This week I watched Detroit Rock City from Ohio with a bunch of Ohioans. It was my first time seeing it and immediately recognized that if I had seen this movie in high school I probably would have been obsessed with it. I had a thing for 70s men fashion then, the hair really got me. I’m also a huge fan of Edward Furlong, seeing as I think Terminator 2 is the superior movie, and I’ve yet to see a nazi seem slightly relatable in a film other than American History X (I emphasize slightly). The hard rock scene of their time was also very cult-like, considered an outcast in its era which of course has since been revisited and given a new appreciation. Part of what I really enjoyed about this film was reading all the negative reviews about it. Many sites claimed it didn’t have enough KISS, plot wasn’t any more than smut, or that it just simply goes in circles. I enjoyed this quote by a Cinema Crazed writer Felix Valesquez, he writes “Granted, “Detroit Rock City” is by no means a masterpiece; hell, it’s barely a great movie, but it packs in enough talent, fun, and healthy delusions only KISS fans are capable of.” I think the film gives a stylistic interpretation of the grungy teenage overconfidence that the characters are meant to represent, which is why it resonates on a nostalgic level with KISS fans who grew up in that time. It’s not an over-glamorized expose on the sexy rock n roll lifestyle of the band, but a realistic representation of the rough, hormonal life of the fans that made them popular. 

In the podcast with Adam Rifkin, they talk about how Gene Simmons’ wife plays the cougar lady in the men’s strip club that takes Hawk’s virginity. Talk about meta opportunities. I wasn’t alive then, but watching Jam’s mom turn on the record player to what she believed to be the Carpenters and hearing the opening solo to I Stole Your Love was goddamn hilarious and a comical highlight to a generational gap that can be relatable to anyone. Detroit Rock City offers lots of references, little easter eggs for those who experienced the time it does to, for a comedic effect that has aged well in the rising cult-status of the film. 

One of the first comparisons I could personally draw to the film was how much it reminded me of the boys in Freaks and Geeks, which began airing exactly a month after the movie was released in 1999. It does a wonderful job exploiting the grungy, rock n roll outsider fashion in the midst of the colorful, gaudy decade. Not to make my blog fashion-focused again, but I love making a parallel in the two military jackets in both the movie and the show, as it’s a quick reference to a post-Vietnam culture shift that is reinvented by the youths.

In short, this film is as jam-packed with life and sex as the fans that made KISS golden, and it’s totally shameless about it. Despite what the cynics (Paul Tatara cough cough) say about it being “infantile” or “absurd” the ultimate point is that KISS fans really couldn’t give shit, because they thrive on their cult-authority. Another review by Contact Music writer Rob Blackwelder, who describes the film as “weak” also makes reference to the infamous KISS film “KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park” that I think can also resolve some of the negativity towards DRC. He states,  

“But they knew the movie stunk. The audience knew the movie stunk. It was part of the fun.” 

Can this not also be said about the frenzied, down-to-earth film about the very fans that still loved this band despite their bad acting? I think the logistical problems of the movie come to naught in comparison to the genuine portrayal of a bunch of fan boys beating the shit out of each other to see their favorite band. Sick watch, one of my favorite. Can’t wait to see more rock n roll next week!!!!

 

This week’s screening of “Detroit Rock City” was a rollercoaster ride of emotion. Watching the 4 main characters fight for their lives to see a Kiss concert was seemingly never ending. I distinctly remember keeping track of who’s luck was up, and who’s was down while we tagged along for the ride.

The opening of the film was hilarious. I knew from the second she pulled the album from the shelf that she would be in for it. To her surprise, and our delight, she went nuts while trying to stop the album from playing. As if the title wasn’t enough to know that this movie was going to be about kiss and made for fans of their decades, a woman going ballistic over a record of the band was a clear indicator.

If I am being totally honest, I thought that after she dot the record to stop playing, that would be the last that we saw of her. I had no premonition that she would become a main antagonist and the mother of my favorite character.

