Tapeheads

"Tapeheads", a scrappy, intermittently funny spoof of the music video business, might have been the perfect comedic short, and stars John Cusack and Tim Robbins are effortlessly in the swing of the nonsensical chaos involved. They play two semi-savvy security guards in Los Angeles who start their own company, Video Aces, making hilarious videos for rock groups, parties, and one deathbed star. It's too bad the filmmakers had to invent a dim side-plot to pad the running time (shenanigans involving a crooked politician and his henchmen which doesn't do much except take away from the movie's primary strength, sending-up the music culture of the late-'80s). Still, Cusack and Robbins create a couple of originals here: nerdy but loose, street-smart without being hipsters or posers, these guys are on the same nutty wavelength, and they never put each other down. They're the real thing in buddy-comedies. **1/2 from ****

...oh, yeah, most people are braying morons who wouldn't know a whip tight 80's comedy if it came out on DVD 15 years later with jokes that could still bite a chunk out of Adam Sandler's/Ben Stiller's/even Will Ferrell's ass. I saw this in the theater when it came out and couldn't fathom how the rest of the country wasn't chanting "Let's get into trouble, baby!" Then I remembered the country's median IQ and dismal reading levels and it was clear that this flick just moved too quickly for cinema dwellers who were looking for something a little less challenging than "Mannequin". "Teach me to read." "Sign my butt." "Don't bulls--- me! I'm a big cello fan! Casales died years ago!" "Josh is a visual visionary he communicates in images not antiquated verbosity, maybe that's why he's been so hard to understand recently." RENT-A-FACADE. "The Blender Children are mulch!" "Waffles' just pancakes with little squares on 'em." Not to mention the fact that the whole shebang is a slap in the face to Mtv produced by the creator of the network, Mike Nesmith. If that ain't subversive enough for you then go rank "Mannequin 2: On the Move" a ten and leave the real comedy to those that get it.

Ivan Alexeev (John Cusack) and Josh Tager (Tim Robbins) try to break into the L.A. music scene in the late 1980s. Quirky Samantha Gregory (Mary Crosby) tries to help.

I caught this back in the late 1980s at a small art house. The audience loved it and it was held over for a few weeks. Back then I thought it was just great. Seeing it now, 20 years later, its charms have faded. It is very energetic and Cusack, Robbins and Crosby are just great. There's also a large cast of character actors in small roles that help. The commercial parodies and music videos are funny and inventive. BUT the film gets repetitious real quick--the same jokes are made over and over. It's also very dated (you have to laugh when a character says "Video is the future"), has plenty of bad jokes and some real mediocre songs. Still this has enough good moments to give it a 7 and the closing song/video during the closing credits is lots of fun! Ex MTV DJ Martha Quinn appears as a--music TV DJ! This might work better with an audience.

More than just a few similarities between these two 80's cult films. Both have punk rock elements. Both have major settings in downtown LA's industrial area in the 1980's, well before the arrival of loft buildings and gentrification (post 2000). At that time, only misfits, hard core artist types and homeless were living there. Both parody media of the times, including music videos. (Repo Man specifically skewering televangelists and Tapeheads specifically roasting self-help types like Tony Robbins, or more likely Don LaPre.)

Both have goofball government agents chasing after the protagonists. Repo Man has The Circle Jerks doing bad lounge music in a dive bar. Tapeheads has Fishbone doing bad country music in a dive bar. Both have authority figures with "perverted" sex secrets (Tapeheads' Norman Mart with his spanking games, and Repo Man mentioning that John Wayne was gay.) Both films were produced by Michael Nesmith. (Sure The Nez must have been on familiar ground here with Fishman's script, just coming off Repo Man a few years prior.)

As others mentioned, director Bill Fishman employed a number of Cox's previous collaborators, including Zander Schloss, Xander Berkely and Courtney Love. So, was Fishman intentionally, slavishly copying Alex Cox with Tapeheads?

Honestly, I don't care, but the similarities are just so striking that I could not write a review of this film without mentioning them. If Repo Man is a 10, then Tapeheads, a similar take on LA in the 80's is an 8, the film's rating elevated largely by the game, appropriately goofy performances of Cusack and Robbins as the two leads. Cusack is really great in both comedy and drama, especially considering he would go on to a heavily dramatic (and successful)role in Stephen Frears' The Grifters only a couple years after this film.

It's not for everyone, and people use the term "quirky" far too much for my tastes. But this movie really is a quirkfest of the highest order and one of my personal fave pet movies.

(I should also note the similar plot point from Christopher Guest's movie The Big Picture, released about a year later, where the protagonist leaps from obscurity to fame after directing a no-budget, goofy music video which gets his name mentioned on MTV, by Richard Belzer of all people. Yet another element for me to confuse in my addled brain...wait, wasn't Richard Belzer in this movie? Oh no, that was The Big Picture!)

If you haven't stumbled across the movie, and you like Repo Man, early MTV or goofy 1980's comedies, you should check this out. And be on the watch for super brief cameos from Michael Nesmith, Weird Al Yankovic, Bobcat Goldthwait, Courtney Love and Jello Biafra. There's a cast list for ya, film fans.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm really hungry and could do well right now with a Scoe's Special from Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles.

I can't explain why but I've watched this a hundred times and I keep laughing, alongside Cusack's Better Off Dead. John Cusack and Tim Robbins were still playing losers and became good friends off camera when they made Tapeheads, as they play bumbling would-be music video makers. In order to get their boyhood heroes The Swanky Modes (played by real-life singers Sam Moore and Junior Walker) the gig of all gigs, they scam and plug their way through unpaid work, Roscoe's chicken and waffles, relentless hitmen and a vengeful politician. Great character acting by Jessica Walter, Don Cornelius and Clu Gulager. Cameos by a ton of folks, including executive producer Michael Nesmith (from the Monkees), Jello Biafra, Fishbone and the Nuge. Along the way are all kinds of catchy little jokes that you either like and remember forever or. just don't like. "We love Menudo." "On spec." The mounting parking tickets. At least watch it for Cusack and Robbins passing the Brothers Against Drunk Driving (BADD) alcohol test: going through the alphabet backwards with your eyes closed, skipping all the vowels and giving the hand sign for each letter.

The DVD is letterboxed and has a strong analog track with Nesmith, director Bill Fishman and production designer Catherine Hardwicke. Much of the time it is as light-hearted as the movie and interesting. Unfortunately, Fishman brings up tons of scenes that were deleted from the film but aren't included on the DVD. I'm sure there's some reason for this, maybe they just weren't available, but it's kind of frustrating - they actually sound funny instead of the usual deleted scene that deserved to be cut out and forgotten. I was surprised that so much stuff was actually cut out, and that Cusack and Robbins wanted to play the opposite roles when they auditioned. But, this ain't the high theater either. At times the analog track has some of those "Remember when that happened" stories, that only work if you really really like the film. But then, why else would you watch the whole thing with the analog track on?