17 Minutes of Sleeveless T-Shirts/No T-Shirts = Hilarity

In keeping with my heavy metal theme from my last post, I decided to share with you the greatest 17 minutes of film (actually a really old video recording....remember video?) dedicated to the rabid, drunk, stoned, usually shirtless and toothless metal fans of the eighties, and it goes by the name of Heavy Metal Parking Lot. This elusive documentary was the stuff of legend for quite some time. It was shot in 1986, and instantly became this bootleg that people just passed from one set of dirty grubby hands to another, dubbing it first, then passing it on. And on. And on. I learned from imdb.com that it didn't see a proper theatrical release until 1997. That's 11 years after the fact!! How awesome is that!? Not convinced? Well let me feed you some info on this documentary by describing what it is NOT. It is not complex, intellectual, introspective or engaging. What it IS is a document from the dirty bowels of the eighties; it's a twenty minute short doc about the fine ladies and gentlemen that inhabit the parking lot prior to a Judas Priest show in 1986. Period. This genius idea came to two guys (John Heyn & Jeff Krulik) out of nowhere. Heavy Metal was all the rage and Judas Priest was coming to their town...so why the fuck not? How the hell would they know that what they would capture would be pure, golden, molten lava-like scenes of magic? They didn't.

After hearing of this movie for at least 10 years, I finally was able to watch it (it got a pretty fine dvd release in 2006) and man, when I have to resort to a cliche to describe something to you, you know it's fucking good, but I seriously felt like I was in a time machine when I watched this! I was only 10 years old in 1986, but shit do I remember the fabulous fashions and of course, the music. The utterly hilarious and jaw dropping characters paraded before you in Heavy Metal Parking Lot are like the representatives of every slice of metalhead that existed in those days. There's really no way other than to present you with a snippet from one of the most memorable people in the movie, dubbed "Zebraman" by fans of HMPL. 

Behold!

 and make sure you don't rob yourself of these nuggets below.


twenty and....THIRTEEN?! Really?!



Yeah, it's like that. There's a river of greatness in these 17 little minutes, trust me. Mari and I could not stop laughing the whole way through. It's like a whip-it with no end...well actually it does end, so it's like a 17 minute whip-it, you almost devolve while watching it that's how powerful it is. But trust me, you want a full length feature, well, at least I did. It almost makes you want to go back and live it, but with teeth and shampoo. Please please please watch this and let me know what you think. Seriously, it probably took you longer to get through this post than it would've taken to watch Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

"Tron Funkin Blow"

 So yeah, the quote used as the title of this post has absolutely NOTHING to do with Tron, the 1982 neon dripping, ultra futuristic (not really anymore) film we all loved starring Jeff Bridges. Instead it's from one of the funniest scenes in a movie that totally throws you back into the opposite direction of the future, the filthy and sometimes hilarious headbanger past some of us experienced while growing up in the eighties and nineties. I'm talking about mullets, unnecessary acts of stupidity and violence, fire and usually alcohol....lots and lots of alcohol. The film is called Fubar, it's a mockumentary by Michael Dowse about two constantly obliterated and amazingly mulleted Canadian headbangers named Dean and Terry that just look like they were shot out of a cannon filled with Labatt, grease and Camaros, I know that's kind of hard to visualize, but trust me, it's accurate. It's obvious from the start that this is not a real documentary, thanks to the totally unnecessary disclaimer at the beginning of the movie, which makes no kind of sense to me whatsoever. I mean, why put so much effort into making what looks to be a legitimate documentary but then spoil it with a pussy ass disclaimer? It must be legal reasons, I'm sure of it. If someone knows, fill me in, I'm too lazy to research it right now.

There is no complicated storyline here, just hilarity by the kegfull. You follow Dean and Terry around for the entire film, and believe me, it never gets old, no matter how many times you see Dean faceflop into hedges/sidewalks/dirt/whatever, it is fucking funny. The guys basically spend their time doing whatever hockey haired gentlemen wearing nice cutoff shirts would do; get mega wasted, tackle each other, obliterate a bus bench, spray paint, yell vulgar shit at innocent people, litter, talk about the awesome band they will start one day, etc., a typical Saturday night for you and I, but they do it with such pizazz that watching this movie just makes you want to do it every day, not just Saturdays. The best part is that they are "aware" of the camera crew following them around, and the film crew even gets involved...really involved.




