1980s, I Apologize To You

More and more I see a certain reverence of and fascination with the 80s. Nostalgia for the 80s has been cropping up in movies and tv with increasing frequency. Certainly, some of my college students are seeking inspiration in that particular rear view mirror.

I think I’ve written about this before, but I can’t help feeling that my experience in the 80s has nothing to do with this current house of mirrors reinterpretation of the 80s. The entirety of my high school and college experience, as well as my move to San Francisco all happened in the 80s. Three significant life moments all went down, yet I don’t see a stitch of my world view represented by the current wave of 80s nostalgia. I suppose nostalgia is about reducing an era down to its main signifiers and amplifying their importance at the expense of the margins and bit players from said era. If you head down the path of subculture, your experience gets weeded out even more as the decades pass.

In any event, I didn’t like Thriller, MTV was not that important to me, I’ve never seen Top Gun, and I never cared for Hall and Oates. And while there are certainly some John Hughes movies I like, I can honestly say I don’t hold any of those dear to my heart.

So why bring all this up now? For some reason, I got to thinking about movies from the 80s that impacted me. And whenever I think about the 80s and movies, my immediate reaction is to put the decade down. My kneejerk reaction is to think it a somewhat barren decade from a cinematic perspective. I can easily pick out films from every era that I love, that moved me, and that I hold in high regard. Yet when it comes to movies of the 80s, I usually draw a blank.

As a little exercise to myself I decided to quickly come up with a list of movies that had an immediate impact on me when I saw them in the theaters in the 80s. Not films that I discovered later on vhs or dvd. I wanted to focus solely on films I saw in a movie theater while the decade was unfolding. And I kept it fairly above ground as well. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a bunch, but here they are.

I’m sure I could write a lot about how many of these films have not resonated in the public consciousness much beyond their release date. I could talk about how this selection of films sheds a lot of light on why I’m not on board with the current 80s nostalgia train. But for now, I’ll just list them.

Altered States (1980)

The Last Metro (1980)

Stardust Memories (1980)

Stripes (1981)

Body Heat (1981)
Das Boot (1981)

URGH: A Music War (1981)

Dance Craze (1981)

Montenegro (1981)

Blade Runner (1982)

Eating Raoul (1982)

Fanny & Alexander (1982)

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Time Stands Still (1982)

Zelig (1983)

Baby, It’s You (1983)

Star 80 (1983)

Paris, Texas (1984)

Brother From Another Planet (1984)

Broadway Danny Rose (1984)

Streetwise (1984)

After Hours (1985)

Fool For Love (1985)

Hail Mary (1985)

Kiss of The Spider Woman (1985)

Aliens (1986)

River’s Edge (1986)
Down By Law (1986)

Matewan (1987)

Hope and Glory (1987)

Evil Dead II (1987)

Hairspray (1988)

Do The Right Thing (1989)

The Cook, The Thief, The Wife, and His Lover (1989)

As I look at the list, it’s pretty solid. Maybe they don’t all hold up and maybe it’s still not the greatest film decade ever, but I apologize to you 1980s, you're not all leg warmers and spandex.

In The Garden Of Beasts/Berlin Noir

Erik Larson’s The Devil in The White City stands as one of the most compelling non-fiction books I’ve ever read. Weaving together stories about the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 and a series of murders plaguing the Chicago-area, the book reads like the most compelling of novels. Amidst the drama and intrigue, the book is a stunning look at the world of technology, science, politics, and pathology at the turn of the century.

Larson’s follow up Thunderstruck, about the race for wireless communication, was a goodie as well, though not as stellar as Devil. I just finished his most recent, In The Garden of Beasts, telling the tale of William E. Dodd, the American Ambassador to Germany in the years leading up to World War II. The book focuses on Dodd and his family as they navigate and try to make sense of the politically charged climate of pre-WWII Berlin. Hitler and his cronies are on the rise, Germany is filled with a rising bloodlust, and the country teeters on the precipice of sanity.