The four friends went to hell and back to see their idols, and I for one, loved the story line. The way the scenes were married together in order to produce four running timelines was cool. It’s not often that you see movies with so many characters going through very different sets of adversity in order to achieve the same result, and I thought this was very well done. We all knew they were going to meet up at the intersection after time was up to see the show, but we had no idea of the shenanigans that would take place until then.

We were met with many scenes and compilations that made me laugh, and some that made me cringe (male strip-ish puke club LMFAO). But my favorite scene from the whole movie was the guys beating themselves up to try and get into the show. This scene just shows what Kiss means to these guys, and they even after all of the things these guys had to go through, they still stopped at nothing to get into the concert.

I really enjoyed all of the presentations this week including the readings, and the proof of yet more cult films. I have never scene “Tank girl” but the presentation piqued my interest, and I would not be surprised if I find myself watching it soon. “Hot tub time Machine” is an absolute classic in my book. There is not a funnier time-traveling story out there (full disclosure, back to the future is awesome, but this is funnier in my opinion.) The cover of that movie, and any stills, bring me back to the first time I watched it at my friends house on a sleepover. Then, it was just a funny movie, but now it brings me to a decade that I very much wish I had a larger connection to. I would kill to be in a time where neon was the color choice for multiple types of clothing.

Another week gone, I think that these blog posts are one of the only ways I know which day it is. I enjoyed the content for this week, I hadn’t seen (or even heard of) Detroit Rock City before this and it did not disappoint. I loved it. It’s not often that a film makes me actually laugh out loud, not to make myself sound bland I have emotion I swear, but this movie had me roaring. Some of the antics were so absurd that I couldn’t believe they were actual parts of the plot. What a great movie that I definitely had to share with my parents, they loved it too. But I have to say that my favorite part of this week was the reading about soundtracks. You see, music was the first way I germinated my love for movies. Sometimes I love the soundtrack more than the film itself. I can accredit this largely to my parents, who were heavy on giving us our share of music-centered films, but I have found my own love beyond the rock operas and musicals in soundtracks. I recently watched the TV adaptation of High Fidelity, if you haven’t seen the show or movie it centers around the main character who happens to own a record store (no coincidence that if a movie is centered around the music scene the soundtrack will be delectable) and dissects his/her bad relationships through their love for music (I personally like the show better). Why am I talking about High Fidelity? Well, there is a scene where Rob talks about the art of a creating a playlist; creating a playlist is not as simple as one might expect. According to High Fidelity, a playlist is created to evoke a feeling, “you are using someone else’s poetry to evoke how you feel.”

So when you think about what a playlist is in these terms it makes complete sense why music goes hand-in-hand with film; they are both trying to communicate to their audience, when combined the results can be unforgettable. Now, I lean heavily towards soundtracks that are arrangements of songs unrelated to the film in their creation but, as the reading “Cult Cinema and Music” discussed, this is not the only way of combining sound and image. Like we saw with Valerie, scores created for the movie can gain their own cult following too. While using music unrelated to the movie to enhance or juxtapose a scene is proven to be successful (looking at you Tarantino), some works need original sound to transcend into the next realm. We see this in the works of David Lynch.

But creating music to accompany film isn’t the only mode of combining the two, there’s another category of films that are created to accompany music. The reading defined these as music-documentaries, film adaptations of musicals, and, my personal favorite, the rock opera. Because we have watched a few films that depend heavily on rock n’ roll to drive home the thrill and/or raw emotion of a shot (Dazed and confused, Detroit Rock City, and The Warriors), I would like to talk a bit about what a rock opera is. A rock opera isn’t created with the intention of becoming a film, a rock opera is created to be an literal opera; it is an album that features songs that play one after another to create a storyline. When they are adapted to film it’s almost a given that they will become cult classics, they can be outrageous, tender, and campy. So, because I think that everyone should see at least one rock opera, here are my top three: (starting with my all-time favorite)

1. Jesus Christ Superstar, 1973 (for the lovers of camp and a soundtrack to die for)
2. Tommy, 1975 (for those who love cameos and the thrill of 60’s UK)
   

