Scenes from the Goldmine (Marc Rocco, 1987)

Do we really need another movie to tell us that the music industry is full of assholes? Since I'm the only one here at the moment, I'll go ahead and answer that question myself. No, we do not. We do, however, need more movies that star the amazing Catherine Mary Stewart, an actress who you might know from Night of the Comet, Nightflyers, Dudes, etc... Oh, and The Apple! (God, how could I forget The Apple?) And Scenes from the Goldmine provides us with more C.M.S. than all those other movies combined. (Even more than The Apple?) Oh, you better believe it. This film is the ultimate C.M.S. experience. Sure, it's premise is basically this: The music industry sucks. But nothing is gonna stop me from enjoying the sight of Catherine Mary Stewart playing keyboards in winklepicklers alongside... (Wait a second. Did you just say, winklepickers?) Yeah, so? (How are you so calm right now?) Trust me, I'm not calm. In fact, my mind is racing like a cocaine-fueled tornado. When the camera zooms in on Catherine's multi-buckle winklepickers while her band was jamming at a local bar at their rehearsal space, I had to stop watching for a minute, as my psyche suddenly found itself inundated with pure, pointy-footed pleasure.

As far as I'm concerned, there's no other type of footwear on the planet that brings me more joy than winklepickers. Okay, creepers make me smile as well. But when it comes right down to it, I'm a winklepicker man through and through. Always have been, always will be.

Of course, I own pair of winklepickers myself. Unfortunately, due to financial constraints, I could only afford a pair of winklepickers that sport two buckles. Don't feel too sorry for me, my two buckle winklepickers and I have had some pretty good times together. It's just that I feel that I could have had an even better time if my winklepickers had more buckles.

Anyway, what caused me to react so intensely to the sight of Catherine Mary Stewart's winklepickers was the fact that they had [are you sitting down?] six(!) buckles (that's a total of twelve all-together). When I would dream about owning a pair of winklepickers that had more than two buckles, I would usually stop at four buckles. So, as you might expect, the sight of C.M.S. wearing a pair with six... (Yeah, yeah, you like pointy, goth-friendly footwear.) You don't understand, they're very important to me.

Besides, I'm sure everyone would rather listen to me bather on and on about winklepickers, than listen to me describe the plot of this toothless jab at the music industry. Yes, people who work for record labels are terrible human beings. We get it.

While it's true, the film, written and directed by Marc Rocco, does cover a lot of familiar territory, it does have a few nice twists here and there. The biggest one being that Niles Dresden (Cameron Dye) of Niles Dresden and The Pieces is just as big of a phoney as the music execs.

To an outsider, the red flags should have started waving immediately. But I guess Debi DiAngelo (Catherine Mary Stewart) was too awestruck by Niles' mega-mullet to think clearly. I mean, the way Niles and the boys, Dennis Lameraux (Timothy B. Schmidt) on bass, and Kenny Bond (John Ford Coley) on drums, fired Stephanie (Pamela Springsteen), their previous keyboard player, should have sent alarm bells ringing in Debi's head. But like I said, his mega-mullet is pretty persuasive.

I know, how can an overgrown clump of hair cause someone to lose touch with reality? It's simple, really, the clump in question is flowing from the back of the head attached to Cameron Dye (Valley Girl), a man whose sharp bone structure could moisten even the most obdurate of panties.

Of course, I don't mean to imply that Debi's new wave panties are soaking wet after successfully auditioning to be the band's new keyboard player. I'm just saying her judgment must have been hampered somewhat. As the quote that opens the film says, "A good girl falls for a wild one every time."

Now that Debi is a fully-fledged member of the Pieces, Harry (Steve Railsback, Lifeforce), the band's manager and Niles' brother, get them a gig at a local club, where Manny Ricci (Joe Pantoliano), an artists and repertoire man for Rush Records, will apparently be in attendance.

Even though the song they play, "Listen To My Heartbeat," is a non-threatening slab of banal mid-80s pop rock if I ever heard one, the band still manages to impress Manny, who tells them to basically keep at it.

After having dinner with her drug addict brother and her disapproving parents (her father, played by Alex Rocco, doesn't like the fact that his daughter is performing at clubs with names like, "The Lingerie"), Debi hangs out at the beach with Dana (Jewel Shepard), her best friend/roommate. It wasn't until near the end of the movie that I realized that Debi's pal was played by Jewel Shepard. I blame the director for this, as he seemed to like to shoot everyone, except for the two leads, from afar; the same goes for Lee Ving, who plays an eccentric music video director.

Taking Manny's advice to keep at it, Niles and the Pieces perform "I Was Just Asking" at their rehearsal space. On top of being my favourite song in the movie, this is the sequence where we first see Catherine Mary Stewart in her six buckle winkpicklers.

In a weird twist, Catherine's winklepickers get more close-ups than both Jewel Shepard and Lee Ving combined.

Speaking of weird twists, the decision to feature three bands performing covers of "Twist and Shout" during Niles and Debi's club crawl courtship sequence was the film's most interesting from a stylistic point of view. Of course, the version I liked the most was the robo-synth one by James House's Roberto Roberto.