While I certainly enjoyed the book and gained a much greater insight into those shadowy years, the book is simply not as riveting as it should be. The main characters, Ambassador Dodd and his daughter Martha are just not dynamic enough to carry the weight of the book. In an era filled with monstrous villains and those trying to stand up to them, the Dodds are simply not that compelling. Ambassador Dodd comes off as the eternal, misguided optimist, who feels his presence can help bring Germany back from the brink. Martha is by far more interesting. She’s young, saucy, and filled with naive thoughts about revolutionary movements. At first she finds the Nazis and their revolution exciting, but as her time in Germany progresses, she realizes how badly she’s judged the situation. She flits through social situations with key German and Russian players, but she’s so slow to realize the looming danger presented by the Nazi regime, that the book loses a certain oomph as a result.

In The Garden of Beasts does do a nice job charting the rise of the Party and the internecine squabbles within. But the book lacks the pervasive Nazi creepiness exhibited in the work of Phillip Kerr. I recently got turned onto Kerr’s Berlin Noir series. Berlin Noir is a series of taut crime novels featuring private eye Bernie Gunther exploring the dark passageways of pre and post war Berlin. Those books are fantastic, and to be frank, do a better job capturing the psychosis of a nation about to go off the deep end. It’s a world clouded by long shadows—an environment of paranoia where nobody trusts anybody, where neighbors turn against neighbors, and where people go missing everyday. The politics are thick and it’s impossible to know which way the wind will blow and how long it will continue blowing.

All of this is alluded to in In The Garden of Beasts, but, perhaps, because our two leads are somewhat Pollyana-ish in their view of the Reich, that sense of paranoia gets muted.

Ultimately, Berlin Noir and In the Garden make for excellent companion pieces. Same time, same place, same set of ghoulish characters. In the Garden feels a little more PBS in its delivery, while Kerr captures the darker psychology at play.

RIP Phillip Guilbeau

It’s interesting as you get towards middle age and friends start to die. Recently I’ve had three friends pass away. All were involved in the art scene in a variety of ways. They all were instrumental in shaping people’s lives, but they were also artists whose careers never achieved household name recognition. It makes me sad thinking about the number of artists toiling away for years whose work never reached a large enough audience.

I just wanted to shed some light on one of those. I first met Phillip Guilbeau shortly after moving to SF in 1987. I have no idea where I first saw one of his films. At Club Kommotion? The Firehouse? The Artists’ Television Access? I don’t remember where it was, but I certainly remember what it was. The Psychosis of Tony Lambert was a bizarre, no-budget, super 8 blast of anger and aggression. The legendary Gary Floyd (of the Dicks and Sister Double Happiness) played both quack psychiatrist and patient Tony Lambert, driven to psychosis by society’s lack of understanding of his homosexuality. There was bad language, cross dressing, and wild gesticulations and facial contortions courtesy of Floyd. The film was nearly unwatchable at a technical level, but so full of life, energy and attitude that I was hooked and couldn’t wait to watch the film over and over. And it turned out Phillip had a trilogy of Lambert films under his belt. When I finally met Phillip, I found him to be one of the sweetest, quietest, kindest people I’d ever met. And his gentle Texas lilt was always so calming.

I immediately identified Phillip as a kindred spirit. A nice, quiet kid making insane films full of punk rock energy. We did lots of shows together. I put out one of the Lambert films on my first video compilation and screened his films countless times throughout the 80s and 90s.

As life does, we drifted apart. The number of times I talked to Phillip in the last ten years is miniscule. At some point, Phillip moved to Michigan to go to grad school at U of M (my alma mater). He reached out to me several weeks back, asking me to give him a call. We never spoke. I left a message. Phillip called back and left a message on my phone. The message was riddled with dropouts and bad reception and I heard almost nothing. I called back and left a message. And that’s it. Cancer. He passed away at his home in Texas with his family this week.

Not sure when the last time it was that he made a film. Not sure how many people will remember him as a filmmaker. His name likely won’t be included in film history books, but I know his work had impact. It certainly had an impact on me.

Rest In Peace - Phillip Guilbeau.

