DVD Reviews
Issue 223 / July 2007 More from this Issue
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Black Test Car
Yasuzo Masumura
Fantoma
Street: 05.22
The Fast and the Furious, Red Line, Days of Thunder... all these movies deal in one form or another with cars and racing them. Most of the time, these movies involve babes with tons of cleavage, outrageous, impossible cars and the people who drive them. Interestingly, Black Test Car takes this same genre that is drenched with awful amounts of testosterone and turns it into a critique of Japan's wayward Westernized transformation without all the Calvin and Hobbes characters peeing on logos. The movies flashes the story of two car companies trying to get the one-up on each other through corporate boardroom politics, greed and lying all while trying to make a rad sportscar. Told in a straight-forward way with no irony or campiness, Black Test Car is tense, if not a little out-dated. Erik Lopez
The Flaming Lips
U.F.O.s at the Zoo: The Legendary Concert in Oklahoma City
Warner Bros.
Street: 07.07
Fans have been waiting a long time for this; a concert DVD that lives up to the unique live Flaming Lips experience. The changes the Lips have undergone over the years don't constitute a reinvention of style, but instead a realization of vision, and their live shows are proof of this. You may have heard about the beach balls, the dancing troops of aliens and Santa Clauses, or even how lead singer Wayne Coyne is known to descend onto the crowd in a giant plastic bubble, but seeing it is a different story. These on and off stage antics are no novelty, it all amounts to a carefully crafted aesthetic of color and music, an other-worldly operatic experience unlike anything since they heyday of George Clinton. Intercut throughout are behind the scenes vignettes shot the day of the show. We see Coyne tinkering with the giant spaceship the band plans on entering the stage in that night, as well as interviews with often eccentric and excited fans (the show takes place in Oklahoma City, the band's hometown). The result is something rare: a concert DVD worth watching over and over again.Jeff Guay
Gothic Vampires From Hell
Fred Austin and Rob Walker
Cleopatra
Street: 05.15
Getting new material to review is sometimes like waiting to be kicked in the penis. You realize it has large potential for pain, but you also know you have to get through it one way or another. When this movie was placed into my hands I knew that I was in for some deep hurting. While I won't go into how many beers it took so I couldn't feel feelings while watching this, I will say that a movie put out by a music label (and obviously marketed to sell albums by bands that are ON said label) shouldn't ever happen. This was similar to Queen of the Damned, with less Jonathan Davis, and a hell of a lot more distant-yet-brooding gothic thirty something "actors". Yet another reminder that marketing is one of the several reasons our society can't have nice things. White Elephant gift this turd without hesitation. Conor Dow
Heavy Petting
Obie Benz and Joshua Waletzky
New Video Group
Street: 05.29
A documentary based around the culture of sexuality in the 50s and 60s? Sign me up! With conversations on these topics from the likes of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, viewing this felt like sitting around telling somewhat shocking stories with your relatives at a reunion. The second disc is also a gem, and if you purchase this, do so for this disc at least. It's packed with 10 educational films from the aforementioned eras which touch on topics such as STD's, pornography and sexual education. If you are at all interested or merely amused with how American sexuality has changed, and has also remained exactly the same, this DVD is definitely for you. You Mystery Science Theater fans out there may even recognize some of the material covered here. Regardless, see this with that special someone whom you're waiting to marry before you two... you know... "do it". Conor Dow
Missing Victor Pellerin
Sophie Deraspe
Atopia
Street: 06.05
Missing Victor Pellerin tells the story of famous Quebecian artist, Victor Pellerin, who in January of 1990, burned all his paintings and disappeared. At first, I was turned off by it and couldn't make it past the first 30 minutes due to aloof camera angles and a pointless intro. However, after trying a second time and moving past the first 30 minutes, I was engrossed in the story-telling and the wide variety of ways people knew Victor Pellerin aka Luc Gauthier. Watching the movie was like being let in on one big private inside joke (that makes you feel as if being let in on the joke may be a joke itself). For her first feature length film (that took over seven years to make) Deraspe's Missing Victor Pellerin is enjoyable not only for its construction as an unfolding mystery, but also for the way you get to like the characters involved in the plot more than discovering the truth. Erik Lopez
Yasuzo Masumura
Fantoma
Street: 05.22
The Fast and the Furious, Red Line, Days of Thunder... all these movies deal in one form or another with cars and racing them. Most of the time, these movies involve babes with tons of cleavage, outrageous, impossible cars and the people who drive them. Interestingly, Black Test Car takes this same genre that is drenched with awful amounts of testosterone and turns it into a critique of Japan's wayward Westernized transformation without all the Calvin and Hobbes characters peeing on logos. The movies flashes the story of two car companies trying to get the one-up on each other through corporate boardroom politics, greed and lying all while trying to make a rad sportscar. Told in a straight-forward way with no irony or campiness, Black Test Car is tense, if not a little out-dated. Erik Lopez
The Flaming Lips
U.F.O.s at the Zoo: The Legendary Concert in Oklahoma City
Warner Bros.
