Thursday, July 28, 2016

Tape Headz Session 5: Friday the 13th - The Final Chapter (1984)



With six people voting, this was the largest session of Tape Headz yet, and the points were all over the place. Friday the 13th part 4 has been in the top four since the second tape, so its final selection has been much anticipated.


A lot of great tapes were entered this time, making it difficult to fully comprehend what happened. The Black Hole received a striking amount of points, while Mortal Kombat Annihilation was single-handedly voted into the top four. Wired to Kill, a film that's been in the top four twice, received absolutely no points. Regardless, Friday the 13th won by an enormous margin. It's worth noting that the fourth highest placing film received a mere 29 points, which says a lot about how low the bottom four were.

Small Soldiers: 29
Mortal Kombat Annihilation: 105
Arena: 26
Friday the 13th - The Final Chapter: 214
Detroit Rock City: 11
Wired To Kill: 0
The Skateboard Kid: 20
The Black Hole: 145

Tabulating the results. 
Friday the 13th - The Final Chapter won a lot of people over. While the film was noted throughout for lacking suspense in many scenes and having absolutely no plot, it performed well in most categories despite having no Sneak-Peaks.

Cover-Appeal got straights twos down the line for almost everyone. The front graphic is striking, while the back photos are pretty great.Emily was sad Jason never got stabbed in the eye like his mask is on the front.

Crispin Glover's role as the dead fuck Jimbo was praised alongside Cory Feldman as Tommy Jarvis, a strange boy who likes looking at naked girls and making Hollywood quality masks and make up effects. Many gave points for Axel, the sleazy morgue attendant who likes watching sexy exercise programs, an Eye-Candy point that most people gave. Most gave Eye-candy points for a sexy dude with a mullet that's also on the back cover. Some gave Eye-Candy points for the beautiful dog Gordon while others actually gave points for chicks. Overall, Eye-Candy ranged all over the place, but Kool-Kasting was maxed out by all.

Sweet-Emotion was given twos and threes by almost everyone. Cory Feldman bouncing in bed like a monkey and male-bonding with a random Jason hunter aside, most Sweet-Emotions again revolved around Jimbo. His general blossoming from virgin into not virgin, his seizure-like dancing, and his renouncing of the title dead fuck. Hip-Tunes were given for the great heavy metal song that plays during Jimbo's dance grooves and for the general score.

Spiffy-Scripting was also praised by many, including several great lines. "You're the Super Bowl of self-abuse", "There is no computer!/And there is no betty.", "Some pack of petutsies, uh?", "He thinks that's funny. He think's that's a funny thing he's doing" were all great lines that everyone thought were very spiffy.

Visual-Touchdowns were the crowning achievement.





At one point, one of the random twins is looking out her window...






...Jason throws her out a window...











...and she falls onto a car. All of the car's windows explode on impact.







It's insane. Other Visual-Touchdown's include the title exploding through Jason's mask, the other twin shown being stabbed through some lightning shadows, Axel's head getting twisted off, a girl eating a banana and squeezing it to pieces when she's killed, and Gordon jumping out of a window barely in frame.

In all, the film got 18, 18, 21, 17, 19, and 13. Everyone had positive things to say, and the average score beat out Worth Winning by .666 points. Will The Man Behind The Mask return to Tape Headz? Only time will tell.

FINAL RATING: 17.666

Tape Headz Session 4: The Jazz Singer (1980)


Returning tapes Wired to Kill and Hard 'n' Heavy were no match for the voting juggernaut that was The Jazz Singer. Friday the 13th part 4 came pretty close: both received a hundred votes from specific people, and had Friday the 13th part 4 received only six more points, it would have won. Crystal's love of Neil Diamond and Emily's interest in jazz singers was victorious. Many good tapes received no points this time.




Friday the 13th part 4: 125
Wired to Kill: 45
Hard 'n' Heavy: 0
Mesmerized: 10
Young Doctors in Love: 30
Arena: 60
Time of the Apes: 0
The Jazz Singer: 130




There was a total debacle involving the selection of the film that shall never be discussed and will
never be repeated again.