New 8tracks Mix

RIP GEORGE KUCHAR

I can’t begin to tell you how saddened I was to hear about the passing of underground film legend George Kuchar. George was a huge inspiration to me. I loved his films and routinely showed them to all my classes. Full of humor, joy and irreverence. And George was a great guy too. I loved seeing his gangling frame amble down Valencia Street. He always had kind words for me and always asked about my wife. Either a classy or lecherous move. But either way, endearing. The remembrances pouring out in the blogsphere and on facebook have been really heartening and touching. I was honored to be asked by fandor.com to write an obit. Here’s a link to that.

Who Needs The Internet? The Revenge of Print!!!!

“Who needs the internet?” I ask. I recently have been included in 4 different print projects, which, I must admit, sends a delightful retro chill down my spine. I’ve had articles published in two fantastic zines—8 Track Mind and The Molten Rectangle, and have had my work dissected (or vivisected) in two new fantastic tomes, Destroy All Movies and Radical Light. Here’s the skinny.

8 Track Mind, hopefully won’t need an introduction to most, but since it’s been 10 years or so since it’s last issue, all bets are off. 8 Track Mind was/is a fantastic zine, put together by media archeologist and all around good guy Russ Forster. 8 Track Mind has been the foremost publication willing to dig deep into the 8 Track subculture. For purveyors of discarded and forgotten technology, the zine featured some of the finest reportage geared toward 8 Track collectors and cultural connoisseurs of media and concepts abandoned to the dust heap of history. As part of the Revenge of Print Challenge issued forth from Baltimore’s Atomic Books and Chicago’s Quimby’s Books, Russ is back with a print-only issue that abandons the 8 Track theme and focuses on the pros vs. cons of the blogs vs. zine universe that we live in today. Articles from Joe Carducci, Kim Cooper, V. Vale, Lance Laurie and other luminaries, including myself, grace the pages. Hop down to Tower Records or your local zine shoppe and pick one up. If that doesn't work, send Russ $4 via paypal to russelforster@hotmail.com.

The Molten Rectangle is a film lover’s mag that is the brainchild of Gene Booth. The latest issue (number 3) features heaps of good think pieces about film and film history. Pieces on The African Queen, Burn, Pleasantville, and Million Dollar Baby fill the mag. But the standout is the oral history of Chicago’s now abandoned Parkway Theater. As an awesome bonus, The Molten Rectangle comes with a bonus DVD. How’s that for old school! The 3 film DVD contains a film by yours truly (Dumbass From Dundas), Jet Evelth’s Our Last Session (a Maria Bamford-ish trip to the shrink piece) and Booth’s own absurdist collage Skillz, wherein a trio of urban dwellers head to a video arcade only to have their dialogue stripped away and reconstituted for comic purposes. You can pick up a copy here.

Destroy All Movies: The Complete Guide To Punks On Film (edited by Zack Carlson & Bryan Connolly).
Have you been hankering for a movie encyclopedia about punk rock movies? Well, if so, here you have it. Destroy All Movies is the real deal. It’s monstrous, it’s beautifully laid out, and it’s expertly written. The book covers it all, from the obvious like the Decline movies and Suburbia to the No Wave Films to The Cinema of Transgression to the no budget, sub-underground shenanigans of folks like Dave Markey, Jon Moritsugu, and myself. I had no idea I was even in the book until I saw a copy at the MOMA. Like the narcissist that I am, I thumbed through the index, found my name and quickly flipped to page 179 for the review of I’m Not Fascinating. Brutal and funny. Fascinating gets dubbed as “The least likely punk feature ever shot,” and labeled as a “self-loathing vanity project”. Backhanded compliments and outright disdain for the film ensue, but I must say this is one of the best/funniest reviews of the movie ever, so I’m down. But in all seriousness the book is fantastic. It is equal parts reverential and snarky. Amidst the onslaught of reviews, the book intersperses interviews and with players like Markey, Alan Arkush (Rock and Roll High School) and Slava Tsukerman (Liquid Sky). As for the reviews, every movie that ever featured a punk in passing comes under the microscope. No shit, Hannah and Her Sisters is in this thing. Now that’s punk!

