A thread where Ned can liveblog his maiden viewing of Albert Pyun's "Vicious Lips" (1986)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Jobtbkk6psI

Oh god now I have to, don't I.

Okay let me restart this so I can be vaguely honest.

It's on Netflix Instant if you care to join in, world.

*pours a drink*

Okay some links for reference:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0163375/

http://houseofselfindulgence.blogspot.com/2010/09/vicious-lips-albert-pyun-1987.html

http://www.fsgso.pitt.edu/2012/01/lostforgottenfound-1-vicious-lips/

http://www.mattmovieguy.com/2011/08/vicious-lips-1988.html

Sue Saad sings on a variety of the songs. I've already proclaimed this the unofficial sequel to The Apple by way of Streets of Fire, Pat Benatar and the John Stamos series Dreams from 1983. Anyway, restarting.

Opening credits are all glowing fake neon against black plus anthemic generic 1986 song that is great. There is a special credit for 'Milo the Venusian Manbeast.' The Vicious Lips' music is all composed by Drock.

Opening scene in a bad matte dystopia. Maxine's Radioactive Dreams is the Tyrell Corporation of this world. A bleach blonde corporate dominatrix drives a minion to suicide, while a toady with fangs offers a cryptic solution. Everyone featured is the worst actor ever.

i will be going on memory here since i have to duck out briefly in a bit for a run to trader joe's. but my heart belongs to milo the venusian manbeast tonight.

radioactive dreams is also the name of another pyun movie with sue saad music. i haven't seen it.

Plot appears to involve needing a band to fill a broadcast slot so they can get a chance at 'intergalactic stardom.' A big haired skank beats up a nebbishy manager who appears to be Wallace Shawn's nephew. After a car crash offscreen he finds a Judy Jetson who can't really sing and recruits her for the band. The sets consist of a red curtain and a back alley built in a warehouse.

Ned, you are doing the Lord's work.

All voices are raspy or piercing. A guy with a blonde huge pompadour makes love to a synth guitar in the background as the female lead freaks out. There is a triple breasted whore four years before Verhoven. Green lights through smoke! More big hair! A bassist who plays with an instrument with a blue lantern on the end and dresses like a member of the Yellowjackets from 1986, complete with hat!

Club sets have walls with chunks of dried paint on them. There are many jump cuts. Glowing bars! More smoke! Tubes! Some dude singing like the band from Hobgoblins!

Ned, you are doing the Lord's work.

ned needs this movie, and this movie needs ned.

Phone ringtones are piercing electronoises. Color contrasts are weirdly...good. For what they are. More anthemic songs!

This is definitely a movie I am surprised I DIDN'T see on USA Up All Night.

Frank Miller TOTALLY stole the Robocop gratuitous cockolding eyeball gouge from this one.

I'm feeling myself start to seize up but the songs do help.

"I love you but you act like a moron!"

"This could be the real big break!"

"Yeah...it's possible."

This is like if All About Eve crashed into Showgirls played by Wendy, Lisa, the Bangles and Gilbert Gottfried, and everyone had no money.

I'm feeling myself start to seize up

at least hold out until they get on the intergalactic spaceship.

Bored Siouxsie/Cher hairstyled brunette smokes cigarette, slouches on sure to be doomed spaceship. The term slutslug is used. Spaceships are controlled by car keys.

Tubes, dials. "Dangerous cargo:
Do not enter."

Leather pants and dancing in ill lit corridors while a suave dude sings something kinda Cars/Robert Hazard like! There are pills.

OH NO A SPACE POWER BALLAD REHEARSAL. Song great, lyrics terrible, at least it kicks in a bit on the chorus. Hairstyles and makeup have all mutated. This could actually be a modern Nashville song.

Jenny Holzer is sending the pilot a message!

Wait. That sweater. Why?

The intergalactic spaceship has crashed on the desert of the moonVenus! I think! You try and explain it!

The actresses wake up in their rehearsal room I mean the band wakes up in the spaceship and they talk about wigs. They sound remarkably calm for crash landing in the MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE.

There's something in the sand! Or not. Oh yes! Oh no.

but wait -- one of them has TOOLS in the cargo hold, and the singer volunteers to go get them! what could go wrong?

Whiny nebbishing and sunglasses! Red, green, pink. They are stoned. I think.

Songs, need more SONGS.

Looks like Milo is busting his hairy way out of the back. Meantime, makeup tips!

Oh Ned - you've gotten to the "best" "part" of the "movie."

no, "lunar madness" is.

This is rapidly becoming a bad Samuel Beckett play with synthbass and whiny kvetchers in the desert.

Martian hash? Weed? In blocks?

zero of the signified sez: "i do remember that desert section is kind of interminable."

The big reveal scene is like if Ed Wood's budget and Michael Bay's directorial sense combined to work on Alien.

"It's breathing...there's definitely something in there."

I like imagining that this the Sex and the City cast in college in SPAAAAACE!

A song! "You need a body tonight!" And naked desert blondes?

act 3 is around the corner. you can doo eet.

insofar as this movie has any "acts"

Band politics! Fight...in a wreck in the desert with a Manbeast crawling around. In space. In a desert.

Space laser shower power ballad monster attack catfight wig tossing squabble!

Wait. That sweater. Why?

This is the post of the day btw

And more sweaters! And a band intervention! Actually that's kinda insightful.

Space laser shower power ballad monster attack catfight wig tossing squabble!

that's the elevator pitch meeting to usa up all night, right there.

The spaceship now slides down a dune because why the fuck not. There's a building! Where did that come from?

On Ned's impending description of forthcoming cinematic events, I can but quote Bill Murray to randomly pranked New Yorkers: "No one will ever believe you."

Why did she put the wig back on? Why did the triumphant melancholy fanfare kinda come back in the mix? Why the curtains? Why are we on Passion Planet Inc? Why is Milo here now? Why a new song that's all low key and peppy when the scene is very rapey?

A red haired punker has just caught her in a net! They're going to eat her! Oh it's Maxine! "So...you want to be a star." Milo! Zombie elves! More groovy music? Now it's a back alley. More fanfare! Sad crying!

Val Kilmer! Sorta. In a tux! Oh it's just Milo. That was weird. We're in Bartertown! Red haired dude takes out Milo! Now there's grass?

one out of every three low-budget '80s movies takes place in bartertown.

"My name is Ace...you stole my name, bitch!"

Milo, your technique could be better. Zombie Mandy!

"ROC STAR."

It was all a dream! And now A TALKING AARDVARK IN A TUX JESUS FUCK.

hahahahahaha

A song. I can live with this. It's actually kinda badass in an eighties pop Rush way.

"Lunar Madness!"

rush was my initial comparison too!

Haha good I'm not crazy. Great song!

And end credits. Wow that film made no sense.

djp is wrong, post of the day is "The spaceship now slides down a dune because why the fuck not."

"Special thanks: Casio, Coors."

zero of the signified and i are wondering why milo the venusian manbeast is given such special consideration in the opening credits. were the powers that be trying to position him as a breakout star?

This thread = the most concentrated pool of thought ever given to this film. And that includes the people who actually made it.

ROC STAR