Popcorn was had by all. Josh ate pickles, gin, and iced tea. A manatee named Manny joined Crystal and Emily on the couch. Andy's butt put the tape in for everyone to see.








Manny was played with a lot. Josh complained almost non-stop the whole duration of the film. Andy said it wasn't that bad. Crystal ate up every moment in it. Emily just didn't know what to think: why was this film called The Jazz Singer when there is no jazz in sight?




To make it brief, The Jazz Singer is a remake of the first talkie film ever, now starring Neil Diamond and his menagerie of soft rock hits. There are frequent moments where someone is playing something fast and he intentionally slows it down or switches to an altogether more depressing song. People's attachment to the songs greatly affected their enjoyment of the film: Andy and Crystal both said they loved songs like "America", while Emily and Josh scratched their heads.

In general, there were cool likable characters: the black men and the old Jewish guys were great, but Neil Diamond's character was agreed to be a huge dick. He left his wife and dad in New York to start a career, screws that up by making a song more boring, screws up his marriage and starts a new relationship before they're divorced. Eventually Neil Diamond's awesomely Jewish dad realizes Neil is having this California floozie's pizza and Jew dad tears his coat to show that he wants his son dead. Neil then abandons his new love interest who, unbeknownst to him, is having a baby. He eventually comes back, then becomes a mega superstar again anyway. There are no repercussions for his dickwad actions.

Everyone agreed that there was Kool-Kasting because of the dad character, and everyone agreed there was a lot of Sweet-Emotion revolving around his character. There's a great scene where everyone sings and dances around the dad and another where Neil and him reconcile.

Visual-Touchdowns are mostly related to Neil Diamond's clothes. He wears a lot of glittery shirts in the film which received a number of votes, but everyone generally agreed that the film's finale in which he wears a glittery scarf and lasers start appearing out of nowhere was the real highlight.

Hip-Tunes received a bonus point from Crystal and two from Andy. They both enjoyed the Neil Diamond and a new wavey British guy's interpretation of one of his songs. Emily left it at 0 for the lack of jazz, while Josh just said screw everything.

Few Spiffy-Scripting points were given, with Emily giving 0 and Josh and Andy both giving it 1. Crystal gave it 2, mostly for her love of Neil Diamond. The others agreed that while there was the occasional good line, Diamond's character was portrayed as too big of a dick to receive high marks.

Emily gave the film it's sole Eye-Candy point for all the old Jewish men in the synagogue scenes.

The cover was a point of much contention. Josh liked the cover graphic and little else, Andy liked the images on the back of Neil Diamond standing around, Emily said it gave her false hope of jazz, and Crystal gave it full points because Neil Diamond was all over it. Emily was deeply distraught that there was no jazz in the film.

Emily and Josh both gave it 5, Andy gave it a 10, and Crystal a 16. Friday the 13th, Arena, and Wired to Kill are still up for the next session.

FINAL RATING: 8.1


Thursday, July 21, 2016

Tape Headz Session 3: Worth Winning (1989)


Worth Waiting, Showdown in Little Tokyo,and Friday the 13th the Final Chapter returned for rating this time alongside five new selections, including our first non-feature film selection, a Hard 'n' Heavy video magazine. The tape's with corresponding ratings:



Wired to Kill: 75
Hard 'n' Heavy: 70
Mee Christmas: 50
Sept. 30th, 1955: 0
Worth Waiting: 75
Showdown in Little Tokyo: 30
Friday the 13th The Final Chapter: 65
Trancers II: 35

Crystal single-handedly voted Worth Waiting to the top of the list, with Wired to Kill split between Dave and Brendan. A coin flip went in Crystal's favor, and I'm probably glad it did. This movie's great!


