Rock n’ Roll in the Rising Sun: Tokyo Pop

Tokyo Pop is probably an unrecognized film title to all but a handful of people, most of whom are likely rabid 80s film fans. And without the transition to the more readily accessible DVD, it remains not a great film (pacing tends to be a problem), but still an overlooked, low-budget gem in the grand universe of obscure cult films.

Centering on young and naive aspiring American and Japanese musicians, Tokyo Pop contrasts the mid-80s new wave, punk and rock influences of urban Japan with the backdrop of idyllic tradition and historical roots; an obvious criticism of commercial globalization and the “Americanization” of a once-distinct Eastern identity. Rock, pop, punk and new wave (check out an early performance of “Rauken Rauken” by Japanese goof-girl rockers, Papaya Paranoia) – it’s all image and personality. Like the old photos of youth in 1980s post-Communist countries: a carefully manufactured young “cool”.

There are essentially two leading characters who, by fate (and the script!), cross paths. Carrie Hamilton, the late daughter of comedienne Carol Burnette (she may be more recognized as one of the instigating rivals in Shag), shares the lead as Wendy Reed, a struggling singer with no hope for security and mobility in the New York City dives scene. Inspired by a postcard of a friend who boasts of success in the business following a move to Tokyo, Wendy packs up her sparing belongs and decides to join her friend. Except things don’t go as plan. Stunned not so much by culture shock, but news of her friend having already moved someplace else, she sticks it out. And, on the advice of fellow nomadic gaijins (the romanticized gringo: Americans) she,  takes up residency in a group house plastered with Disney memorabilia and, in the closest thing to paying singer she could quickly find, entertains drunken entourages of Japanese businessmen in a karaoke bar with half-hearted renditions of corny American folk songs.

Stranded in the city one night, Wendy meets Hiro (Yutaka Tadokoro, the vocalist for the Red Warriors who is probably better recognized as the director of the whiskey commercial in Lost in Translation), another young, aspiring rock musician. Obsessed with American and British pop culture, especially the musical legends like Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles, this is basically the bulk of the limited English he can communicate to Wendy. His family is the same – in one scene, his grandfather, in traditional garb, scowls at his daughter who is attempting to follow the jazzercise routines she’s watching on television as they sit around the dinner table with Hiro and his sister. A big bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken crowds the table and Hiro’s mother is ironically bewildered that her son isn’t interested in more “Japanese” things. Even Hiro’s father, a divorcee (taboo no more!) specializes in the 80s novelty of synthetic food sculptures.

Hiro and Wendy’s first encounter is eventually miffed by a misunderstanding over the sharing of a hotel room, but eventually the two hit it off, much to the delight of Hiro’s band, a rock quartet, who want the newfound blond gaijin to be in their band, certain that this is just the gimmick they need to get recognized by the country’s most famous producer, since sneaking trying to sneak him demo tapes hasn’t worked. Reluctant at first, Wendy seems unable to find any other band to meaningfully support a singing career (X of Japan briefly appear in their massive coifs, and delegate Wendy, the new band mate for about a second, the back up singer’s tambourine).

Hiro’s band is basically a cover band, churning out live performances of corny American pop songs like Three Dog Night’s “Do You Believe in Magic?” Amazingly, they do achieve major public recognition, but only through some trivial event – a photographer happened to capture a backstage spat between Wendy and someone else. Suddenly, the cover band is topping the country’s charts. And yet, both Wendy and Hiro, at the helm of  a thriving gimmick band, aren’t entirely happy with the expected definition of “success” (money and fame). In private, Hiro has performed for Wendy the songs he has written, which he sings in Japanese. Completely absent of the Western manufacture, the songs are sincere. Wendy, willing to walk away in order to get Hiro and his bandmates to abandon the gimmick, encourages Hiro to perform these songs for his audiences. In other words: art for the sake of art.

Released in 1988 and yet to be re-released, the film was co-written and directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui, though her 1992 directorial effort is more widely known: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Tokyo Pop was a lot like the 1987 culture-clash dramedy, Living on Tokyo Time. Unfortuantely, there’s little net-recorded history on the movie, other than (surprisingly) a 2007 New York Times Review.