I had heard about this movie from my buddy Jeff, so I made it a point to try to get a hold of it by the time he got back into town. As usual, Jeff rarely disappoints on the recommendations and we watched it with a group and we absolutely loved it. I strongly suggest getting shitfaced and watching this with friends; you won't be let down. Make sure you have no snobby pricks in your midst that will dismiss this as a Jackass or CKY ripoff, this movie has very well written characters that are totally believable, if not to you, then you and I are different. And maybe we're different because you're talking to a guy that used to sneak cans of Old Milwaukee with his junior high buddy and draw pentagrams and the number 666 with lighter fluid on the sidewalk before lighting them on fire and shouting with glee through the streets of Hialeah(there's my metalhead past creeping up again), totally giving'r.

Tell us what you really think about Tron!

PS: I've gotten in a lot of movie watchin' this week with Jeff, so stay tuned for a couple more reviews!

Jingle, Django!

So I FINALLY got around to seeing Django, the legendary Sergio Corbucci western that spawned (literally) like hundreds of unofficial sequels. The title character was played by Italian actor Franco Nero, and for a while, after this movie, they would just throw the name "Django" into the title of anything he was in.....regardless of the fact that the movie had absolutely NOTHING to do with the original Django or even with the western genre, for that matter, which is pretty damn hilarious. Shit, okay, so where do I start? Well let me start with the beginning..the title sequence! If you love westerns, you must have already developed a love for really creative and interesting opening credits, but you've also probably developed a sinister glee for really really bad title sequences with ultra cheesy visuals or horrendously tacky music. This my friends, is definitely the greatest (worst) theme song I've ever experienced, it leaves you in complete awe at the suck. Bear witness to the spirit of 1966 below!




The story is basically your usual Spaghetti western fare. It was made in 1966 so it obviously borrowed from Sergio Leone's worldwide smash A Fistful of Dollars that put the genre on the map, which as we all know was a reinterpretation of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which in turn is based on a novel called The Glass Key....exhausting, huh? But getting back to Django's plot, it basically is about a coffin dragging dude named Django that arrives into an incredibly muddy town (more on the mud in a bit) after rescuing a hot red headed piece of ass named Maria (played by Loredana Nusciak) that was tied up and being whipped by these sadist bandits. After killing them (in like a split second, of course) and going into the town for some r&r with Maria, sure enough, the town is being destroyed by two groups of maniacs; these crazy American red-hooded racist nutjobs (the sadist bandits killed were part of this gang) and Mexican outlaws that just love ears (more on the ears later). So voila, there you have it, instant Spaghetti western!! Without giving too much away, Django obviously starts getting involved in "cleaning" up this town by playing dirty and doing shit for his own benefit, which in this case is to avenge his wife's murder and some muthafuckin' gold, which I might add, is some of the fucking fakest looking excuse for gold I've ever seen in a movie, but who cares? Django goes on to single handedly mow down tons of dudes with his secret weapon...he's got a fucking Gatling gun in that coffin!! Lots and lots of dudes flying through the air and ridiculous blood effects ensue, of course, and then EVERYBODY wants a Gatling gun, monkey see, monkey want a Gatling gun!

This was Corbucci's predecessor to what most people consider to be his masterpiece Il Grande Silenzio (The Great Silence), but you can see the beginnings of what made him one of the better contributors to the Spaghetti genre instead of just a copycat. For example, in both The Great Silence and Django, the locations had an incredible role in the mood of the film. For Silence it was snow upon snow, the entire movie was utterly bleak and cold, and for Django it was tons of fucking mud. Dirty, filthy mud that just screamed misery and hell. I didn't understand why the fuck it never rained in the movie (I don't think it did), but the mud was freaking endless!! There was even a hooker fight in the mud! For some reason, Corbucci just loved to go with extreme weather conditions in his movies, go figure. Another trademark of Mr. Corbucci was violence and gore, well, violence and gore by the sixties standards which is pretty tame when compared to today's standards, but it still managed to get banned in the UK for like 25 years or something. The main reason for the hoopla and uproar in this film was a pretty effective scene where a member of the racist nutjobs gets his ear sliced off and fed to him before getting shot in the back, delicious! Watching this, you realize where Tarantino got the idea for the famous ear scene in Reservoir Dogs. It really looks like a piece of rubber covered in red paint, but damn is it cool looking!

Hooker mud wrestling and ear-tastic fake gore in this clip!
(sorry no subtitles, but you didn't come hear to read, did ya?)