Vote's fluctuated wildly. Dave gave almost every category a perfect tally excluding cover appeal. Brendan and I agreed with him on the low cover rating: that guy being all huge is kind of cool, but that's about it. Crystal gave it a perfect score, saying it's why she voted the movie up in the first place. Brendan also talked a lot about how Mark Harman had AIDS because one of his characters had AIDS on some TV show.

Some notable Visual-Touchdown's included the great opening credits, where Mark Harmon floats in the sky while images of women's legs and butts fly around him. There's also a great two second sex scene with a premature ejaculation that's as grotesque as it sounds. A split-second shot of a communist Ringo Starr poster rounded it up to two points for everyone.

I gave one point for the sneak peaks even though they both sucked. Crystal gave it one a piece and everyone else gave it perfect scores. One was for Die Hard 2 and the other was for some Forest Whittaker film called Downtown. Brendan really liked the De La Soul song in the latter, and I dug the part where a guy flops around in the sun roof of a car right before it drives into a fork lift. 

I couldn't get enough of the film's Spiffy-Scripting. Mark Harmon does this Clarissa Explains It All thing where he's constantly breaking the fourth wall to great effect. Most people maxed this category out excluding Roney, although I made up for his one tick off by giving this category a bonus point.

Roney and Dave maxed out the Hip-Tunes and Brendan gave it his bonus point while Crystal and I settled with ones. Aside from the opening rocker, the music was pure '80s sitcom synths, which is either appealing or appalling depending purely on taste.

With plenty of women running around in skimpy outfits, everyone excluding Crystal gave Eye-Candy at least a two. Again, the opening sequence's legs and butts assured this would receive at least a one.

So in the end, Crystal and I both gave the film 14s and Brendan and Dave gave it 20s, rounding out to 17, our highest rating yet. Worth Winning is definitely better than Hiding Out, so I think this is a perfectly sensible score.

Wired to Kill, Friday the 13th the Final Chapter, and the Hard 'n' Heavy video magazine tape are the remaining top 4 going into the next session.

FINAL RATING: 17

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Tape Headz Session 2: Police State 2000 (1999)


Andy and I were really excited about this video. I had nothing bad to say about Alex Jones after seeing the more recent Police State 4 and the great America Destroyed By Design from just a year later. The latter tape is filled with tons of interviews and great commentary on passive American culture, my favorite part being when Alex Jones visits a high school mock United Nations and verbally rips clueless teens apart.



Because we viewed some of the top three remainders from our last viewing session under different circumstances, we went ahead and filled in the gaps. The only returning tapes were Police State 2000, Monster Squad, and The Last Starfighter. The rankings were:

Police State 2000: 85
Worth Waiting: 80
Shodown in Little Tokyo: 65
Friday the 13th The Final Chapter: 60
Monster Squad: 35
The Last Starfighter: 30
The Bodyguard: 25
Executive Decision: 20

This makes it so that within the next seven days, only Worth Waiting, Shodown in Little Tokyo, and Friday the 13th the Final Chapter are eligible for the next session.

We had nachos and drinks and rock sorting.






Unfortunately, the tape wasn't very good. Alex Jones harassed police officers and other people barely related to the topic: military drills run on civilian soil. Of course, we're already so used to this kind of stuff that Jones's protests didn't even seem particularly relevant. We all started falling asleep, and it repeatedly showed the same image of soldiers running in the dark and a woman looking at some fire.

Visual-touchdown points were awarded for Bill Clinton's face turning into Hitler's and a shot of a helicopter near a random building fire that turned into an enormous mushroom cloud explosion. Some people gave Hip-tunes points for the opening's horror film music. Kool-kasting included the legendary Juan Garcia, a clueless guy who was barely related to any military drills.

The previously shown box art was pretty amazing, and I did give that category the one possible bonus point for that.

Getting a 6, 7, 8, and a 9, the film totaled to a 7.5, much lower than Hiding Out's 15.6. The only reason Police State 2000 got more than a 4 is because the cover's so amazing.

FINAL RATING: 7.5