   Roger Daltrey as Tommy (1975)

3. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1973 (for the tender-hearted, PSA the Beatles do not make an appearance)
   

   This movie is so lovely 

    

The first soundtrack I fell in love with was Juno, before I even saw the film (I was 8 when it came out). My mom bought the soundtrack after watching it and would play it in the car nonstop, I will always have a special place for it in my heart. The Juno soundtrack is perfect for the film, Ellen Page and Michael Cera were asked to recommend artists that they thought the characters would listen to. Because I like lists and because without these soundtracks the films wouldn’t be the same, here are some of my favorite soundtracks (excuse my taste):

-Juno ❤                  -Scott Pilgrim vs. the World       -Easy Rider (as mentioned in class)

-Baby Driver                -Darjeeling Limited               -High Fidelity (show and movie)

-American Ultra             -Ruby Sparks                       -Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 1 & 2

-Only Lover’s Left Alive   -Little Women (2019)     -Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Here is also a list of the 50 best movie soundtracks put out by Pitchfork and it does not disappoint!

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Don’t get me wrong, this was a GOOD movie, I one hundred precent understand the appeal, the thing is its just not for me. It has its funny quirky unexpected scenes, which I got a laugh from sometimes, but I just couldn’t relate tot the humor of those dumb ass boys.I don’t understand why anyone would be that aggressive about getting Kiss tickets too, so I didn’t appreciate their hostility. Again it was a great cast! In that sense, I find it hard to speak about it with enthusiasm, so I apologize ahead if time if this post is a lil more cut and dry. Though like said in the podcast, if I watch it again I think I could grow more appreciation for it.

Detroit Rock City was an hour and a half journey of four boys and their obstacles when attempting to see a Kiss concert after school one day. The movie did so so bad initially, only making 4 million when they had a budget of 34 million. Yikes. Again, thanks to DVDs the movie developed a fan base devoted to the nostalgia in the film. The cinematography was spot on, as they spoke about in the podcast. The cast was perfect, the podcast spoke about how the cast wasn’t credited fro the excellent performance in Detroit Rock City, I agree.

Listening to the podcast and reading about Hollywood cult classics have already made me appreciate the film more. The podcast briefly mentions Not Another Teen Movie because I too think it is a masterpiece that’s totally swept under the rug. The two readings paired with he screening well. Especially the Cult and Music one where they state “The importance music plays in cult films often relates to the manner by which films appeal to recognizable subcultures.” These group of teens going to the KISS rock concert, they were outcasts, they were a subculture of the rock era. “This was a period when “youth,” at least when combined with “delinquency,” constituted a subculture in itself. Importantly, music – in the form of rock and roll – was a chief signifier of how youths differed from their elders.” The boys weren’t like Jams Ma. Its all summed up well in the reading here-

The visual nature of rock music perhaps meant that its incorporation into cinema was inevitable. More importantly, this cinema/rock combination created a powerful combined force, directly appealing to fans with particular musical tastes and in the process generating a number of cult films. Rock music, for Grossberg, is a site where ideological and affective maps intersect (2002: 91). If this is the case, the transposition of rock music into films could doubly intensify the ideological and affective power of such music, through not only attaching these sounds to more concrete ideological narratives, but for placing them in a context with particularly affective potentials. According to Kevin Donnelly, non-diegetic sound and music can physically affect viewers; this power relates to its status as something both a part of, yet apart from, the filmic world, imbuing it with a kind of supernatural presence (2005: 13).

<—To all the world events currently.

The Devil's Music

This week’s screening, Adam Rifkin’s 1999 “Detroit Rock City”, really introduced us to the power of music in cult cinema. While “Dazed and Confused” had a killer soundtrack, I felt that it played more on nostalgia than anything; it wasn’t directly affiliated with any one artist or group, but rather used a variety of music from the 1970s and 80s in order to recreate a nostalgic atmosphere. Here, we’re able to see the full force of musical influence not only on a film and its characters, but on the way it’s received by its audience.