Imagine That! Rumors of a Mighty Boosh Movie

Okay dear anglophiles… yes, the Muvika! blog is reserved for posts about movies. But, rumors of The Mighty Boosh finally making it to the big screen in the next two years, gives license to discuss the television show here… even if the status of the movie at this point is unclear to the point of making it little more than a vague rumor.

It’s not just any show, which is why I’ll take this stretch of liberty. The Mighty Boosh is one of the funniest and most original British sitcoms in the BBC catalog in at least the last five years. And, that’s a tough claim to attempt to defend, considering that the competition these days include the wonderfully written League of Gentlemen, Spaced, Black Books, Peep Show, the inter-related Garth Merenghi’s Dark Place and IT Crowd, and even the redundant sketch comedy of Little Britain and Catherine Tate.  But, while every one of these shows (and others I haven’t mentioned) puts nearly every bit of American sitcoms of the last decade to utter shame–except for the intermittent genius in shows like Seinfeld, Arrested Development, and 30 Rock–few have attained more than cult status among American television consumers (unless introduced to wider audiences redressed as a tame American version of its more daring British source). These are the brilliant secrets that, until they ever achieve that transition into a region code suitable for DVD players in the United States, must often be enjoyed in fragmented bootlegs. To that I’ll say thank goodness for YouTube… but, damn the copyright police!

At least in the realm of network television, BBC offerings expose the limitations of American sitcoms. The BBC sitcoms aren’t “daring” just because the British allow fewer restrictions on language and sexual content. But that most American sitcoms, bound by the hollow FCC restrictions on language, indulge sexual innuendo to an overly compensatory extreme.  Maybe a writer for American television can get away with slipping in the words “dog penis” more than twice, but this is basically what has come to embody the definition of “risque.” Despite the supposed history of more daring content in American television in the last twenty or thirty years (especially anything with Bea Arthur attached), the bulk of American sitcoms today are predictable and watered down, an observation was recently made in an episode of 30 Rock. (Imagine being subject to hours of episodes of The Big Bang Theory). By contrast, the BBC has nurtured shows that experimented with the traditional notions of sitcom construction. League of Gentlemen completely destroyed the paradigm in terms of consistency of characters throughout the life of a series, and, along with Little Britain and Catherine Tate dedicated a significant part of the budget to costume and effects. Even the more familiar Extras, created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant following the success of their previous sitcom, The Office, offered criticism of its own industry’s obsession with celebrity and spectacle–albeit in a sort of defeatist soapbox manner.

The brilliance of modern British sitcom has been injected into the American lineup in another form: Americanized versions. The most obvious example is The Office, although in Americanizing the show, the emphasis has shifted to its comedic ploy of heightened awareness and awkward situations taken to an extreme, while omitting the social and political commentary regarding the drudgery of the office life. HBO recently bought the BBC comedy Little Britain, pumping money into the show and now having it filmed live on location. Most recently,  NBC was to have an American version of The IT Crowd, but thankfully the project was scrapped before a pilot even aired, although the Independent Film Channel (IFC) had talked about picking up the project. And in November of 2008, MTV2 discussed the development of  a Boosh spin-off.

The Mighty Boosh originated from the stand-up performances of Noel Felding and Julian Barratt. Before the irreverent adventures of the Zooniverse aired on television for three series (British sitcoms typically run shorter terms than do American ones and are referred to as “series” rather than “seasons”) beginning in 2004, it was performed as a live stage show (and still is, touring in festivals in Europe), and later, as a BBC radio program. Described as a surrealist comedy and increasingly more so as it reached a third series, the show was something obviously targeted for younger, hipper audiences. Most of the episodes retained that theatrical look to it, especially in fantasy scenes which depended more on costume, color and lighting for effect.

