Last night was great!

Thank you everyone who braved the cold and came out last night for all the weirdness! It was a great turnout and a fun crowd.

Just a reminder next months event will be pushed back one week to March 26th and then we will be back to the regular 3rd Thursday of the month screenings for the rest of the year.

Also the few left over screen print posters will be up on Tim's etsy page here: Timmonsters.etsy.com

Check back here for hints about next month's screening!

Double Feature Tonight!

This is it! The first Tape Freaks presents event is this very night. We'll be hanging out in the the theater's Starbar at 6:30 having some beers and popcorn discussing nerdy movie stuff. The first 25 people to the Starbar will get a secret button pack that pertains to the first movie of the night. (As you can see, we've literally shrouded them in mystery for the event! If you choose to open your pack before the first movie, we ask that you're discreet so you aren't the spoiler for anyone excited to be surprised.)

A limited edition screenprint (run of 25 for each movie) available for sale at the end of each screening. But you might be lucky enough to score one by answering some trivia questions before each screening! 

$5 for 2 movies, VHS trailers pack, buttons, and possibly posters! 

First movie starts at 7:30, see you there! 

Super Secret Double Feature, Theaters at Mall of America @ 7:30, $5.

Oh Come Back Jonny

When the average person thinks of Neil Young they probably don't think writer/director. But in 1982 after releasing the album Trans (which features synthesizers and vocoders, also not what comes to mind when you think Neil Young) he co wrote, directed, and starred in the movie Human Highway.

Human Highway is a weird musical/comedy/psychedelic movie starring the likes of Devo, Dennis Hopper, Russ Tamblyn, and Dean Stockwell (who also co-wrote it). The plot follows waste disposal workers (Devo) who are transporting barrels of toxic waste when a barrel falls off the back of the truck. Meanwhile at a truck stop diner an awkward nerdy mechanic (Young) manages to knock himself unconscious and the rest of the movie is a strange dream trip featuring a tour bus with wooden Indian statues, Devo playing in a country-western bar, and a total nuclear meltdown. There is also a bizarre performance featuring Young and Devo jamming with Boogie Boy playing a synthesizer in a crib.

The movie is the definition of bizarre but absolutely a unique piece of art filmmaking, and also hard to watch on many levels for the average viewer. But for any diehard fans of Neil Young or Devo, I'd say its worth tracking down and seeing it at least once. It's a thing you'll never forget...

Clue two!

Here are your next clues for our doublefeature this Thursday starting at 7:30!

Movie one: Contains explosions, one-against-a-hundred bazooka battles, and chases.

Movie two: Contains a nightmare that begins with the kids next door.

Freejack

Two of the biggest mouths in music stared in a 90s sci-fi movie. That's right Mick Jagger and David Johanson stared along side Sir Anthony Hopkins in the epically 90s Freejack.

The plot unfolds something like this: Race car superstar Alex Furlong (Estevez) is involved in a fiery wreck during a televised race leaving no trace of his body. But lo, Vacendak, bounty hunter from the future (Jagger), has snatched Ferlong from the past moments before his crash. Billionaire tycoon, and recently deceased, McCandless (Hopkins) has hired Vacendak to secure Furlong and render him ready to download McCandless' mind. Lucky for Furlong his surgery prep convoy runs into an ambush and he escapes. Now Furlong must get his bearings in this wild future, figuring out who he can trust and who wants his body along the way, in the hopes of reclaiming his life... 

Things to watch for: Jonathan Banks (Mike from Breaking Bad), bad 90s future technology, Emilio Estevez his peak, and a scene that will leave you wondering if you somehow flipped channels to Lawnmower Man, and did I mention badly estimated 90s future technology?

“That guy!” moments with: Amanda Plummer (Fisher King, Pulp Fiction) John Shea (Mutant X, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman), Grand L. Bush (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon 2), Frankie Faison (Silence of the Lambs, The Wire)

What we learned: Even if you are a dead millionaire from the future with the technology to obtain a new body, you still can't buy love.

Bonus trivia: Dan Gilroy writer and director of the fantastic Nightcrawler (2014) got his first screenplay credit for working on Freejack.

Paul Williams, hit maker.

Most people will recognize Paul Williams instantly from his roles in the Muppet Movie, Smokey and the Bandit, or even Phantom of the Paradise*. But he's so much more than an eccentric man who popped up in movies during the 70s. This “that guy” is also a song writing legend.

His songwriting career spanned from the late 50's to the present. He's written songs for The Carpenters, Three Dog Night, David Bowie, Barbra Streisand and on and on. He wrote songs for artists that were deep cuts, like “Fill your Heart” off of David Bowie's album Hunky Dory (my personal favorite), and other more instantly recognizable songs like, Three Dog Night “An Old Fashioned Love Song”, The Carpenters ”We've Only Just Begun” and “Rainy Days and Mondays”. And that doesn't even cover the songs he wrote for movies and television, most notably “Rainbow Connection” for the Muppet Movie and the theme to “Love Boat". Of late, he's been popping up in places like the most recent Daft Punk album. His impact on popular music is unmistakable, but sadly mostly unknown to the people who appreciate it.