ϟϟ ϟϟ ϟϟ

Detroit Rock City wasn’t my favorite screening, but it really helped me to understand the link between music and cult cinema. The whole film centers around the idea of these teenagers embarking on a journey to attend a Kiss concert, with the band’s music featured heavily throughout the film and the artists themselves making an eventual appearance at the end. It wasn’t a terrible movie, and I can understand why its developed such a cult following, but it didn’t evoke the same sort of nostalgia that last week’s screening did, and overall I found it harder to connect with. I feel like having been exposed to the film ultimately showed me both the power and the potential dangers of relying so heavily on music playing a key role in film.

This week’s reading, “Cult Cinema and Music” ties in really well with our screening. It discusses the fact that music and cinema often go hand in hand, but most don’t take into consideration the effect that music has on cult films. A lot of times it’s cross-media consumption that draws people into a film – artists might contribute to a soundtrack for a movie, or actually star in the film, and this both draws in and attempts to broaden their fan base. I feel like Detroit Rock City is undeniably a “rock movie” because music played a crucial role; it was the driving force behind the film, and because Kiss already enjoyed such a dedicated fan base this most likely attributed to the film’s eventual cult status.

In addition, the podcast on “Detroit Rock City” from The Projection Booth gave us some insight on the film’s release and its reception. It discussed how a lot of Kiss fans were expecting to go into theaters to see a movie about Kiss, but in reality it was a movie that used the band and its music as a way to enhance the narrative; this ultimately might have contributed to the fact that the movie was a box-office flop. The podcast kind of expands upon the reading by showing us how cross-media consumption can be beneficial, but how it might also evoke certain expectations from fans that, when not met, can lead to failure.  (Which, in this film’s case, was only initial failure.)

Ultimately, “Detroit Rock City” did develop a strong fan base, which has led it to being recognized today as a cult film. Even though this movie does essentially revolve around Kiss, there’s so much more that goes into a cult film than just music; and I feel that it’s important to remember that while the exhibition of certain artists in film can be closely tied with cult cinema, ultimately cult cinema is most dependent on the concepts we’ve already learned it embodies. I feel that music really benefits cult film by reinforcing these concepts, not necessarily by creating them.

Out of all the films we’ve seen this semester Detroit Rock City is by fair the one I had the most fun watching. After our reading of Outsider Nostalgia in Dazed and Confused and Detroit Rock City last week, I knew I had to watch Detroit Rock City. So, I was thrilled to learn it was our screening this week. My only regret is that I didn’t get to watch it with the class.

While Dazed and Confused was a more grounded portray of high school life in the 1970’s, Detroit Rock City is a more fantastical.  However, unlike many other nostalgic 70s film, Detroit Rock City still has an element of realism and honesty. This honesty can be seen in the main antagonist of the film, Jam’s overly zealous mother. While disco films focused on only the positives of the 70s, Detroit Rock City centers around the outcasts of that era, (rock and heavy metal fans) and is more truthful in its portrayal of certain prejudice towards these outcasts. Mainly, toward the heavy metal band KISS and their fans.

I don’t know about you guys, but the first time I say KISS was during a Scooby-Doo movie. No joke. I thought they were just another made up band, like the Hex Girls. So, when my father told me that KISS was an actual, real band, I was shocked. More known for their unique style than their music, KISS was loved by some, and hated by the rest. Like cult film, KISS was a cult band. Loved by only a select few individuals who practically worshiped them. Part of KISS’s appeal, I think, was how much religious groups hated them. Just like in the movie, many parents and church groups would protest outside KISS concerts. I did a little research on KISS for this blog. Founded by Gene Simmons (bass player and lead singer) and Paul Stanley (guitar player and singer), who both came from the band Wicked-Lester, the two found their drummer Peter Criss in a Rolling Stones ad before finding Ace Frehely (guitarist). The band debuted on February of 1974. By 1977 KISS was named the most popular band in America. They even had two comic books based off them by Marvel, as well as their own movie, called Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.