More accurately, The Mighty Boosh is a surreal musical comedy. Like Cheech & Chong did in their stand-up and later, in their movies, the Boosh cast (and primarily, Barratt and Felding) wrote and performed an array of hilarious and relevant new wave tracks to highlight their situations, with the duo establishing a trademark for crimping.

At least for American viewers not really yet exposed to revolutions occurring in British sitcoms, this violated the assumption of most British sitcoms being very dated and mildly funny shows surrounding proper English folk, something influenced by the handful of shows like Are You Being Served and Keeping Up Appearances which continue to run on PBS, the poor Yanks outlet of the cultural products (outside of films) coming from the Motherland.

BBC’s uniqueness, too, is the luxury of situational comedy whereas the American sitcom settings tend to be very limiting, centering around the interactions and relationships of family and close-knit friends, the primary setting typically being someone’s home. Originally, The Mighty Boosh took place in a zoo (the Zooniverse) where the ambitious traditionalist, Howard Moon (Barratt) and his charmingly dim-witted Mod friend, Vince Noir (Felding) worked as zoo keepers. And it was usually Howard envisioning himself the revered hero of every occasion that got them both in trouble. Secondary characters include Dixon Bainbridge (originally the IT Crowd’s Richard Ayoade), Bob Fossil, the wry shaman Naboo (played by Noel’s brother Michael, who was the inspiration for the show’s name), his faithful gorilla companion, Bollo, and the Hitcher, a regular, rhyming semi-nemesis. As the series aged, the setting changed to Howard and Vince sharing a flat with Naboo and Bollo in second season, and then, steered into the really surreal with Howard and Vince working in Naboo’s second-hand shop.

BBC Films has expressed their interest in producing a Boosh movie, but there has never been a firm date set because the order of projects for the Boosh team at this point is unclear. They intend to tour the live stage show (which has been solidly booked in venues around Eastern Europe for the last few months), but afterwards, expect to take a break and then resume with either a fourt series or the film. Whatever the next move, nothing is likely to be ready by 2010. Get started catching up on the episodes, my fellow Americans.

*Thanks to J. Rushton & Co. for introducing me to the show.

Titty Power: Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

“We need to make being poor cool again.” - John Waters, This Filthy World (2006)

The 1980s was really the last decade of true grime cinema. Its resulting Bohemia, that unusual and corrupted regarded with ambivalence, sadly disappeared in the national tide of gentrification, reluctantly or not, and in the film world, dilapidated city life was traded for Rob Reiner-esque Americana. The vanguard of modern filmmaking was eventually traded for censor-safe subjects, refining even the most revolting if it was to reach any kind of audience. Film-making, and it’s sister world of contemporary art, really stopped being daring.

In 1981, director Lou Adler’s and writer Nancy Dowd’s über-obscure punk rock epic, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains was already probably considered passé when it was released in late 1982 (Dowd’s pseudonymous writing credit, Rob Morton, symbolized her displeasure with the final product). Although it came about at the same time as the similarly grimy, low-budget punk-themed movies, Smithereens and Times Square, post-punk and New Wave had already started taking over as the next musical epoch. The chord combinations of punk too few, the angst too redundant, and the drugs too plentiful. Shot over a two year period, it was released to near-obscurity, even with its ties to well-known music icons and convenient timing (Mtv was born), and it only made the transition to DVD last month. But, the movie wasn’t really all that original: the triumphant marriage of music and youth rebellion. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is much more significant as an understanding of just how far from drawing lines in the sand film-making has become. While it never arrived in time to be part of the closing curtain on first-wave punk, it could be for the last vestiges of grime cinema.

Diane Lane was just 15 when she starred as Corrine Burns, the typically baffling, teenage “misfit” orphan turned equally baffling superstar heroine in Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains. The film opens with a reporter interviewing the distant teenager as a follow-up to her minor stardom when she was seen on the news being fired at the fast food place where they were doing a story. Shocked by her indifference more than her having to absorb continuous disappointment, the reporter finishes the interview with that typical rhetorical question so replete with disgust and demand: “What are you going to do with your life?!” (Cue the Kelly “Shoes” video!)