Street: 07.07
Fans have been waiting a long time for this; a concert DVD that lives up to the unique live Flaming Lips experience. The changes the Lips have undergone over the years don't constitute a reinvention of style, but instead a realization of vision, and their live shows are proof of this. You may have heard about the beach balls, the dancing troops of aliens and Santa Clauses, or even how lead singer Wayne Coyne is known to descend onto the crowd in a giant plastic bubble, but seeing it is a different story. These on and off stage antics are no novelty, it all amounts to a carefully crafted aesthetic of color and music, an other-worldly operatic experience unlike anything since they heyday of George Clinton. Intercut throughout are behind the scenes vignettes shot the day of the show. We see Coyne tinkering with the giant spaceship the band plans on entering the stage in that night, as well as interviews with often eccentric and excited fans (the show takes place in Oklahoma City, the band's hometown). The result is something rare: a concert DVD worth watching over and over again.Jeff Guay
Gothic Vampires From Hell
Fred Austin and Rob Walker
Cleopatra
Street: 05.15
Getting new material to review is sometimes like waiting to be kicked in the penis. You realize it has large potential for pain, but you also know you have to get through it one way or another. When this movie was placed into my hands I knew that I was in for some deep hurting. While I won't go into how many beers it took so I couldn't feel feelings while watching this, I will say that a movie put out by a music label (and obviously marketed to sell albums by bands that are ON said label) shouldn't ever happen. This was similar to Queen of the Damned, with less Jonathan Davis, and a hell of a lot more distant-yet-brooding gothic thirty something "actors". Yet another reminder that marketing is one of the several reasons our society can't have nice things. White Elephant gift this turd without hesitation. Conor Dow
Heavy Petting
Obie Benz and Joshua Waletzky
New Video Group
Street: 05.29
A documentary based around the culture of sexuality in the 50s and 60s? Sign me up! With conversations on these topics from the likes of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, viewing this felt like sitting around telling somewhat shocking stories with your relatives at a reunion. The second disc is also a gem, and if you purchase this, do so for this disc at least. It's packed with 10 educational films from the aforementioned eras which touch on topics such as STD's, pornography and sexual education. If you are at all interested or merely amused with how American sexuality has changed, and has also remained exactly the same, this DVD is definitely for you. You Mystery Science Theater fans out there may even recognize some of the material covered here. Regardless, see this with that special someone whom you're waiting to marry before you two... you know... "do it". Conor Dow
Missing Victor Pellerin
Sophie Deraspe
Atopia
Street: 06.05
Missing Victor Pellerin tells the story of famous Quebecian artist, Victor Pellerin, who in January of 1990, burned all his paintings and disappeared. At first, I was turned off by it and couldn't make it past the first 30 minutes due to aloof camera angles and a pointless intro. However, after trying a second time and moving past the first 30 minutes, I was engrossed in the story-telling and the wide variety of ways people knew Victor Pellerin aka Luc Gauthier. Watching the movie was like being let in on one big private inside joke (that makes you feel as if being let in on the joke may be a joke itself). For her first feature length film (that took over seven years to make) Deraspe's Missing Victor Pellerin is enjoyable not only for its construction as an unfolding mystery, but also for the way you get to like the characters involved in the plot more than discovering the truth. Erik Lopez
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