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DVD Repo Man
A volatile, toxic potion of satire and nihilism, road movie and science fiction, violence and comedy, the unclassifiable sensibility of Alex Cox's Repo Man is the model and inspiration for a potent strain of post-punk American comedy that includes not only Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), but also early Coen brothers (Raising Arizona, in particular), Men in Black, and even (in a weird way) The X-Files. Otto, a baby-face punk played by Emilio Estevez, becomes an apprentice to Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a coke-snorting, veteran repo-man-of-honor prowling the streets of a Los Angeles wasteland populated by hoods, wackos, burnouts, conspiracy theorists, and aliens of every stripe. It may seem chaotic at first glance, but there's a "latticework of coincidence" (as Tracey Walter puts it) underlying everything. Repo Man is a key American movie of the 1980s--just as Taxi Driver, Nashville, and Chinatown are key American movies of the '70s. With a scorching soundtrack that features Iggy Pop, Fear, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Suicidal Tendencies. --Jim Emerson
This entire movie is peculiar. It's classic 80's, with punks, campy special effects, and ridiculous cloths that make you remember what everyone ELSE wore, back then.
The plot is absolutely ludicrous; Emilio Estevez gets fired from his dead-end job at a supermarket and is fooled by Harry Dean Stanton into stealing (repoing) a car. He then embarks on a life of a repo man, meeting some very odd characters along the way, including their "rival" repo men.
When a '64 chevy Malibu comes across the wire with an impressive bounty, it becomes an all out race to see who'll find it first. Unbeknownst to the repo men, the car is loaded down with alien corpses.
Car chases, secret agents, conspiracies, gunfights, and questions regarding John Wayne's sexuality ensue.
So, enough of the synopsis and on with the review:
Emilio Estevez has always been one of my favorite actors, because he (like his brother Charlie and father Martin) has an amazing range of facial expressions and is a fairly natural actor. He is young, rough talent in this movie, but he's still pretty good at being the half gritty, angst-ridden, "lost generation" quasi-punk. I'm not the biggest fan of the whole punk movement, and if you absolutely can't stand them, you'd probably better avoid this movie.
The repo men are the kind of guys you'd expect to be seeing doing repo work. They all give you the impression that they'd be out there, if they weren't acting. They're all named after beers, which is appropriate, since being severely inebriated would help you understand this movie.
Dennis Hopper is the fruitcake driver of the '65 Malibu, and you get the feeling also that he isn't even acting. Of course, Dennis Hopper IS a fruitcake, so he may not, in fact, have been acting at all.
Quirks abound - every car has a Christmas Tree air freshener. Every bit of food or drink is in a plainly labeled tin (beer, food) except for 7-up, which is featured prominently in the supermarket scene and in a background commercial later on.
References to philosophy and revolutionary rhetoric pop up everywhere.
It's hard to even review a movie like this because it's just so damned odd, so here's my final word:
Buy this, if you can get it for cheap. Spend the rest of your dough on alcohol (even absinth wouldn't be amiss here, if it's legal in your locality). Wait until late at night, and start the drinking just before you start the movie. Make sure that you're totally loaded by a 45 minutes in.
Enjoy.
Repeat as necessary.
Don't Miss the Voice-Over
It's probably a sign of arrested development for a grown person to be giving public testimony in favor of Repo Man--and the 100th Amazon review yet (dear heaven, I hope there is no prize). I'm here mainly to make just one point: the voice-over commentary on the DVD is wonderful. By my calculation, Alex Cox must have been 29 when he finished this one, and if my reading is right, he has never had as big a success since. Fair enough: Mascagni spent his whole life trying to top Cavallera Rusticana, and Bizet died without knowing that Carmen was a hit.
But it does mean that Cox and his gang are in an effusive mood when they get together together to relive the old days, like the vets on the History Channel, reliving World War II. Just as a general rule, I suspect these voice-over more fun with indie flics or somesuch: big, fancy production numbers tend to choke on their own gas, but these guys just get to remember how they were pranksters once, and young. Indeed, I think this voice-over would be good fun even if you didn't like the movie but, um, yeah, I did think the movie was pretty good, too.
Great Movie, Lousy DVD
First off, let me say that I LOVE this movie. There is nothing else out there like it. It is the first movie about Nothing, long before Seinfeld and Napoleon Dynamite came along.
But actually, it's not about Nothing. It's about a quest. A quest to find the Holy Grail of car reposession: A Chevy Malibu.
So why 2 stars? Because this DVD SUCKED, that's why. The widescreen was pretty good, and the audio was okay. But other than that, where were the captions or subtitles? And more importantly, WHERE WERE ALL THE GREAT SCENES I REMEMBERED?
I never saw this in the theater. I grew up watching reruns of it on TBS. I got to hear all the repeats of "flip you" and "melonfarmer" in all their dubbed glory. When Leila swears at Otto at the end, my memory is her saying, "You Nerrrrd!" Not that-other-word.
That's okay. I can deal with more cussing. In fact, I like it. But what makes me want to say "Flip You" to the makers of this DVD is that we are missing all these great scenes:
1. The crazy guy in the car babbles on and on to Kevin about various things, including Lorna Doone cookies. Kevin's response is, "Lorna Doones? I love Lorna Doones!" From this DVD - GONE!!!
