Ladies+Gentlement, the Fabulous Stains

onetet

after hearing about this "cult classic" film for years, it finally got issued on a clean-looking DVD and I sat down and saw it last night. it's always a little disorienting to see pristine prints of films previously available only on fuzzy VHS copies.b,121b,121wow. wtf x10,0000... who else has seen this movie?b,121b,121Direction and writing are laughably inept throughout. the central narrative trick theat moves the plot forward (the local tv anchorwoman who champions the Stains and transforms their tour from opening act to superstars in a week) is gawk-worthy horrible. I felt very bad for Ray Winstone, coming off his work on Alan Clarke's amazing SCUM films, to be appearing in this cartoon-vision of punk. Barry Ford, playing the generic rasta dude they call "Lawnboy" b,121( img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nagl2.gif" alt="" 21 img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/emil.gif" alt="" 21 ) b,121has a random, embarassing rant in the middle that just made me sad.b,121b,121b,121and yet I understand why people used to collect 10th generation dubs of this off ebay. there's members of the Pistols and Clash performing original songs together, the cinematography captures an interesting take on middle-America circa 1980 (apparently shot in Canada, however), the montage of band stills 2/3 of the way through the movie is punk as fukk, the camp aspect is high (particularly with the Stains' "we don't put out" ideological stance), and the music video at the end -- while perhaps not good per se -- does attain a certain kind of inspired delirium. b,121b,121very different than what I expected.b,121b,121img src="http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k110/initialsjb/fabulous_stains_2.jpg"1

hemol

totally tangential, but I recently picked up some "Bronze Buckaroo" VHSs. img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/sn.gif" alt="" 21

Birdman9

There is a great article about 'LAGTFS' in the last issue of Grand Royal about 10 years back. Worth seeking out to help give you some factual info about why this movie became such a legend. I picked up the DVD on the strength that it is one of the weirder artifacts from a kind of in-between time culturally when punk was a fad but still a total mystery to society at large. It fails to tap into something as deeply as films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but because of it's narrow focus, it really makes no attempt to popularize the 'scene' it allegedly addresses. Plus, I have always liked Diane Lane (not enough to buy 'Streets of Fire', but....)and I think she is pretty good in this, (Laura Dern, not so much), and I am a sucker for commentary. Although Lou Adler's commentary is ultra-boring to the point where I switched it off right away and went to Lane and Dern's, which is at least fun, but not exactly enlightening.b,121b,121While I think it's a fun movie if you like oddball shit or are a sucker for punk rock in movies, it's proof positive that most movies that are held in high esteem because they are unavailable tend to wither a bit when brought into the light.

luck

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h,121

b,121it's proof positive that most movies that are held in high esteem because they are unavailable tend to wither a bit when brought into the light.

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h,121

font class="post"1b,121b,121An interesting phenomenon. Anyone want to brave Criterion's new-ish print of Sweet Movie for me?b,121b,121i1The Holy Mountain[/i] held up really well, I thought.

onetet

lol... i love Makavejev. Maybe WR more than Sweet Movie, but I find his movies from that era fascinating. b,121b,121I believe it's Sweet Movie that Claire Denis worked on as an assistant director, incidentally.

stop_33

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h,121

b,121Barry Ford, playing the generic rasta dude they call "Lawnboy"

b,121(

img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nagl2.gif" alt="" 21

img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/emil.gif" alt="" 21 )

b,121has a random, embarassing rant in the middle that just made me sad.

b,121

b,121

b,121and yet I understand why people used to collect 10th generation dubs of this off ebay.

b,121

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h,121

font class="post"1b,121b,121hear you on this...b,121the mall scenes were shot at coquitlam centre outside of vancouver. really dig the "waste of time" track...b,121b,121def prefer "out of the blue" for my van punk connex flick...