But thanks to filmmaker Stephen Kessler you can learn so much more about Mr. Williams through the documentary Paul Williams Still Alive. Amazon has it available here, and it's well worth the scratch to learn more about this wild and talented man.

*You may even recognize his voice as the Penguin in Batman the Animated series.

Double Your Fun!

After our sudden cancelation of the inaugural Tape Freaks screening in January, we had to make a choice to make about February; do we play the epic pick we had ready for January, or stick to the weirdness we had lined up for February? But then we asked ourselves an even more important question: why not both?

So on Thursday, Feb 19th you'll get two doses of epic weirdness for the price of one! Come be amazed, be confused, be thoroughly entertained, and then immediately do it all over again! We'll have fun giveaways and you'll likely hear about why we had to cancel January.

The movies remain a secret until the title hits the screen, but we want you to have some idea of what to expect, so we're going to throw out our first set of clues right...NOW:

Movie one features not one, not two, but three musicians turned actors.

Movie two features not one, not two, but three killers largely influenced by lunar eclipses.

See you February 19th, 7:30pm @Theatersat the Mall of America, double feature only $5!

The Last Dragon

All the movies we've seen Vanity in have been amazing in a bad way and The Last Dragon was no exception. In fact, this movie would have moved to the top of the “Amazing Vanity Movie List” if it hadn't been for one blazingly awkward main character...

The plot unfolds something like this: Leroy Green (our hero) is sent into the world by his martial arts master to take the next step towards becoming a master himself. On his quest he instantly, though unwittingly, makes some powerful enemies. Will Leroy become the master he wishes to be? Will he be able to keep Laura safe? Will Angela Viracco get her music video played on TV?

Let me explain. There are a number of subplots trying to horn their way into plot position, here's how they unfold:

1) Leroy Green (our hero) is on a quest to reach the next step in his marital arts training. His master has sent him out into the world to find his next master, who happens to makes fortune cookies on the side. Will Leroy find this new master? Will the fortune cookie warehouse workers let Leroy in to see this master if he does?

2) Leroy runs afoul The Shogun of Harlem while in attendance of a Bruce Lee movie marathon. The Shogun demands a face off with the “legendary” Leroy Green to decide once and for all who the martial arts master of Harlem really is. Leroy humbly declines the invitation and continues watching the film. Will he regret denying the Shogun his showdown? Will the Shogun stop at nothing to get his showdown?

3) Local heavy weight thug/boss/villain Eddie Arkadian want's his lady-candy Angela Viracco's music career to take off. He plans to convince popular VJ Laura to play Angela's video on her show. When Laura turns him down, his tactics get dirtier. Will Laura submit to his strong arming or will Leroy be able to him at bay?

Got it? That doesn't even cover the sub-subplots: abusive boyfriend getting kicked to the curb, the “blossoming” love between Leroy and Laura, Leroy's 9 year old brother's unrequited love for Laura, and the Green family's restaurant business woes.

Things to watch for: A pretty epic takedown of an abusive boyfriend by the girlfriend herself. A musical performance by DeBarge. The Shogun of Harlem's amazingly bad costumes. Glowing martial arts effects...

Things to cringe at: Cultural appropriation of all things Asian by Harlem, and of all things Harlem by Little Tokyo.

The Big Cringe: At the start of the film Leroy Green seems to be an Asian immigrant unexpectedly thrust into the bustling world of 1980s NYC. He wears traditional Chinese garb, he speaks English as though it's his second language, and he doesn't pick up on basic cultural cues. When we are introduced to the rest of the Green family they are definitely NYC natives and they treat Leroy like their biological son. So, except for the fact that he acts and talks like he was just dropped from the sky in to their kitchen, the movie seems to tell us he was born into a typical Harlem family. It's the weirdest thing. And, unless Leroy was supposed to be autistic and that wasn't clear enough to the audience, it's completely horrible. That tone def character makes many of the other parts of the movie hard to swallow, like Vanity falling for him or his friends standing so steadfast by his side. And it's a real shame, because without that, the movie is epically great-bad.

Holy shit, is that...: William H. Macy (Fargo), Keshia Knight Pulliam (Rudy from the Cosby Show), Mike Starr (Goodfellas, Dumb and Dumber).

And why do they look familiar...: Because they're Ernie Reyes Jr., the lead from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II and Julius Carry, the second lead in the short lived Brisco County Jr.

Additional crazy things about this film: Berry Gordie, the kingpin of Motown, produced this movie. The man responsible for so many amazing musicians reaching national and international acclaim* produced a movie this epically bad.

What we learned from this movie: Characters have to have motivations that are clear to the audience, unless you want them to come off like alien creatures...

(*Berry Gordie also wrote and co-wrote all of the songs we linked there.)