Corrine envisions future celebrity and her novice, three-piece all-girl punk band, The Stains (which features a mere 13-year old Laura Dern as “Peg”), are their only ticket out of dingy, hopeless Dodge. “Were there even girl bands before this movie?” Diane Lane asks on the DVD commentary (the Lane-Dern commentary is a great additional feature), frequently citing this movie as the inspiration for a lot of bands’ sound and image. It sounds like an excessively self-congratulatory claim, but it’s especially possible that The White Stripes drew on this movie for plenty of their retro red-and-white imagery. But to answer Diane’s question… yes, there were the Runaways, the girls who didn’t give a damn about their bad reputations. However, the angst-ridden girl bands never really came about in full effect until much later, and most notably with the Riot Grrrl period in the 90s.

Corrine’s escape is not without cynicism, hardened further by the two bands they tour with. Tubes lead singer Fee Way Bill and guitarist Vince Welnick played The Metal Corpses, an aged duo of extremely self-indulgent 70s rockers who desperately ignore their obsolescence. The others are a British punk band called The Looters, which featured Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones and ex-Clash guitarist Paul Simonon while the lead, Billy, was played by Ray Winstone who most recently played Frank Costello’s henchman, Mr. French, in The Departed. They all compete with one another in their bid to be famous and even the most well-meaning can be corrupted; the gatekeepers of fame all have their price.

But the Stains, as young girls never taken seriously to begin with, use outrageousness and rejection and altruism to their advantage, and like the characters in Time Square and The Legend of Billie Jean, they eventually become the headlining success. Not surprisingly, their fan base are screaming crowds of equally alienated teenage girls, something that might be called neo-feminism, had the loyalists who adopted the band’s look (they call it “Going Skunk”) and slogans and lyrics not been shallow followers. The enlightenment to eventually break their bond is just a simple, obvious warning from Billy (The Stain’s big hit single, “The Professionals” (actually a Sex Pistols song, was stolen from him). The spectacle had gotten too far out of hand.

Diane Lane, on the DVD commentary, suggests that this is a film in dire need of a remake. The dirty word that it might be (that dreaded “R” word!), that grimy Bohemia, the drastic differences in the music industry then and now, and the silliness of a youth rebellion epic would probably lost in translation to modern film. Although, sadly, there are few films anymore that really depict the relationship between music and youth, especially teenagers. The closest it has really come lately, at least in more popular film, is where this has been done to supplement the narrative (Empire Records, Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist), or even through the popularity of soundtrack (Juno).

“You can’t make a movie like this anymore,” Laura Dern accurately replies. It featured plenty that would set off conservative censors today: the fighting was authentic because stunt people weren’t hired, the kids were shown to be chain smokers, and even at 15, Diane Lane was filmed partially nude for a brief shower romance with Billy. Grime cinema was low-budget, daring was the default because on the one hand, controversy drew the cult appeal (look at John Water’s catalog of films), and on the other, because there wasn’t much money and expertise to making these films (see Susan Seidleman’s acclaimed debut feature film, Smithereens). The era of grime cinema produced a lot of shitty films (although so did those outside of that context), but it also produced a lot of cult films of note. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains probably isn’t likely to generate a sudden rise in noteriety, even with the careers that Diane Lane and Laura Dern have both established for themselves, but it is at least a glimpse into where the limitations of the medium used to be (music, too).

There was a recent, related comment on imposed limits in a second season episode of 30 Rock in which Liz Lemon’s (Tina Fey) idol, an old writer for Laugh-In (Carrie Fisher), is brought on as a guest writer for The Girlie Show. Her skit proposals for off-colored satire are nixed by Lemon, acting as the proxy of what the corporate-owned, advertiser-weary networks would allow. “Oh hell, we’d do something like that on the Mandrell Sisters!” the guest writer protests. In the end, the skit they decide to feature instead revolves around jokes about dog penises. American films today are too clean and even those considered the new avant garde within the last decade alone have more often been visually daring rather than topically so.

