappa was a musical genius without peer – his music was not really verse chorus verse, listen to “Billy Was A Mountain ” to know that, so why would his first and only feature film have a plot, first act- second act- third act plot points, character arcs, call to action or anything vaguely related to a Hollywood movie (it was released by United Artists so not so crazy as it may seem).

More Bertolt Brecht than Steven Spielberg- in fact it looks like Lars Von Trier might have directed it- in 1971 he would have 15 years old so probably not . Shot in only 8 days on videotape, it was the first film transfered from tape to  35MM which is why it looks very strange.

The basic premise “touring makes you crazy” is not really well explored in 200 Motels – the premise is really just a starting point for the directors Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer to riff off musically and visually. Despite its shortcomings as a “film”  it plays very well- once you get over the oddness of the mise en scene it is hypnotic, it  just drags you along.Worth watching definitely.

The Rolling Stones “Cocksucker Blues” on the other hand really nailed the “touring makes you crazy” thing so well they pulled the film from release. The film is a very raw look at The Stones on the road for the Exile On Mainstreet album – lots of sex, drugs and rock and roll (even a TV going out of a hotel window) as any self respecting rock tour should be. Very hard to see- a must if you can find it.

STREET TRASH flying penis scene- LOL very very hard!!!

This film (on VHS) is outrageous – its so out there it makes me want to cry.  Where are these films today- this is 70’s exploitation film style in the VHS era. Really once VHS matured it got more mainstream but gems like STREET TRASH  in 1987 continued the spirit of crazy Independence from the studio distribution system. This sequence – the flying penis sequence made me laugh out loud like I was  a madman – it is so funny. Evidently they had 3 penis prosthetic sizes to shoot the sequence with – small medium and large for various close ups and long shots etc known respectively as

 

1. the pecker

2. the pounder

3. the packer.

 

Enjoy!!!

ALONE IN THE DARK – a restrained slasher movie.

“Alone In The Dark” is a very restrained thriller rather than a horror film- given it was released in 1982 in the VHS “pre-cert’ era which produced some truly gruesome horror films  even more so. The director Jack Shoulder in his own words was never that into the full on slasher thing:

JACK SHOULDER: “I was never a hard-core slasher kind of guy…I never wanted to humiliate people or inflict pain just for the sake of inflicting pain, or do horrible effects just to see how gross I could possibly be. That never really interested me that much.”

It’s still a good film with a few great thrills and some horror moments, beautifully shot by  DP Joseph Mangine. Great first film by Jack Shoulder followed up by Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and The Hidden – a great start to a career that seemed to fade out after the 80’s.

Worth seeing again if for no other reason the see  the band “The Sic Fucks” do a rousing version of “Chop Up Your Mother” during the film – its a bit like The Tubes if you remember them- amazing.

ALLIGATOR (1980) – great script CGI not needed

This a great film written by John Sayles in his early horror period- The Howling, Piranha and Alligator – all excellent work on his part. The interesting thing about Alligator is that, like Jaws, the mechanical Alligator is not that realistic but the director Lewis Teague did an excellent job cutting around the creature and the script is so tight that the story works beautifully. Richard Zanuck(RIP) said on the JAWS doco that if they had been able to CG the shark in as we can do today the film would have failed. Interesting thought given the sad state of the studio tentpole films. The lesson here is script trumps CG effects every-time. Nice to have both but if you had to choose spend more money and time on the script and leave the rest to the audience imagination.

 

Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) too many things to say about this film all of it good

Melvin Van Peebles wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in and wrote part of the score for this film- if that’s not the most  auteur of auteur films then what is. I watched this on VHS – and it took me several goes to get started as it looks pretty terrible and the story is a bit messy to begin with but eventually I stuck it out and really liked it. Much has been written about this film being the first “Blaxploitation” film or ushering in Black Cinema which it certainly was but it is a great film on its own merits- capturing the zeitgeist of it times and telling a very compelling story.

If we had a Punk Rock equivalent in movies this would be it – Melvin Van Peebles really did his own thing on this film- visually and structurally very experimental and avant garde yet angry all at the same time. If this film premiered at Sundance this year it would have blown everyone away – it would have make the competition look pretty weak by comparison.

Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song had a reported budget of 500,000 which I doubt very much given the low budget look but it grossed over $15M in the USA – a huge success by any accounting standards even studio accounting couldn’t hide  this much profit. Given the clout this success would have given Melvin Van Peebles its a shame he didn’t direct more films in his career- films like “Superfly”, “Coffy” and “Detroit 9000” would have I think been good material for him to put his stamp on.

A good doco to check out on Melvin.

How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It) (2005)

3 GREAT THINGS JEAN-LUC GODARD DID BEFORE HE GOT BORED WITH MAKING MOVIES