Now let’s talk about the film. While Dazed and Confused ended with several character going to get Aerosmith tickets, the plot of Detroit Rock City centers arounds a band of four friends desperately trying to retrieve KISS tickets. The shit these kids did for those tickets…

My favorite part about Detroit Rock City is the comedy. It doesn’t take its self too seriously, but never goes too far over into the realm of a mockery or insult towards KISS fans. In fact, it praises the boys’ uniqueness and quirks by reward each them in different ways. Jam stands up to his mother AND loses his virginity to his crush, Hawk confronts his stage fright (and gets rewarded with sex), Trip stops a store robbery and redeems himself by getting back their lost tickets, and Lex saves his mother’s car from being scrapped (and rescues a damsel as an added bonus). All of these scenarios, while not very realistic, were quiet fun to watch. My favorite scene was when Hawk threw up in a pitcher cup (gross, but also, hard core man) and then proceeded to strip like nothing happened. And, of course Jam’s speech confronting his mother and the other protesters was just…so well done. Honestly the whole movie felt like a daydream scenario by a KISS fan, but I loved it. A great cult film for cult rock fans.

This week we watched Detroit Rock City, the 1999 teen comedy. This 95 minute film was directed by Adam Rifkin and grossed $4,217,115 out of its $34,000,000 budget. Wow. The journey of these four boys, Hawk, Lex, Trip, and Jam, is a little crazy. Albeit there were a few issues with continuity, but if you suspend your belief a bit you still manage to follow the film just fine. The boys have to see KISS, there was no real option there. However, the things they have to do to see the band are crazy, yet I was laughing the whole time. It was really hard to take them seriously. The film was overall pretty funny, feigning on the idea of being a bit much. I really enjoyed watching each of their journeys, even Jam’s overbearing mother, come together in this long story-line to go see a KISS concert.

This week I got to present one of our readings. My reading was “Classical Hollywood Cults,” by Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton. This ten page reading was really interesting and worked really well to tie in major themes of classic Hollywood cults. The major themes that made up the classical Hollywood cults were nostalgia, gaiety, intertextuality, forms of labor, and violence.

Nostalgia is a sense of yearning for a better time, or home. Nostalgia also became the yearning for that initial impression of a film left after the “first time” exposure of a film. This “first time” nostalgia sets classical Hollywood cult viewers apart from the other cultists. You can never get a first take on something again, but it’s so much more than that. This first time is also really important to the “true” capture of the film, focusing on originality and reality. In the mid-1950s nostalgia stops having an impact on the present and from then on only relates to the definite past. This sense of nostalgia is reinforced by what they called time travel, essentially interrupted by flashbacks or songs and it is sometimes over-cluttered with the past, to the point where the story cannot progress functionally. This is really important. Nostalgia is a key factor in almost all of the other parts that make up a classic Hollywood cult.

Something I found really interesting was the discuss on types of labor. Basically, the kinds of labor or perceptions of labor are prone to attract fan devotion through their imperfect fit within, and challenges to, the system. The labor of stars with cult reputations of the classical era are drenched with the impression that they stand for a “truer” kind of “professionalism, sophistication, glamor, or charisma from a time when such qualities were said to be of a more pure constellation” (187). Their focus on the category of labor, that was deemed to have the most cult appeal, is that of a child actor as it combines the innocence and purity associated with the child and the mental and physical endangerment of their well-being by Hollywood. This debate on innocence and purity versus the perverse adult world of Hollywood don’t coincide, which is what makes child actors such a big deal. They are opposites, yet the same all at once, which could describe classical Hollywood cults in a nutshell because they are mainstream and marginal, and center and periphery at the same time, both of which contradict the other.