Drowning in the Grime: Smithereens

“You can’t make a movie like this anymore. New York is too clean.” - R.P.

Outside of science fiction, portrayal of modern dystopia is often critical of suburban living, something usually addressed in stories of severely disillusioned and apathetic youth like Over the Edge (1979), Suburbia (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985) and Ghost World (2001) and recent annihilations of “normal” nuclear families (many of which were set in the 1970s) like Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996), The Ice Storm (1997), American Beauty (2001) and Imaginary Heroes (2005). But for earlier representations of potentially inescapable hells, the dismal, industrial urban underworld seemed an accommodating setting, something that might have been borne out of the pulp fiction of classic film noir, though introduced as settings for characters entangled in moral corruption prior to becoming an arena of pure seediness.

Punk Magazine co-founder, Leggs McNeil, in his book, Please Kill Me! (co-written with Gillian McCain) an oral history of the New York punk and new wave scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s noted that New York City was a setting of utter decay. A city on the verge of declaring bankruptcy was not just the impetus for young Bohemia, but a Bohemia driven by the disturbing realization that the “American Dream” was dead. That, as in the science fiction genre, this was life after an Apocalypse. And this sense of a frustratingly inescapable wasteland is acutely emphasized in director Susan Seidelman’s low-budget 1982 debut, Smithereens.

Here, Susan Berman plays 19-year old Wren, a cocky young thing from the East Village inspired by the main character of Frederico Fellini’s 1957 film, Nights of Cabiria. Always trying to project a false sense of cool to deflect what seems to be endless amounts of bad luck, she hypocritically mocks those around her who are just too hung up on images, criticisms usually found in movies in reference to people in Los Angeles. But Wren is not like quite the “she’s so tough, com’mon and rip her to shreds!” type, but rather, just an idealistic, star-struck kid desperate for something good to finally come along, though her manner tends to make her unsympathetic at times.

Wren’s potential savior comes in the form of Paul (Brad Rijn), a young Montana native who sort of stumbled into New York City in a van while on a kind of aimless wandering about and, short on cash and friends, temporarily lives out of his van, parked in a lot surrounded by semi-demolished buildings. Paul is immediately taken with Wren, who he first sees making Smithereens flyers at the copy shop, yet for a good part of the movie, he impatiently struggles with trying to get her attention, seeking much more than the disingenuous pretention that Wren inevitably seems to flock too. But her inability to connect with someone so willing to reach out seems understandable as friends and family fail to provide much support (material or otherwise) or guidance. And Paul has few prospects of his own, but with a girl like Wren who has little more than a broken television and some clothes to her name, it goes unnoticed. (Most of the characters have little responsibility to anyone or anything).

At the other end of this tug-of-war is Eric (ex-Television frontman, Richard Hell), a primarily egotistical musician with at least the impression of a more promising future than the Northwestern portrait artist living out of his van. He’s at least got the stomach for the cut-throat life. Eventually both of these guys are expecting to leave the trashy trenches of the East Village–Paul with intentions of heading further Northeast and Eric with intentions of going to L.A. and both offer Wren the opportunity for escape, an invitation to their version of a desirable idyllic. Her only other option is to reluctantly return to her parent’s place in Jersey (something which serves as a frequent joke in Seidelman’s movies).

It is–as seems to be the general description–unromantic and thus, incredibly effective; a style that writer/director Penelope Spheeris also tried with her 1984 tribute to disillusioned youth, Suburbia.

This was director Seidelman’s feature film debut, and was originally conceived in 1979 when she asked for assistance from Columbia University’s screenwriting program to further develop her notes for a script. So, Ron Nyswaner and Peter Askin joined the project. Smithereens is a truly low budget film, primarily using non-professional actors for its leading roles (in fact, nearly everyone attached to the project would claim this as debut credits) and financed by a mere $20,000. It became one of the first American independent films selected to compete at Cannes, which would gain some visibility for Seidelman, although her commercial success would arrive in 1985 when Desperately Seeking Susan was released (see the previous post, Femme de Flair: Desperately Seeking Susan).