Now, I don't want to say too much about what happens after Niles and Debi eventually become a couple. Though, I will say this, Debi should have never shown Niles her giant binder of songs. Seriously, that was a bad decision (you'll see why). But I like said earlier, it's hard to say no to a fully-mulleted Cameron Dye... he's a wild one.

Even though you'd be probably better off watching Ladies and Gentlemen... The Fabulous Stains, Breaking Glass, or even Eddie and the Cruisers, if you're a fan of Catherine Mary Stewart (who does all her own singing), music movies, winklepickers and zebra print, you should probably check this film out. If you can find it (there's hardly any information about this film on the interweb).

Valley Girl (Martha Coolidge, 1983)

There are two distinct chapters in my life: The period of time before Valley Girl (a.k.a. Valley Girl - Das Mädchen und der heiße Typ), an appalling netherworld where magenta is nonexistent and everything for as far as the eye can see is covered in a suffocating layer of beige, and the one that existed after Valley Girl, a gleaming, effervescent place in which your average leg warmer isn't just a wooly thing that covers your legs, but a full-bodied cornucopia of bold colours and unique possibilities teeming with nuance and guile; a place where idiosyncratic social groups can commingle with one another to eat complicated sushi without fearing an unexpected kick to the crotch. Now, I don't think I have to tell you which realm I prefer living in, but just in case... Seriously though, I can't believe there was an actually increment of time where Martha Coolidge's seemingly accidental ode to passion and nothingness was not a part of my stunning existence. It baffles me to think that I once lived without knowing about the power of Randy and Julie's love for one another. A love that crosses so many boundaries, that it boggles the mind. I mean, he's a new wave punk from Hollywood and she's new wave preppy from the Valley. I'm no expert on L.A. geography, or alternative subcultures during the early 1980s, but that's got to be one of the most unorthodox pairings in the history of heterosexual dating.

Confounding shapely linguists and unhinged anthropologists since its righteous inception, Valley Girl represents a time and a place in the annals of human history that will never be duplicated. Which is why I treat each screening of the film as a sacred ritual. Sure, the clothes I wear as I watch the film may be the gothiest of jet blacks. But believe you me, and that creepy naked guy inhaling his own genitalia in the corner, my clothing is extremely pastel on the inside.

Ironically, it's colours and clothing that get the characters into so much trouble in this film. You see, when Randy and Julie first lay eyes on one another, they're at the beach and stripped of their tribal uniforms. However, when they meet again at a totally rad Val party, they're sheathed in their respective colours: Hers are light-coloured (lot's of whites, pinks, and soothing blues), while his are industrial (lot's of red and black, or, in much simpler terms, a Mussolini Headkick album cover come to life).

Anyway, this party scene is the nitty-gritty of Valley Girl, as we spend a good chunk of time there. In fact, every nugget of plot is launched at this swanky shindig: Fred's relationship with Stacey, the mother-daughter competition over a guy named Skip, Tommy's manipulation of Loryn, and, of course, Randy and Julie's first up close flirtation.

The way Randy and Fred standout at this Val party, and the way Julie and Stacey standout when the two aforementioned guys take them to a club in Hollywood, is the film's most compelling aspect. In that, everyone can relate to being dragged somewhere and end up feeling like an alien.

This so-called cultural exchange feels natural because the talents of Nicolas Cage and Deborah Foreman as the film's signature couple. I found their looks of longing and desire to be genuine and the heat they generate during their stare downs to "Eyes of a Stranger" by The Payolas and "A Million Miles Away" by The Plimsouls is stuff of teen movie legend.

The switch over sequence, however, is sent into stratosphere in terms of honest-to-goodness whimsicality thanks to the brilliant acting of Heidi Holicker and Cameron Dye as Fred and Stacey. Heidi in particular, whose constant whining is expertly realized through a series of sincere complainants (the music was a tad on the loud side) mixed with obnoxious bellyaching (let Fred grope you, you prude).

On an aesthetic level, I loved Miss Holicker's thighs. They're prominently on display during the infamous sleepover sequence, and, to be perfectly honest, I wanted to Holicker them like you wouldn't believe.

The extended dating montage set to "I Melt With You" by Modern English is the pinnacle of extended dating montages. It's true, the song has lost some of its lustre over the years (it's been used to sell everything from cheeseburgers to low cost fallout shelters), but the moment the songs blasts on soundtrack never seems to fail in jazzing me for some forbidden romance Summing up the awe-inspiring splendour that is Valley Girl in just over three minutes, this montage pretty much shows the blossoming of Randy and Julie's love for one another in a tight little package.

Speaking of tight little packages, never has anyone looked cuter than Elizabeth Daily does when we see her dancing in nothing but pigtails and zebra print underwear.

The soundtrack is one of the greatest ever devised by humankind. The Flirts, Psychedelic Furs, The Plimsouls (the girl with the extra long bangs who is seen excessively dancing to them at the Hollywood club looks exactly like my most prominent high school crush), Felony, and Sparks, (the mother-daughter subplot involving the gorgeous Lee Purcell and Canadian cutie Michelle Meyrink features the most excellent "Eaten By the Monster of Love"), and Josie Cotton and her 1950s accented pop.

In closing, to say that life has been different since Valley Girl would definitely be an understatement. A rewarding cinematic experience like no other, the film changed the way I appreciate things. In other words, it has taught me how to love, like, totally. Ugh.

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