CultFlicks.net

Rating:

Review

Surfing has always held a sort of niche appeal. Sure, many people love it, and many people follow it, but to get the most of surfing, you really need to become completely enveloped in it. I have too much patience to be smacked in the face by salty fishpee water all day, but one can absolutely see the appeal. The Endless Summer is just about the definitive classic surf film. It follows two surf legends across the globe, as they spend three months travelling to wild locales and predominantly beach havens and niches across the globe. It’s a documentary in a literal sense, but a superb representation of escapism at its finest. the Endless Summer is very specific, and has drawn it a cult following because of it, but it does hold up as offering something sweet and salty to anyone open-minded to realize surfing isn’t always totally lame.

Reason to Watch

I wish I can put “girls in bikinis” here, just like most surfing movies, but then this one is in the late 60’s, and girls put beachwear and granny panties in the same sentence. Not quite as skimpy as we would like to see them, but they were still cute. The ocean is always pretty too.

Context

The Endless Summer lacks substance. It lacks plot progression and high quality striking effects. What lacks in anything that is seen in a more traditional popcorn movies, it makes up for in “cool bros” and “rad beaches.” Ok, it is a pretty compelling movie regardless, and shows surfing culture in its prime, right around the release of The Beach Boys Pet Sounds. Surfing didn’t die after this, but classic surf fans can wish again for a time where surfing wasn’t a total corporate whore.

Most Memorable Quote(s)

• Summer means many different things to different people. To some it might mean the thrill of a high speed catamaran. Others like to float around and soak up a few stray rays. Still others like some kind of inland activity. But for us, it’s the sport of surfing.
• They started getting it really wired, some pretty hot angles going, and a beautiful el rollo. They even came up with a few orginial manuevers. A West African pullout here called a “Reverse Atrise Lamumba.”
• They stood there for hours, completely fascinated. If you lost your board it’d come inside and the native kids would hop on it and play with it until you come and ask for it back. Usually they give it back, but they were kids and you were bigger then they were. But you weren’t bigger then the chief who was bigger then anybody, thats why he was chief.

What You Need to Get Through This Movie

A pit of sand and three attractive woman on your arm, will suffice.

Trivia

Bruce Brown “stars” in the film, but also directed and wrote it. he created 6 previous surf films

The two surf legends starring in the film were told South America was a poor place to surf, until they revolutionized the sport there by finding many key iconic surf spots

Educational Content

• Surfing was, in fact, once pretty cool
• Other countries have beaches too
• Standing on water is a lot harder than Jesus would make you think

Justification for Rating

The Endless Summer is a recording of the last time surfing was primeval and not a sellout. For that, it deserves to be in a time capsule with other legendary films. Surfing isn’t all that important, but it does represent total pure entertainment. For that, a 4 rating.

Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZsuQXKkPdw

Rating:

Review

Before 2003, baby Snakes was not an easy film to get a hold of. Frank Zappa had over 3 hours of film, some from backstage concerts, others short animation scenes, some interview segments, and some just pure absurd mayhem. The film Baby Snakes was long, meandering, and lacked a definitive plot. These all are typical attributes of a great cult film, which Baby Snakes has remained since its inception in 1979. Though Frank Zappa is dead, this wild film is a testament to his legacy as one of the wildest weirdest icons in music history. Part documentary, part concert film, part cartoon, Baby Snakes is a spectacle of film-making that is polarizing and odd beyond comprehension.

Reason to Watch

If you want to know anything about Frank Zappa, or are already a fan of Frank Zappa, that is enough of a reason to watch. To a greater extent, if you are in need of a film that you don’t have to get up and replay manually ever hour during extended hallucinogenic mushroom sessions, this one will do just fine.

Context

Baby Snakes is a film capstone to Frank Zappa’s prime. If that does not intrigue you, move along please, nothing to see here.

Most Memorable Quote(s)

• Frank Zappa: Hey, this is Halloween, we don’t fuck around!
• Frank Zappa: God make three mistakes. First was the man, second was the wo-man. third was the poodle. He meant to make a German Shepard but he fucked up.

What You Need to Get Through This Movie

Hallucinogens. otherwise, this film is total dreck.

Trivia

The film took years to find any sort of dsitribution, constantly being rejected. Zappa thought he would cut the film from 3 1/2 hours to 90 minutes, but still no distribution. he eventually distributed the film himself and screened it in New York, where it earned a modest profit and went on to obtain a cult status.

The film founds its first release 25 years after its debut in 2003.