If there was only one other thing you can take away from the reading I’d pick the impact of television on the classic Hollywood cults. From the 1960s onwards, and particularly through the 1970s and 1980s, television gradually replaced the repertory theater. Television became the main form of family entertainment, and it also became the medium classical Hollywood cults migrated to. Seasonal television re-runs, and occasional theatrical re-releases, add to the already nostalgic-heavy long-term receptions of classical Hollywood cults. The consequence of this development has been a gradual disappearance of classical Hollywood cults from the studies of cult cinema. . “Peary’s first volume of Cult Movies (1981) lists 41 classical Hollywood films, out of a total of 100. In his subsequent collections that ratio declined drastically” (193). This narrowing of the perspective also affects how some of the themes of classical Hollywood cults highlighted, such as gaiety, or nostalgia, are remembered. “The danger exists that classical Hollywood cults will soon be cast out of considerations of cult cinema altogether. Before long the current nostalgia within classical Hollywood cults may soon be replaced by a longing for classical Hollywood cults” (193).

I feel uptight on a Saturday night
Nine o’ clock, the radio’s the only light
I hear my song and it pulls me through
Comes on strong, tells me what I got to do
I got to

Get up
Everybody’s gonna move their feet
Get down
Everybody’s gonna leave their seat
You gotta lose your mind in Detroit Rock City

This week’s movie, Detroit Rock City, was not for me. Something was clearly lost on me because according to class this week and the nearly five hour podcast, this movie has a lot of fans. I’m just not one of them. I didn’t think it was that funny. I mean it had its moments — I enjoyed how they finally got in to the concert — but all together I just found the plot predictable and at times unnecessary. I honestly could have gone without seeing a pitcher fill all the way up with vomit. I know I already got “scolded” in class for picking apart the continuity and plot holes of the film but they were really hard for me to ignore and I had a hard time relating to the characters. Jam was nice but his story line was insane and the rest of his friends were just kind of dumb, greasy and pretty pervy to Natasha Lyonne. I honestly really don’t want to talk more about this film. I’m really happy for everyone that they got to kiss a girl and see KISS, I just wasn’t a fan of the chaotic way it went down.

What I really want to focus on this week was the reading Classical Hollywood Cults as that was something I really related to. It was decided by my parents that at an early age it was important that I have an appreciation for classic Hollywood films. In other words, a lot of the films that were mentioned in this reading were on constant loop in my house for as long as I can remember. I have fond memories of dancing through puddles as my dad and I sing, “Singing in the Rain” and shocking teachers with “I was Drunk Last Night Dear Mother” from Meet Me in St. Louis.

Reading this article was a total eye-opening “holy sh*t Im in a cult” moment for me and I didn’t realize how deeply embedded I really was until reading this. I just thought everybody grew up like this. Helping family friends unpack and organize their personal museum of Wizard of Oz memorabilia. Taking boyfriends to late night screenings of Casablanca at the local art cinema on Valentine’s day. Making a birthday party of 14 year olds watch Harvey and laughing while everyone else is confused by the gaiety of large a human-sized rabbit. I am even programed to say “an angel got his wings” either in my head or under my breath every time I hear a bell ring. Never mind the family pilgrimage to Seneca Falls that was filled with Jimmy Stewart impressions. I didn’t even truly process how deep my mother is in the yuletide cult until this reading either. According to her it won’t truly feel like Christmas until we watch Charlie Brown and every other animated Christmas movie ever made. I think I am too far gone at this point and I will never be able to leave the Classic Hollywood Cult but hey its a lot better than Scientology.

This movie was very entertaining to watch. The first scene with the mother trying to relax with the wine was funny and made me jump because the music was loud and what she was not expecting that and she went crazy. Trip, Lex, Hawk and Jam had a day to remember. I like unexpected nights like that. Those nights are nights that you will remember for the rest of their lives especially Jam. Jam had a day to remember. From being dressed for school by his mom then getting called out in front of the whole school to watching his mother burn the tickets to see his favorite band that changed his life. Then he was sent to a very religious school who his friends helped him escape to getting caught by his mother again!!! Damn JAM. His mother was a pain in the ass. To later getting laid for the first in a church by his high school crush who thought he wouldn’t see each other again. Hawk got over his fear of being on stage buy dancing at the strip club but ends up losing. But in the middle of all the catches the eye of an older women who he ends up having sex with. Lex on the other hand was trying sneak his way into the concert but was kick out and ended up being around vicious dogs that later becomes his friends and uses them to retrieve his mother stolen car getting the girl that was sleeping in his car. Trip was the character that had the most entertaining and had the most unexacting story. He tried to steal a ticket  from a little kid but turns out that his big brother that was a track star and was buff was in the store then plans on robbing the store to get money but another man was robbing the store and he end up saving the cashier lady and getting a kiss. All four boys went their separate ways to find a ticket and experienced their own journeys came back empty handed and beat each other up. Jam getting the drum stick from kiss made me feel complete. 

