gavin6942
After losing their jobs as security guards, best friends Ivan (John Cusack) and Josh (Tim Robbins) start a music video production company called "Video Aces".This is very much a 1980s movie, which captures that 1980s music video culture perfectly. For me, I missed most of that and really got into music around 1992-1994, still a great time for MTV and music videos. So I get the general idea, though the 80s were by far a crazier decade.This is also a great entry in John Cusack's career. He could not have made this much later than the mid-80s teen movies he was working on, and yet seems like such an adult here. A fun-loving, Fishbone-liking adult. But still an adult. Was there ever a time when Cusack was not at the top of his game?
Scott_Mercer
More than just a few similarities between these two 80's cult films. Both have punk rock elements. Both have major settings in downtown LA's industrial area in the 1980's, well before the arrival of loft buildings and gentrification (post 2000). At that time, only misfits, hard core artist types and homeless were living there. Both parody media of the times, including music videos. (Repo Man specifically skewering televangelists and Tapeheads specifically roasting self-help types like Tony Robbins, or more likely Don LaPre.)Both have goofball government agents chasing after the protagonists. Repo Man has The Circle Jerks doing bad lounge music in a dive bar. Tapeheads has Fishbone doing bad country music in a dive bar. Both have authority figures with "perverted" sex secrets (Tapeheads' Norman Mart with his spanking games, and Repo Man mentioning that John Wayne was gay.) Both films were produced by Michael Nesmith. (Sure The Nez must have been on familiar ground here with Fishman's script, just coming off Repo Man a few years prior.)As others mentioned, director Bill Fishman employed a number of Cox's previous collaborators, including Zander Schloss, Xander Berkely and Courtney Love. So, was Fishman intentionally, slavishly copying Alex Cox with Tapeheads?Honestly, I don't care, but the similarities are just so striking that I could not write a review of this film without mentioning them. If Repo Man is a 10, then Tapeheads, a similar take on LA in the 80's is an 8, the film's rating elevated largely by the game, appropriately goofy performances of Cusack and Robbins as the two leads. Cusack is really great in both comedy and drama, especially considering he would go on to a heavily dramatic (and successful)role in Stephen Frears' The Grifters only a couple years after this film.It's not for everyone, and people use the term "quirky" far too much for my tastes. But this movie really is a quirkfest of the highest order and one of my personal fave pet movies. (I should also note the similar plot point from Christopher Guest's movie The Big Picture, released about a year later, where the protagonist leaps from obscurity to fame after directing a no-budget, goofy music video which gets his name mentioned on MTV, by Richard Belzer of all people. Yet another element for me to confuse in my addled brain...wait, wasn't Richard Belzer in this movie? Oh no, that was The Big Picture!)If you haven't stumbled across the movie, and you like Repo Man, early MTV or goofy 1980's comedies, you should check this out. And be on the watch for super brief cameos from Michael Nesmith, Weird Al Yankovic, Bobcat Goldthwait, Courtney Love and Jello Biafra. There's a cast list for ya, film fans.Now, if you will excuse me, I'm really hungry and could do well right now with a Scoe's Special from Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles.
shebop-1
It's a next-generation Blues Brothers. Quick-moving visuals, good script, well executed. Funny, irreverent, and best of all the music is great. Love the two leads (Cusack & Robbins) and wonder if they remember having fun making this movie because it sure looked like they did. (Cusack can dance; Robbins can't.) Great to see some old-timers in the music roles - Sam Moore and Junior Walker, for two; plus there are several tunes I've never heard before so I got to hear and appreciate them for the first time. Cinematographywas well done. I'm surprised it's not a cult film for old r & b rock & rollers. The DVD came with a CD of the ending song "Ordinary Man" by the Swanky Modes (Moore & Walker), guaranteed to get you moving in your chair.
tedg
Spoilers herein.Films like this take a chance of being just too dumb and silly. This one works for me, but it likely will not for you.The thing that makes it work for me is to constantly be aware of the context. A producer is a Monkee. A writer the guy who did `Charlie's Angels.' The sex interest Bing Crosby's daughter! Cusak and Robbins just plain acting as goofy as they can.Ordinarily, this excess just turns me off as in say `me Myself and Irene' or `Reservoir Dogs.' But this a goofy film about two guys who do what? Make goofy films. And the values they have in the film are the values of the film. I love this stuff.