2. Bud gets pissed at a phone booth for no apparent reason and goes and gets a baseball bat or crowbar or something and beats the thing to smithereens. Otto wants to get in on the action, so he picks up the bat and starts doing some smashing of his own, with some nice maniacal laughter. Bud has to make him quit and leave. This scene - GONE!!!
3. Otto goes home again to see his hippy parents. The Good Reverend on TV is going on and on of course. I remember him saying these specific very cool lines, "Suffer the fires of eternal damnation! Now these are the end times..." Otto's parents are covered in spider webs. He walks up to the TV and turns it off. They give him a kind of lost look, and he gives them a disgusted look, and finally he just walks out the door with nothing else said. This Nice Scene - GONE!!!
4. Seems like the "Bad Man", Lite did a lot more talking on the movie I remember. Seems like he said some stuff about "break the bone", like in the song. Where did it show that in this DVD? GONE, that's where!!!
5. There was one scene with the crazy guy in the car where he is talking either to Otto or Kevin, and he runs his fingers through his hair. As he runs his fingers through his hair, a handful of hair falls out. This was really gross but crucial to us fully understanding how far his radiation poisoning had progressed. Where is this scene, I ask you? GONE!!!
6. I'M SURE THERE ARE MORE SCENES, BUT WHERE ARE THEY??? GONE! GONE, I TELL YOU!!!
And why? I wouldn't mind this if this was just a regular DVD, but this supposed to be the "Special Edition" DVD! When are you movie execs going to figure out that we consumers don't care about gimmicks like tin-cases shaped like license plates? We want SUBSTANCE, not PACKAGING.
I haven't listened to the commentary track yet, but everybody has good things to say about it so I'll give a star for that at least.
Now, on to the soundtrack. This is a great soundtrack, but it too left me disappointed. I recognized the songs in it, but where was the main Repo Man track? You know which one I mean! I wanted to hear the lonely guitar solo that comes up while Otto walks the streets alone. That awesome track that comes up while the bum is sobbing on the side of the street and Otto just keeps on walking past, ignoring him as just part of the wasteland that is Urban USA. Where was that incredible soul-transcending track by the Plugz? We get a taste of it on the final track, but nothing like the main track. How disappointing.
The bottom line: If you've gotta have Repo Man, it's a good buy. But I'm still holding on to my much-worn VHS recording of the cable version. I suggest you do the same.
Though I played this film until the tape nearly broke when I was in high school, it's been twenty years since I last watched it -- and I'm impressed with how watchable, and how relevant, it still is. Sure, the acting is a little rough, but for all the right reasons. What just blows me away, twenty years later, is what a powerful social document this proves to be -- of Southern California's suburban wasteland, of the economic changes wrought when the manufacturing and military jobs dried up, of the profound alienation that separated us from the Boomers who thought their rebellion might actually accomplish something.
It's also a fascinating look at a punk scene that was far more diverse, far more multi-layered, than the prepackaged product that masquerades as punk today. ... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Penelope Spheeris DVD Release Date: Released the 24 October 2000 This item is currently not available.
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The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension is one of the most agreeably insane movies ever made. Peter Weller stars as Buckaroo, an acclaimed neurosurgeon, particle physicist, and, of course, rock star. He travels with the Hong Kong Cavaliers, a band of hard-rocking scientists who are also really good dressers. Buckaroo's interdimensional experiments with his Operation Overthruster throw him (and the Earth) straight into the middle of an alien war, and before you know it, he's got just a few hours to save the world. Confused? Hang on, we're only 10 minutes into the movie. Buckaroo Banzai hurls you right into the middle of its comic-book universe and keeps going at a breakneck pace. It's chock-full of overlapping jokes (even as we're trying to make sense of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Peter Weller - John Lithgow - Ellen Barkin Director(s): W.D. Richter DVD Release Date: Released the 01 January 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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We regret that this DVD is under certain restrictions that prohibit sales to customers who live outside the North American continent. If you do not live in the United States or Canada, we will not be able to ship you this DVD. Thank you for understanding. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Harrison Ford - Rutger Hauer - Sean Young Director(s): Ridley Scott DVD Release Date: Released the 27 August 1997 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"Do your parents know you're Ramones?" With those withering words, Miss Togar (Mary Woronov), the uptight neofascist principal of Vince Lombardi High School, addresses the four mop-haired, leather-jacketed members of America's first and most famous punk band. And you know it won't be long before the Ramones's jackhammer riffs are blaring through the public address system at maximum volume, the kids are running--not walking--wild in the hallways (without passes!), and Miss Togar's gulag is re-christened "Rock 'n' Roll High School." Then, in keeping with the outrageously nihilistic animus of punk, the high school students and the Ramones just blow the place to smithereens. It's a crowd- pleasing, fantasy-fulfillment climax that combines the apocalyptic finale of Michelangelo... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): P.J. Soles - Vincent Van Patten Director(s): Allan Arkush - Jerry Zucker - Joe Dante DVD Release Date: Released the 28 August 2001 This item is currently not available.
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