Radical Light: Alternative Film & Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000 (edited by Steve Anker, Kathy Geritz, Steve Seid).
Could there be two film books more different in tone than Destroy All Movies and Radical Light? I don’t think so, but I do know that I and am proud to be in both. I always contended that my films were a mixture of highbrow and lowbrow art. Being included in both of these books makes me feel, that perhaps, I’m not full of hot air on that account. I just picked up Radical Light at the library and am not that deep in yet, but I am blown away. Radical Light looks at the history of Bay Area experimental cinema from its roots in the 40s through the early part of this century. It’s a loving homage to the city, to its artists, and to the institutions that fostered the creativity within the Bay Area art scene. Interviews, essays and ephemera fill the pages. Reminisces and insights delivered by curators, art historians and the filmmakers themselves give the book academic and cultural heft. The book also connects the dots between the various art and cultural movements at play in the Bay. San Francisco has always exhibited a distinctive brand of counterculture, subversion, and pranksterism. The Bay Area has always been a place where experimentalism has often trumped careerism. Radical Light does much to unearth how and why that spirit of adventure has come to be and developed such strong roots. Can’t wait to really dig in.

Super 8: The Movie, The Medium

Just saw J.J. Abrams Super 8. I loved it. A group of kids making a super 8 movie witness a train wreck and then all sorts of paranormal hell breaks loose. The film is a loving tribute to early Spielberg classics, particularly Close Encounters and E.T. Having a 10 year old, we’ve actually watched those films a lot recently, so all the little references were hitting me just right. This is a great film and a great family film. Good filmmaking, good suspense, and sophisticated. Not enough of those types of films for the 10 year old set. So kudos for that.

Some random thoughts in the Super 8 afterglow.

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Two teens in the bathroom couldn’t figure out why the film was called super 8. I could only smile in bemusement.

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As the King of Super 8, I of course bring some baggage into a film called "super 8".

The irony of the weekend—I spent $120 just this week cleaning up audio hum from a botched super 8 transfer done 15 years ago by the very same lab that did the super 8 work on Super 8. It burns me up. That lab was always bragging about their work for Ollie Stone and Jimmy Jarmusch, yet whenever Danny Plotnick showed up they never seemed to properly know how to use their equipment. I’m still paying for their boobery to this day. Grrr….

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With my jaded eagle eye I was looking for some small gauge gaffes. One thought I had is that the Ektachrome we see throughout the film is the wrong Ektachrome for a late 70s period piece. I could be wrong about that. My super 8 knowledge is foggier than it used to be. But in the late 70s, wouldn’t the stock be Ektachrome G? Those certainly were not Ektachrome G boxes on display. Anyone have thoughts about that? I am actually curious.

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Lots of super 8 in the air this week. First Blank City extolling the no-budget, underground aesthetic of super 8, then Super 8 takes it to the big budget stratosphere with a look back at suburban teen home movie mayhem. All good stuff. Is there a new super 8 revival afoot?

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Let’s talk about Spielberg for a moment. As a kid I really liked him. Jaws, Close Encounters, ET, and Raiders are all films I saw and loved in the theaters when they came out. But I hit the college years sometime around the release of The Color Purple. I loathed that movie. Such a powerful, heavy, mind-blowing book, yet the film seemed so tame in comparison. Likewise I was shocked by how a book as harrowing as Empire of the Sun could be turned into a feel good Spielberg nostalgia trip. I felt Spielberg couldn’t handle anything with true grit. His world was all about 50s movie matinee escapism. At that point in my life I was diving deep into the world of underground and avant garde cinema. I was looking for some challenging Blank City type of material. I viewed Spielberg as a guy who was good at making greasy kid stuff. I saw that as a bad thing.

Now that I’m a parent and have a ten year old and have been revisiting some of those early works, the ones I liked in the first place, I absolutely have a renewed respect. Exciting fare for the whole family with much more emotional depth than I remember. Smart and well made. A world for kids and adults to share. Films like E.T. and Raiders are definitely aimed at the kid market, but are ones that adults can still be thrilled by. Films like Jaws and Close Encounters are aimed at adults, yet kids can still be fascinated and creeped out by them. That’s a nice balance. And I should say that Close Encounters is one of the all time greats. I’ve always thought that. So there. Steven Spielberg, I apologize for anything mean I’ve ever said about you. Hope you haven’t been waiting too long for that.