Tapeheads

starting with the opening credits with the song "bet your bottom dollar on me" and the line "dad put his fingers in it!" i knew this was a cult classic in the making. this film should not only be awarded posthumous awards for sheer, naked drop dead funny lines ("work time's over, drinkin' times begun") to obnoxiously funny music video parodies (can anyone forget the feathers in "my baby doll"?) to bobcat goldthwait as a pre-tony robbins influential speaker (cash-flow, cash-flow, cash-flow). my best friend and i watched this movie for years, and now a dvd release...to hell with extras, this is TAPEHEADS... btw, if anyone has the soundtrack....

It's not a bad movie but not worth buying it on DVD (as I did). Funny at times but you somewhat get drawn automatically towards a happy ending.

The DVD version had quite a bad soundtrack (with the exception of the music score).

Reminded me of Weird Al's "UHF" (who b.t.w. makes a cameo in this flick) but less hilarious.

Good for one run, then bury it at the bottom of the stack.

Ivan Alexeev (John Cusack) and Josh Tager (Tim Robbins) try to break into the L.A. music scene in the late 1980s. Quirky Samantha Gregory (Mary Crosby) tries to help.

I caught this back in the late 1980s at a small art house. The audience loved it and it was held over for a few weeks. Back then I thought it was just great. Seeing it now, 20 years later, its charms have faded. It is very energetic and Cusack, Robbins and Crosby are just great. There's also a large cast of character actors in small roles that help. The commercial parodies and music videos are funny and inventive. BUT the film gets repetitious real quick--the same jokes are made over and over. It's also very dated (you have to laugh when a character says "Video is the future"), has plenty of bad jokes and some real mediocre songs. Still this has enough good moments to give it a 7 and the closing song/video during the closing credits is lots of fun! Ex MTV DJ Martha Quinn appears as a--music TV DJ! This might work better with an audience.

...oh, yeah, most people are braying morons who wouldn't know a whip tight 80's comedy if it came out on DVD 15 years later with jokes that could still bite a chunk out of Adam Sandler's/Ben Stiller's/even Will Ferrell's ass. I saw this in the theater when it came out and couldn't fathom how the rest of the country wasn't chanting "Let's get into trouble, baby!" Then I remembered the country's median IQ and dismal reading levels and it was clear that this flick just moved too quickly for cinema dwellers who were looking for something a little less challenging than "Mannequin". "Teach me to read." "Sign my butt." "Don't bulls--- me! I'm a big cello fan! Casales died years ago!" "Josh is a visual visionary he communicates in images not antiquated verbosity, maybe that's why he's been so hard to understand recently." RENT-A-FACADE. "The Blender Children are mulch!" "Waffles' just pancakes with little squares on 'em." Not to mention the fact that the whole shebang is a slap in the face to Mtv produced by the creator of the network, Mike Nesmith. If that ain't subversive enough for you then go rank "Mannequin 2: On the Move" a ten and leave the real comedy to those that get it.

Looking back at 'Tapeheads' all these years later is a strange trip! John Cusack is now a respected leading man and Tim Robbins is Mr. Credibility. Back in the day they were two zany dorks up for just about anything. This movie is sometimes surreal, sometimes silly. Very uneven with some segments just falling flat on their face. But there is more than enough unhinged invention on show to make it something unique.

It might on the surface seem like the precursor to Bill and Ted and Wayne and Garth et al, but there is an underlying subversive, almost punk attitude, that puts it closer in spirit to 'Roadside Prophets' (which also featured Cusack) or even some of the movies of Alex Cox. Cox has no direct involvement with 'Tapeheads', but like his 80s cult classic 'Repo Man' it was produced by ex-Monkee Mike Nesmith, and several Cox regulars appear - Sy Richardson, Zander Schloss, Xander Berkeley, Bobcat Goldthwait, and even (an uncredited) Courtney Love.

The plot doesn't matter all that much, at times it's just an excuse for music video parodies, pop culture in-jokes, and cameos by an almost endless parade of musicians, familiar TV faces, and other oddballs, everyone from Jello Biafra to Connie Stevens. It's like channel surfing while tripping and listening to oldies radio. Just the sight of seeing 'The Killers' Clu Gulager being spanked by Courtney Love while cult favourite Susan Tyrrell urges her on (blink and you WILL miss it!!), is almost worth watching this alone for. 'Tapeheads' may not be THE great lost 80s cult movie, but it does deserve to be rediscovered. There's no other movie QUITE like it! And it will put a smile on your face, guaranteed.