A lot of fake blood, exagerrating stuntmen and mud make this film stand out, but one thing will stick with you forever, and that unsung hero is the theme song! The master behind this little ditty is a Buenos Aires-born man named Luis Bacalov, and I swear he laced that track with some subliminal shit, because tell me you aren't gonna walk around singing "Oh Django!!" to yourself for the next couple of days after seeing that video?!? Hell. Yes.

Check the trailer for horrible English overdub and More Sing-Song goodness!

Chik Chik Wah, Chik Chik Wah

The title of this post is a feeble attempt at spelling out what the scratch solo of Herbie Hancock's "Rock It" sounds like to me. That song really exploded on the scene back in good ol' 1983, where it blew minds, feet and eventually the turntable business. I remember being extremely weirded out by that video. Let's face it, I was about 6 or 7 at the time and the video was quite the acid trip. I didn't know what an acid trip was, mind you, but fuck, I knew something was not right with that video. Perverted mannequins, a robotic ostrich (?), a bunch of back and forth video editing, a robot hand smacking a mannequin head at the dinner table, just creepy props galore and that sound....that awesome sound.....chikachikachikachikachikachika. The scratch. How cool was that sound?!?! I was just floored when I realized that it wasn't an instrument, but a turntable! Shit was fresh, I thought it was an alien invasion, and apparently I wasn't alone.



Scratch is really one of my favorite music documentaries. I've seen it several times and just recently gave it another spin. I should've paired this with my "Planet B-Boy" post from a couple of weeks ago, but fuck it, I never think ahead and you pay the price by not having two companion documentaries to watch at the same time....I'm sorry and get over it. This is just one of those gems that if you love documentaries you should've definitely already seen or at least heard of it. It's a film from 2001 directed by Doug Pray. The reason I love this movie so much is kind of hard to explain. First of all, it gets me all weepy and nostalgic for the days of spinning on my back and wearing bad clothes. Secondly, the Deejays (or is it djays...djs?) highlighted are really the pioneers in hip-hop, electronic music and beyond, so this film helps to serve as a history lesson on the world of turntablism (as the kids with expensive sneakers like to say). And finally, the soundtrack and archive footage from back in the day let you know that this filmmaker really knew his subject matter. You get plenty of interviews and stories of how this appliance that was meant to entertain your abuelas and abuelos while they sat around has now become a total giant in the music world, competing with guitars and drums as the instrument of choice for the kids of the world. How the fuck did this happen?! People like to shake their asses man, plain and simple. And those people have short attention spans. Plain and simple.

But while people continued to shake their asses, turntablists like QBert and Mixmaster Mike (who replaced DJ Hurricane in the Beastie Boys) were trying to talk to aliens with the only tools they had; you guessed it, record players. I should say that these two guys in particular basically described the art of deejaying as just that; talking to aliens. It's kind of funny when you hear them philosophise on this theory, but what do you expect when your talking to guys who used to be in a group called "The Invisibl Skratch Piklz"?

Then there's DJ Shadow, one of the first artists of this genre that I was ever introduced to and still listen to even now. His segment is one of the most memorable in the film, the camera follows him into his secret world....an old Mom and Pop record store where he has been buying records for years upon years, in fact it's the record store pictured on his first album cover. The thing that might get your dick hard if you're into vinyl and like to collect all kinds of records is when he goes into the basement of this place. It is literally a record collector's wet dream, a place where you can probably spend weeks going through stuff and not even cover a fraction of what's down there. Stacked from floor to ceiling, asthmatics will start to freak out just thinking of the amount of dust in that place, but damn is it an awesome sight. Check out the asthmatic greatness below.



As a whole, this doc really lets you into the secret club of these gifted musicians working with two turntables. It's a refreshing (even now, 8 years later) look into hip hop and beyond, taking the focus off of the flashy emcee, no gangsta rap here, no stupid egos, just a bunch of nerds using technology to continue pushing the boundaries of what has become the biggest youth movements this world has seen in a long time. As you will hear most of the interview subjects say, Grand Mixer DST, the man behind the iconic scratching in Hancock's "Rock it", got it started, but what you hear and see in this movie, is far from the chik chik wah, chik chik wah.



...aaaaannd, if by some fucking horrible unfortunate act of circumstance, you have no idea who Herbie Hancock is or what "Rock It" sounds like, here is the video and song that dropped jaws and panties all over the world: