The DAN ZONE

So I was wondering why I couldn’t remember a thing about Beat Street,  a film that came out in the heat of the breakdancing movies in 1984. I new I had to have seen it on cable, because I saw EVERY film on cable back then. Well, I finally got a copy of this breakdancing film starring Rae Dawn Chong, and now I understand why I couldn’t remember it–it’s a DOWNER! You get none of the colorful 80s cheese of Breakin or Body Rock. Sure you get plenty of flamboyant breakdance routines, but the film lacks the hokey upbeat vibe of the other films of the decade. Now I understand why reviewers on Amazon called it a ‘real’ look at the breakdancing lifestyle. There’s no candy coating on this one. It’s pure ghetto gloom. Hell, someone even gets fried on the third rail of the train tracks! WTF? Who wants to know the real truth about urban life in the 80s??? I want all my 80s ghetto movies to look like a Lionel Richie video! “We’re goin’ to…party…Karamu…fiesta…forever…” Yeah. 80s ignorance is bliss. Avoid this one!

Any questions about Lorenzo Lamas having no career after Grease were squelched by his success in the 80s. Sure, he starred in that Falcon’s Crest show, but his career didn’t truly hit its peak until 1984, when he starred in the ultimate cracker’s breakdance movie, Body Rock!

With the first pulsing electronic beats of the slammin’ Maria Vidal title song, we are taken to the scary streets of New York City as they were in 1984. But fear not. As hot pink letters in a slashing font splash across the screen, spelling out the title of the film, the big scary apple turns to sweet cinnamon apple sauce. A line of dancers grooves across the city street, wearing bright neon colors, mesh shirts, half shirts, Flashdance off-the-shoulder shirts, and studded belts. And these are the guys!

But none of these men is as pretty as Lorenzo, his body perfectly sculpted, his buff hairy chest bursting forth from his jean vest, and his hair a perfect mirror of his Grease co-star Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” hair style, right down to the head band. He’s our leading man. He’s Chilly D.! And here I thought Pauly D. from Jersey Shore was one-of-kind. Anyway, Chilly D. is…I’m not sure. A graffiti artist I think (I forgot how cool spray paint cans were in the 80s until this movie brought the memories flooding back). Chilly hangs out with a DJ and a gang of breakdancers at a club where they sort of work together as a ‘performance’ group, graffiti on the walls, the DJ spinning, the dancers breaking, and Chilly D., I don’t know, MCing I guess. Even his DJ friend asks him later, when they’re thinking of taking their act to the professional level, “What do you do?”

So, before they can go pro, Chilly has to get breakdancing lessons from some little black kid on the street. Their dance lesson montage puts the Kevin Bacon-Chris Penn montage from Footloose to shame, because Lorenzo and his little friend are joined by a man-sized…robot??? Now I understand why there’s that “don’t forget the robot” line in Robin Sparkles 80s hit “Let’s Go to the Mall” on How I Met Your Mother!

When it’s time to perform for the talent scout, Chilly still doesn’t dance much, but he does rap! Yes, Chilly D. and his white DJ friend rap with a Jerhi curl-sporting audience that looks like it could have been Prince’s backing band the Revolution in Purple Rain. There’s even a gang of mean looking steroid-swollen black dudes who I’m convinced are Full Force. I was expecting Samantha Fox to come prancing onto the screen singing “Naughty Girls Need Love Too”.

Body Rock IS the 80s. Every guy has an earring only in his left ear. There’s a fantastic should-have-been-a-hit Laura Branigan song called “Sharpshooter” featured in a sex scene that focuses mainly on Lorenzo’s body as he strips down and the camera hovers just millimeters above his curly cues. Wow. There are groundbreaking camera angles I’ve never seen before in any of the other 80s breakdancing classics: overhead views and underfloor views of the dancers spinning out on the floor, which lends itself to a whole lot of focus on their swirling crotches. And speaking of crotches, there’s another 80s staple in this film—Meat from Porky’s! Yes, big hunky handsome Meat has a ‘small part’ as a bouncer.

But it’s really the gay aspects of the film that make it a classic of the 80s (No, I haven’t even gotten to the real gay stuff yet). First, Chilly D. eventually cuts a record and promotes it by performing it in the club with disco ball mirrors glued to his face. Lorenzo actually does the vocals, singing a song with lyrics that I’m convinced Trent Reznor plagiarized: “I’m gonna suck you like an animal, eat you like a cannibal.” And if that isn’t gay enough for you, Lorenzo eventually ends up in a gay leather bar! Yeah, this is definitely not a breakdancing movie made for the genuine hip hop culture of the time. Lorenzo is showing just as much flesh as the gay leather men, and although they are all in manly black as compared to his flaming day-glo colors, he has to assert his heterosexuality by punching out a man who kisses him. What a disgrace that Lorenzo Lamas has not been honored with a GLAAD award (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) for helping to break new ground in cinema with his man-on-man kiss. I guess he blew it with that whole gay bashing bit. But hey, it was the 80s, and that’s just what straight guys with an Olivia Newton-John “Physical” hair style, disco ball glitter on their face and Jennifer Beals’ Flashdance shirt falling off their shoulders did back then. Gotta love the gayties. I mean…eighties.

Sure, there are loads of hip hop artists in this 1985 film—Run DMC, the Fat Boys, LL Cool J, Kurtis Blow (who looks more like a cross between Michael Jackson and Prince than the pioneering hip hop artist he was), Bobby Brown (along with the whole New Edition gang). Sure, it’s based on the story of the start of the hip hop record label Def Jam. But, what truly marks this film as the beginning of the hip hop era is that it’s the FIRST film to cause riots and gang fights in the theater! If it weren’t for this film’s violent influence, 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G. wouldn’t be dead and the course of hip hop history could have changed forever!  East vs. West may never have happened! Thank the hip hop gods for Krush Groove—the film that made it very challenging for me to see movies in 1985, because my mother forbid me to go to any multiplex that was showing this film. I almost didn’t get to see A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, the gayest installment in the series, because of Krush Groove. But that doesn’t make me love it any less.

Funny thing is, if one watches Krush Groove, one will be hard pressed to figure out WHY people were stabbed, shot and who knows what else in theaters. This is one simplistic 80s film, without a complex plot. A bunch of up and coming hip hop groups try to get a record deal by performing continuously at a club, making the movie practically one long video with a storyline that’s pretty much incidental. A young Blair Underwood tries to start a record label. A young Blair Underwood wants to give a young Sheila E. more than a record deal, and eventually does to the slow groove of Force MD’s “Tender Love.” Can you believe hip hop was once about slow jams and makin’ sweet deep love instead of just tappin’ that? Heck, this film even has an extended club scene featuring a very Caucasian groove by Debbie Harry called “Feel the Spin,” co-written and produced by then mega-hot remixer Jellybean, the man partially responsible for getting Madonna a record deal (and tapping that while he was at it, although, it’s more like she was the one doing the tapping because she left him in the dust pretty fast once she became famous).

So yeah, Krush Groove really has no good reason to be the cause of the hip hop wars, but it was. It’s also another great 80s timepiece I’ve just added to my cheesy 80s movie collection. Don’t miss the funny dance done by a young and not so buff LL Cool J at the very end of the movie. Who knew that hot piece of black meat could dance 80s style???

Just got my Zombieland Blu-Ray. Saw it in the theaters and liked it enough to add to my zombie movie collection, but really, it’s more of a lighthearted family comedy with a zombie-themed intro and outro. Remove some of the gore, edit the film to an hour from 88 minutes, and this could have been an episode of Spielberg’s Amazing Stories in the 80s. Zombieland is a ‘cute’ zombie film. Yes, cute. How can a movie starring Abigail Breslin not be cute??? How can a movie that celebrates and repeatedly references the film Ghostbusters not be cute? How can a movie that has the characters basically trekking across country to go to an amusement park not be cute? How can a movie that has two teenagers falling in love not be cute? And of course, Woody Harrelson is in it, and, well, he’s still cute. So ‘cute’ definitely fits—except for those, you know, zombie flesh eating portions. Now that I think of it, the beginning and end of the film should also have been edited together to create a very good zombie episode of Masters of Horror, because the little zombie action this film does feature is excellent.

Last weekend, I completed Resident Evil 5 with my video game partner in crime. In the past, I’ve manned the controls while she kept me on track with a walkthru as I got lost in the labyrinth-like corridors of ominous mansions, evacuated city streets, desolate laboratories, scummy sewers loaded with giant poison spitting spiders, and shadowy parks and gardens swarming with creepy crawlies and a variety of statue, medallion and jewel puzzles.

Of course, all the atmosphere and tension that made you sit on the edge of your seat when playing the original Resident Evil games was lost when they ‘revamped’ the series beginning with Resident Evil 4 to appease the action gamers who found the original game mechanics too hard. Gone were the moaning zombies, replaced by running, tool swinging villagers who would come at you in hoards, forcing you to fight instead of run when the going got tough. At one point, you even ended up in a castle with baddies wearing black hoods and shooting at you with guns! ‘Horror survival’ it wasn’t, even if it did have its moments, including a freaky baddie who was like a mashup of Leatherface and Jason in Friday the 13^th Part 2, wielding a chainsaw while wearing a hick getup complete with a potato sack over his head. He had us shrieking in terror quite a bit in Resident Evil 4, but that terror was counterbalanced by the dirty old gun dealing merchant who would appear in dark alleys, throwing his trench coat open to show you his goods.

Resident Evil 5 manages to pull us even farther away from the isolated, eerie situations and locations of the original series, with even more weapon-wielding angry villagers, as well as loads of baddies with guns, bombs, and bigger artillery. You could exchange these zombie-faced baddies for army soldiers or mobsters and the gaming experience and atmosphere wouldn’t be any different. Resident Evil is no longer a horror series. It’s an action series with occasional horror themes. Resident Evil 5 does throw in some Lickers to satiate longtime fans of the original game, and you encounter a couple of other ghastly beasts, but the majority of the game is spent exchanging gun fire and avoiding grenades.

The saving grace of this installment is indeed that Capcom has made Resident Evil co-op for the first time ever. So my friend put down the walkthru and accompanied me on this not so horror-intense journey. It was definitely a blast. You really feel like you’re in a movie. The game is split screen, one character’s screen on top, the other’s on the bottom, which makes the visuals tough to see at times unless, perhaps, you have a 60” screen to make each smaller screen seem bigger than on my 34”. Trying to read files and notes in the game was brutal because the print was so small on the not-so accommodating backgrounds. Also, unlike the original series, which had plot-explaining files spread throughout the game, Resident Evil 5 tends to have you experience non-stop action for a couple of hours straight. Then suddenly you get a breather when you enter a room loaded with exposition on extremely long files and computer documents, which really spoils the pacing.

As for the co-op play, more often than not, we’d make the mistake of separating when we reached a new area instead of sticking really close. For instance, when we entered a seemingly abandoned African village of huts loaded with ammo and health, we did just what you’d do in real life—we totally ran amok and looted the place. Unfortunately, by doing so, we ended up triggering two separate villager onslaughts that should have been taken in waves if we’d stuck together and entered the two trigger spots one at a time. I’d be screaming that I was trapped in some ramshackle arena with two giant natives while my friend would be screaming that she couldn’t help me because she was trapped at the dead end of a river with villagers surrounding her. We learned our lesson after that and began sticking together, but even then the game would sometimes force us to separate. I’d assist my friend by catapulting her over a wall or gap so she could go pull a lever to lower a bridge for me to join her, but before she’d get to it, she would be swarmed by enemies! This was fun, not only because she’d be screaming in terror while I laughed so hard tears were streaming down my eyes, but because I could give her backup by pulling out my sniper rifle (you know, after wiping the sight-blurring tears from my eyes).

Co-op added some other interesting aspects to the gaming mechanics. As you gather treasures during the game, you can sell them to buy upgrades for your weapons. Unfortunately, you can either spend the money on fully upgrading one person’s weapon to create one powerhouse baddie destroyer, or only slightly upgrade each person’s weapon, leading to two weaker guns instead of one super weapon. It’s something two players have to decide together—will we both have to fight harder with slightly upgraded guns, or will one of us be a vulnerable backup with a wimpy weapon as the other stays up front with one heavy fire power weapon? Sharing health is another catch to the experience. What’s cool is, if the two of you stand near each other when you administer health, you’ll each get a bit of health (instead of either of you healing fully). Also, if one character is near dying, the other character can run over to you and ‘resuscitate you’ with the press of a button (looking onscreen as if she’s jabbing a needle in your heart like something straight out of Pulp Fiction). This little additional rejuvenation can conveniently draw out your near death experience until you can get to safety and heal more plentifully.

Another complication is that everything is done in real time. No more escaping the gaming chaos by hitting the inventory button to heal or reload ammo or, as this game lets you do, exchanging items with a partner in relative ‘pause’ safety. This makes for some difficult and challenging moments during major boss battles, when your friend has picked up ammo you most desperately need for your gun, but you’re both being bombarded by some fire-breathing, slime-throwing, tentacles-swinging monster relentlessly.

And speaking of difficult, we opted for the ‘easy’ mode when we played, which promises to let you enjoy the story and journey…and it was frickin’ HARD. Then, to insult our confidence in our gaming abilities, we read a review about the game in which the critic claims that hard mode is too easy! Whatever!

Resident Evil 5 is a fun game. A really fun game. If you play it with another person (which you can also do online with a complete stranger). But I can’t see myself ever playing the game alone (in which case, your partner is AI). I’ve replayed Resident Evil Zero through Code Veronica numerous times because the chilling atmosphere gets you every time when you’re going it alone, immersing you in your own interactive horror film. But without any moments of sheer terror to be found in this game (the sensation has been replaced by panic and button mashing when being bombarded by baddies), it would be nothing more than a tedious task to get through this game alone.

It just so happens that I have two films in my horror DVD collection that revolve around a group of 20-somethings gathering in a house for some sort of “reality” show (not counting Halloween: Resurrection). They are Kolobos (1999) and My Little Eye (2002). Even though I’m watching my horror films alphabetically, I thought I’d watch these two back to back because of the similar premise, and because people on the message boards like to compare them. The general consensus is that My Little Eye is way better. But me being me, I much prefer the more simplistic yet effective and highly rewatchable Kolobos.

The spin that Kolobos takes is that a bunch of 20-somethings are brought together in a house for an ‘experimental movie’. There are cameras all over the house and the cast is expected to interact in a Real World scenario, so, yeah, it’s basically a reality show. And it’s also a creepy little movie. It has everything. Argento-esque lighting in reds, greens and blues screw with your mind as they strobe on and off, causing you to hallucinate monsters in the shadows as much as the lead character, a young woman with some serious mental issues. Is she imagining the horrors, or are her visions real? There are faceless people wielding knives, creepy mannequins, gruesome deaths via brutal booby traps set up around the house, disembodied voices, and a nasty looking deformed killer. Once this film gets going, it’s the perfect balance of gore, tension, and tight camera work that keeps you on the edge of your seat, all handled very well in the confined setting of the house (after the kids get locked in). And best of all, the handful of characters may seem generically stereotypical of all slasher films at first, but they quickly break those personality restraints and prove to be very likable. And it gets some bonus points for featuring an odd cameo by none other than Linnea Quigley that seems more like an afterthought than part of a  master plan. Especially considering she doesn’t take off her top, and when has that ever happened in a horror film featuring Linnea Quigley???

The loftier My Little Eye goes for a much more complex approach, with loads of character development (aka: tons of drawn out dialogue!). It also much more of a whodunit than a horror movie. Our group of victims in this movie have gathered at a large isolated house in the snowy woods for a webcast reality show. The goal is, whoever can stay the longest wins a load of money (inspired by the original House on Haunted Hill I assume). So why should the ‘contestants’ believe that anything suspicious is up when freaky things begin happening? It has to be a part of the ‘game’ just to scare them off. I personally find that this film follows a much more mainstream template. There are loads of stereotypes: The prudish lead girl, a ‘sweet’ wimpy dude, the greedy self-involved bastard, a slut who immediately hops into bed with the stranger who appears at the door, oh, and the mysterious stranger, played by hot hot hot Bradley Cooper. We are treated to a long sex montage, with everyone in the house hearing it from different rooms as a raucous song with lyrics like “suck my titties” blares. The film also relies heavily on typical hard orchestral stabs to create its atmosphere and faux scares. There is also some Argento-esque lighting, but it’s worked into the concept of the film, with the green saturation moments being the result of night vision on the reality show cameras and the red light being the result of, well, a red lamp hanging in one of the rooms! The film doesn’t particularly sustain its suspense, and the excessive dialog is delivered too dramatically and even melodramatically. Unlike the realistic panic that ensues after all hell breaks lose in Kolobos, in this movie, once the bodies pop up and the still living figure out they’re part of a vile reality show, they still decide it will be okay to go to sleep in their own rooms as long as one of them stays up and keeps watch. The movie mostly fails to deliver on death scenes, but it does have an interesting ‘twist’ ending, so you get some payoff that way.

But the bottom line is, once you’ve seen My Little Eye, there really isn’t much reason to see it again because it’s just not very captivating. Kobolos, on the other hand, might be a considered a lowbrow production by most viewers, but that’s why it gives you a bunch of cheap thrills you can experience again and again.

Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie have decided to pull an Elton John—and by that, I mean that they are recycling an old benefit single just as Elton John pulls out “Candle in the Wind” every time someone dies and simply rewrites the words. Yawn. The bottom line is, it just won’t be the same.

The number one best benefit single ever, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” has been subjected to the remake treatment at least twice that I know of, and the remakes just couldn’t compare (I know, because I have them in my collection). And the fact is, “We Are the World” is a pale imitation of the Band-Aid holiday classic. Let’s face it. England thought of it first, and we tried to steal the concept as if we thought of it. The only reason our single did so much better on the charts in the U.S. is because most people didn’t know most of the bevy of new wave and new romantic artists who sang on the Band-Aid track. I mean, to this day, Bob Geldof gets all the credit for the song when it was actually written by the brilliant Midge Ure, lead vocalist of Ultravox. If you’re saying, “Midge who? Ultra-what?” then you’ve just proven my point.

Here in the U.S. we simply sold our single with ‘brand’ names: Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Lionel Richie. These artists were HUGE at the time the song was recorded. And that’s great and smart, because, hey, the bottom line is, we were trying to raise money for a really good cause. But at this point, we need something fresh and new, not that same old sappy song from 25 years ago.

Even so, from what I’ve heard of the lineup of artists on this new version, the selection is top notch. Can’t wait to hear Josh Groban sing the Kenny Rogers line, and who better to handle the Cyndi Lauper part than Celine Dion? Hey, she already covered the Cyndi classic “I Drove All Night,” so why not fill those shoes once more? Since I’m going to have to add this new version to my music collection (because that’s just how I am), my only real hope is that they get at least some of the artists from the original recording to sing in the all-star chorus as a sort of homage.

Remember when the 80s seemed so fresh, so new, so cutting edge? Video games (a yellow blob eating lines of white pixels), movies (Matthew Broderick conversing with a computer!), television (K.I.T.T. the talking car) and the music scene (icy synthesizers, a drum machine, and cold, robotic vocals). Somehow, what was once so futuristic has become ‘retro’ and ‘old skool’! So how can those of us who loved the unique experiences and technologies waiting around every corner in the 80s get that virginal feeling back again? Because there’s no denying that “Don’t You Want Me” by the Human League just doesn’t pack the electronic punch it once did now that you can hear it on lite radio about ten times a day.

I’ve managed to relive the spirit of the past in a handful of ways. Let’s start with the video games. Naturally, if you still have an old Atari or Colecovision collecting dust somewhere in your house, blow off the cobwebs, plug it into a TV (you know, one of the HDMI-less clunkers that accepts a videogame switchbox), and start playing. If those classic gaming systems were sold in a garage sale years ago when you’d decided you were too ‘adult’ for them, then you have another option. Most gaming systems from the past decade have numerous compilations of classic home system and arcade video games. There are awesome Atari, Intellivision and Activision console game collections, plus arcade compilations from video game companies like Namco, Sega, Konami, Data East, and Midway. You can also download many Nintendo Entertainment System games onto your Wii. There are even a variety of joystick controllers you can buy for some of the game systems to get a more genuine arcade experience. Your best bet is to tell your friends to forget the kids, forget work, forget all adult obligations, and to just come over for a night of classic gaming—Galaxian, Pac Man, Frogger, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Dig Dug, Ms. Pac Man, Defender, Mario Bros. Then crank up a good mix of 80s music, preferably on that old boom box you still have that most likely has a wire hanger jammed into the place where an antenna used to be, and remember the past.

Next, we have the movies. You could go for the obvious, like E.T., The Breakfast Club, Fast Times, Better Off Dead, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller, Flashdance, Footloose, or Back to the Future. These films definitely capture the music and fashion of the decade, but they can also tend to be as ineffective at bringing memories flooding back as some of those overplayed tracks you hear on the radio every weekend on “Saturday at the 80s.” You need to go for the real cheesy movies you saw on cable a million times that are so 80s in style that they actually look like they are mocking the 80s rather than being genuine artifacts. I’ve got a great collection of them, including movies such as Breakin’, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, Real Genius, The Last Dragon, Just One of the Guys, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, The Pirate Movie, The Last American Virgin and Looker. You also can’t go wrong with any slasher movies that aren’t Halloween, Friday the 13^th, or A Nightmare on Elm Street. I’m talking about the kinds of slashers that feature actors who never made a second film, and elongated high school gym dance scenes focusing on some new wave/power pop band that never got signed to a label despite the blatant attempt at exposure. Some good 80s slasher titles include Graduation Day, Sleepaway Camp, The Prowler, Blood Song, The Initiation, and The Intruder. And just for an added dose of authenticity, most of these films, even on DVD, have that warm and fuzzy (aka: grainy) look that you thought only a VHS tape could offer.

And of course, there’s the television outlet. There are great television shows you should watch on DVD in a major marathon for hours and hours. Personally, the obvious, like The A-Team, Cheers, or The Cosby Show, don’t totally do it for me because they fail to focus on the true teen experience in the 80s. You need to get the lone season of the totally awesome Square Pegs and Fame Seasons 1 and 2 for the ultimate in capturing 80s fashions, trends, music, and hopes and fears of the Gen-X set. Also you might want to DVR the “Totally 80s” segments on VH-1 Classics, because watching cheesy 4 minute music clips seriously brings back the vibe of the 80s mind. Every time I watch them, I expect the rockin’ MTV guitar theme to start with the graphics of the man landing on the moon. Sadly, that beautiful clip was taken away from us forever in the mid-80s after the space shuttle exploded.

Finally, there’s the music. Listening to one of those compilations of the most obvious 80s songs that never went away doesn’t work much (Come on Eileen, Too Shy, She Blinded Me with Science, Who Can It Be now, Roseanna, etc.). But there is a way to revive your listening experience to totally bring you back while reawakening the emotions those songs evoked in you in the first place. As a huge music collector, I have the necessary resources at my disposal, which helps. I have a massive 80s folder on my iPod, and the playlist does indeed start with the hits. But here’s the trick. All the hits are placed in the order that they entered the Billboard charts. So, when you listen to the songs, you are hearing songs that all hit the airwaves at around the same time, which leads to some wicked drug-free trips down memory lane. You will literally be catapulted back to that particular summer, fall, winter or spring that you were hearing all these songs back to back on the radio and on MTV.

But the top hits of the 80s are just the beginning of my folder. What I’ve done is gone through all the albums I have from the 80s (which, I kid you not, consists of most albums released by most artists during that decade), and pulled songs that, even if they weren’t hits, just absolutely reek of 80s production, in all genres: mainstream pop, new wave, synthpop, arena rock, goth, hi-nrg dance, club, power pop, hip hop. And of course, there are a massive numbers of soundtracks that saturated the market back then, which really serve as the soundtrack to life in the 80s. Put it all together in a little piece of 21^st century technology (iPod killed the CD star), and you basically have my personal greatest hits of the decade and beyond. After I finish listening to the charted ‘best’ of the 80s in chronological order, I let the rest of the 80s takeover, and relish what feels like an all new 80s experience—hearing songs that I’ve rarely ever or never listened to, but which are the epitome of 80s sounds. It’s like I’m back in the 80s, sitting in front of the radio waiting for the debut of some great new single. As a result, when I start listening to my 80s folder on my iPod, I find myself constantly reaching for it because I simply have to know who is singing the amazing track I’m hearing—and unlike DJs on the radio, my iPod tells me the song title and artist every time.

I remember seeing David Cronenberg’s 1983 film Videodrome on cable as a kid, thinking it was gory, kinky and awesome because it featured Debbie Harry, but not really getting it. But that describes most Cronenberg films.

I’ve just rewatched the film after adding it to my awesome 80s DVD collection. I love it even more now for its totally 80s feel—the Atari joysticks on James Woods’ television in every scene, the obsession with ‘new’ technologies like cable TV and VCRs, and Debbie Harry’s small role in the film, not a year after she and the rest of Blondie called it quits (sadly, there’s no Debbie solo track featured in the film).

At the same time as it is a clear time capsule, this twisted tale of video sex is so amazingly loaded with prophetic themes. Cronenberg delves into the endless possibilities of having sex shows in the privacy of your own home thanks to modern technology, and the extreme fantasies you can explore. Sure, in this film, its access to an all porn/violence/torture cable network, but it’s no different than the insanity that is now available to anyone on the Web. And the themes of individuals becoming consumed with the cold, artificial pleasures technology can offer have all come true. Not to mention the concept the film explores of individuals becoming desensitized by overexposure to sex and violence in the media, and as a result, needing to search out visuals that are even more vile in order to obtain gratification. In the 80s, a little murderous freckled doll with red hair was enough to thrill us. These days, we need to see scantily clad, beautiful people being chained up, violated and mutilated.

But just as Videodrome was a social commentary on our need for more repulsion in our entertainment at the time, this bizarre sci-fi/horror was pretty damn repulsive itself, not to mention really gay! I don’t know how it got past the censors back then. Let’s see. James Woods inserts his head in a fleshy soft television set to penetrate Debbie Harry’s onscreen ‘lips’ (not too metaphorical). In a sex scene that seems rather irresponsible in hindsight considering AIDS had just become a dark shadow on the nation at the time, James pierces Debbie’s ear with a long needle and then licks the blood off the needle. The skin of James’ hand engulfs a gun and becomes a vein-lined phallus that he likes to stick in the giant va-jay-jay lips that open on his stomach. Several times, he even has another man take a fist holding a pulsing, breathing, moaning VHS tape and ram it into his belly va-jay-jay as he stares deeply into the man’s eyes with a look of oh-so pleasant pain that I’ve only ever seen in gay pornos. Yeah. Videodrome is one freaky 80s retro treasure that saw the future.

Considering the Saw series has been dying since the second installment, I went into part 6 last night with NO expectations—and came out with possibly my favorite installment of the series. Forget about it being a ‘socially aware’ plot, this one is downright preachy. And I’d consider it insulting to my intelligence if it weren’t so dead-on! This movie should be required viewing for all those A-holes in Washington haggling over healthcare reform as well as the scumbags running the healthcare industry.

The plot is pretty simple in Saw VI. The number one man in charge of dropping as many people as possible from his healthcare company’s coverage suddenly finds himself trapped in one of Jigsaw’s gnarly, dingy rooms that no one knows exists, far away from any signs of humanity (where the hell does Jigsaw find the time to hunt down these locations and build his intricate death machines, considering he not only had terminal cancer, but is now dead???). The goal, to be accomplished in under an hour if he wants to ever see his family alive again, is for Jigsaw’s latest victim to go through a maze of torture chambers and make decisions on which of his employees should die horrible deaths. Since his daily job is to hold the fate of peoples’ lives in his hands anyway, Jigsaw makes sure he actually has the blood on his hands this time as he is forced to sacrifice only certain people from his company as they all beg and shriek for him to pick them. Ah the humanity! What a movie.

And to sweeten the pot, this installment of the movie features Tanedra, a chick who won the role by winning the first season of the reality show Scream Queens! Of course, the role was as long-lived, so-to-speak, as Drew Barrymore’s role in Scream. And, according to imdb, it’s pretty much the only role Tanedra has had so far. But the biggest surprise for my man-loving eyes was when I noticed that an extra in the film was none other than hot, hot, hot Latin gay porn star Francois Sagat! WTF??? But damn he looked good in his non-speaking role as a heterosexual ghetto drug addict.