The reading Cult Cinema and Music talks about how they like to promote cross movies. They like to create movies about already existing bands even though we saw KISS at the end of the movie Detroit Rock City but we experience two type of groups of teens views on the band. The teens that were die hard fans and the group that were haters and broke the Kiss tape out if hatred when the fight was about pizza. An interesting part of the reading was about how they gained african america audience. Black people made soundtrack for films. And how this movie was unavailable for 15 years before people got the chance to view it again. In the reading Classical Hollywood Cults talked 4 categories that make up a classical hollywood cult film and they are Nostalgia which is the recreation of the first time, intertextual which is the self conscious application of cliché and the invitation for the audience to make up interoperation of missing information in the films and Gaity which talks about how the term gay changed over time.

This week we watched what I would call a coming of age film, Detroit Rock City. This movie was based on the idea of a few high schoolers who make the trip to see a KISS concert in Detroit. I am not a huge KISS fan, but I do enjoy some of their songs and can appreciate the music. For me, I have always laughed at the idea of how this is the devil’s music and it will turn you away from god. It just seems ridiculous, but for many households it was a common problem. The opening scene reminded me of a lot of music videos of the era of hair bands and real rock and roll. The that showed this the best was a few of the videos by Twisted Sister or even Jack Black used it in his movie, The Pick of Destiny. I don’t know how many of you know of their songs, but it looks a lot like the opening part with the mom trying to enjoy a nice drink before she gets more than she bargained for.

The film has the classic set up of nothing going right, up until the end of the film. With the drummer’s mom being an over the top religious and finding the KISS record to the tickets getting burned. I don’t know how I would react if that was my mother. Just like him, I would probably erupt on her as well. It was cool how the kids split off to try to find their own journey and end up having different, but similar experiences before the concert. I relate this to The Warriors because they spend the whole night running into issues and it doesn’t work out until the end with small victories worked in

Now we talked about how last weeks film, Dazed and Confused, had a lot of classic music and cars. This week was similar just with out some of the cars. I did notice my personal favorite car of all time in the film. As they were parking the car outside the radio station. You got a quick shot of a third-generation corvette that was popular in through the 70s. This model ran from 1968-1982, so it its right in that time frame for both of these movies. The one we saw was a late 60s or early 70s because it has chrome around the bumper. After 1975 the chrome was completely removed from the cars and went to a plastic bumper due to new safety standards.  On to the music, the songs played many hits and it just makes the movie better because you can’t help but sing along to them. After viewing I ended up listening to many of these because they were stuck in my head. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165710/soundtrack

I think the ending of the film summed up the movie in the best way possible. It was the greatest night of their lives and no one can take that away from them. An almost over played ending, where everything in the end works out. This is what the movie goers have gotten used to and when it doesn’t play out, it is not a great box office hit. We saw that last year with a few different films. I cannot remember the movies, but I know we talked about and how it was only appreciated by real film goers. This would be a wild night and one those guys would never forget.

Lets now talk on Hot Tub Time Machine and what a great film this is. I never saw this as a cult movie, but then again, I never really knew too much on the topic. This movie is just fun, and I always love quoting it. This one worked out well with other films we saw these past weeks with the use of Mötley Crüe in the movie. The song track is just awesome, and you can find it on “Loogle”. This is just a fun idea and always gave me a good laugh. The part where the squirrel appears on the field and makes them lose the bet, is always fall-down funny. I am not sure if I will watch Tank Girl, not for any particular reason except I don’t think it will interest me. Altogether, another great week of presentations.