Educational Content

With Frank Zappa, anything is possible. Literally. No, literally, anything- the guy’s a God

Go figure- over 3 hours of Frank Zappa content and you get high just by watching

John Spartan, the name, induces immediate fear

Justification for Rating

It’s not a good film for anyone who isn’t a diehard Frank Zappa fan, and for that, it will always remain a cult film. The rating is a reflection of its length, proving that anything, yes, even dancing monkeys, can be boring after 3 hours

Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13dxu2UCmdY

Rating:

Review

This is Spinal Tap is just as realistic of a portrayal as many legitimate documentaries, and yet this mockumentary is just about as fake as it gets. Confused? The premise is simple: create a fake documentary about a fake band and cover real topics such as band break-ups, band mismanagement, and stereos that go up to 11. This is Spinal Tap is only as real as you make it. Helmed by the tantalizingly weird Rob Reiner, the film documents a fake reality in a world where the fake is the real. It’s also intensely enthralling, and has something to say about 80’s music culture without getting all pretentious on us.

Reason to Watch

As a music fan, this is Spinal Tap is NOT to be missed. It’s humor is original, defining, and the film encapsulates a certain era better than any legitimate documentary ever could. Maybe.

Context

The stories being told aren’t directly real, but there is a sort of odd realness and crudeness to the nature of the film. Over the jokes and comedy effects, you have a film that uses the design of human nature to say something about itself without getting loaded up with documentarian tripe.

Most Memorable Quote(s)

• Mick Shrimpton: As long as there’s, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll. 
• Nigel Tufnel: It’s like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black. 
• Derek Smalls: We’re very lucky in the band in that we have two visionaries, David and Nigel, they’re like poets, like Shelley and Byron. They’re two distinct types of visionaries, it’s like fire and ice, basically. I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water. 

What You Need to Get Through This Movie

A stereo playing the movie’s volume unnecessarily loud is a necessity. Big hair. If you don’t have big hair, a mullet wig will do. Knowledge that you are watching the best thing ever is also standard, though that goes without saying.

Trivia

The actors are legitimate musicians, and performed on the Spinal Tap album

Spinal Tap named their fictitious album “The Black Album,” and made the cover entirely black. 6 years later came Metallica’s self-titled black album, whether as an homage or unrelated.

Much of the film was improv’d

Educational Content

• Drummers and and will just randomly explode. Always have a back-up drummer on speed dial
• There have been stereos made that dial to 11, as a direct homage to the film.
• This movie is not a real documentary, so don’t look dumb not laughing like Ossy Osbourne when first viewing it, thinking it is a real documentary

Justification for Rating

After contemplating the film, you come to realize that it isn’t necessarily true in a linear sense, and it isn’t exactly littered in high production values, but it is too smart for its own good and wraps up a time and a place with such specific elegance. It also remains purely entertaining for those in the know- the cult film status, I suppose.

Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeOXsA8sp_E

Rating:

Review

Documentaries can be boring. I mean let’s be honest. if you managed to stay awake during the entirety of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth you have a sleeping disorder. The environment is just brutally boring. But not all documentaries fall into the trap of too much info, not enough explosions. Hated  is primarily about GG Allin and his group, The Murder Junkies. The documentary chronicles GG through his punk rock days where he defecated on stage, bashed his head against walls, and did drugs almost to the point of self-satire. The film is also entirely engrossing through every moment, and the cult status of the group, as well as the film, is sustained splendidly.

Reason to Watch

Lots of male genitalia is probably NOT a reason to watch, but the unrestrained insanity of the group is enthralling. It’s also worth watching for a glimpse into the ideologies of punk rock through the lens of a man who is absolutely out of his bloody mind.

Context

The Murder Junkies made terrible music, and their fans were probably all retarded (no offense, it is what it is). But Hated really does chronicle something special. A small relatively known insane man can, with enough craziness, ascend his own meaning. We’re not quite sure what amount of GG Allin was show and what was literal belief, but the event is so encapsulating it’s worth viewing for that view into something so bizarre and foreign.

Most Memorable Quote(s)

• Allin: I’ve had women who move to the towns I’m living in, just pack up and move there, never even met ’em before, ’cause they heard I lived there.
• Allin: Rock’n’roll has to be destroyed and rebuilt in my name if it’s ever gonna accomplish anything

What You Need to Get Through This Movie

A case of beer. Two cases. a high tolerance of chubby man penis and feces. A love of punk rock doesn’t hurt, or at least a love for watching crazy people get crazier.

Trivia

• GG Allin showed up at the initial screening of the film, but threw a bottle and was kicked out
• The film contains a quick shot of his corpse, and filming was done at his funeral, included in the final picture

Educational Content

If the Sex Pistols didn’t teach you that you can fail miserably in music and succeed in some fashion, GG Allin won’t either. If you are going to kill yourself, and you tell everyone you are, and you don’t, you will come across as a pansy regardless even though the idea is stupid.

Also, drugs are bad, mmkay, but South Park should have already taught you that.

Justification for Rating

Hated may be interesting and intriguing, but it really doesn’t have any substance. It’s like the documentary/punk rock version of a summer blockbuster- there are lots of things are happening and being said, but it’s still inherently dumb and always will be.

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