Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site wivax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!wivax!dyer
From: dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Repo Man
Message-ID: <19733@wivax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 15-Jul-84 01:28:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: wivax.19733
Posted: Sun Jul 15 01:28:50 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Jul-84 10:19:28 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Wang Institute, Tyngsboro, Ma.  01879
Lines: 27

"Repo Man" is a rather self-consciously offbeat movie which satirizes the L.A.
heat-and-dust scene: the nihilist punk kids, the cult of the automobile,
and the pervasive pop/consumer culture.  "Repo Men" repossess cars,
and Emilio Estevez (Martin Sheen's son) stars as an ex-punk teenager
drawn into their strange society.  Oh, too, there's this bit about 
a Chevy Malibu which fries anyone who opens its trunk filled with dead
aliens,  and some CIA-like organization which is also trying to get its
hands on the Chevy.  The repo men, the Chevy, and the CIA finally meet in
a kind of apotheosis.

This is fertile ground for satire, but I felt that this movie barely
scratched the topsoil.  L.A. is just too EASY to put down, and most of
its comments were barely SNL (or, better, "Fridays") material.  I mean,
how many times do we need to laugh at punk mores, radio and TV evangelists
and generic groceries?

In its attitudes, style, and even in its plot, "Repo Man" is bound to be
compared with last summer's "Liquid Sky."  Yet, I found that movie's
insights brilliant and unexpected, seen through the eyes of its director,
a recent Soviet emigre.  Here, we smirk knowingly, confident that we are
far above the antics on the screen.  "Repo Man" is a facile, preconceived
"cult film", easy enough to watch, but with little to say, and nothing
to teach us.
-- 
/Steve Dyer
decvax!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbncca.ARPA