vlvetmorning98

By far the most wacked-out teen comedy of all time, this bizarre Robert Altman nugget was adapted from a single issue of National Lampoon magazine, the 1982 "Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs" special. The plot is simple: O.C. and Stiggs are two bored, horny, Arizona high schoolers who find immense satisfaction in tormenting the Schwab family (the patriarch is fabulously portrayed by Altman regular Paul Dooley). Over summer vacation, they canoe to Mexico, buy a machine gun from Dennis Hopper, organize a King Sunny Ade concert, and try to woo Cynthia Nixon. There's no sentimentality in this film whatsoever. The two leads are unlikable, homophobic morons, but it still adds up into a remarkably funny endeavor. If you're not in the mood for something with a profound statement to make and enjoy laughing at bizarre non-sequiturs, give this film a try.

Mind-imploding cinematic disaster from Twentieth-Century Fox pairs archival World War II footage and Fox films from (primarily) the same period along with "choice" Beatles covers. It's sort of like THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT! gone terribly wrong. Did people think that this film would have some sort of educational purpose? Maybe a Fox executive thought this would fill in the void for Beatles fans desperate for the band to reunite? Some of the stock footage is quite interesting, like Japanese-American owned businesses disguising their ethnicity and footage of James Stewart enlisting. So too is a look at some of the fictitious films Fox made in response to the war (in one clip, a woman hears news of Pearl Harbor on the radio and says, "Oh, it must be Orson Welles!"). But most of the music is pretty awful, and cuing "The Fool on the Hill" and "Nowhere Man" with Hitler and Mussolini respectively can't take the place of a scholarly exploration of the subject.

Peter Watkins-directed mockumentary about a pop star whose fame is engineered by the government. Paul Jones gives a wonderful performance as Steven Shorter, possibly the most famous man in Great Britain. We watch his daily exploits as he's followed by a documentary crew that also narrates. Although Shorter is clearly in the vein of a "mod" from the mid-1960's, the film has aged quite well. The original songs are great ("Privilege(Set Me Free)" was covered by Patti Smith in 1978) and the scenes of Shorter leading a fascist-like rally are still eerie (perhaps an influence on the film PINK FLOYD THE WALL?). Another great scene deals with Shorter being conscripted into writing a Catholic rock song, which anticipates how the organized Christianity of today tries to use rock as a way of converting people. Definitely worth watching. Hopefully it will finally get a proper home video release.