Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1982)

I stumble upon this film, and the idea that it appeared to be nearly lost and forgotten meant I had to see it.

The film is quite odd, as it seems to lack direction, but that almost appears to be intentional.  The film is about a girl and her two friends who form a band.  They actually just sort of stumble into it, as the leader seems to just spout whatever comes to mind in order to contradict whatever she is facing.  The girls seem to have no plan whatsoever and are completely unable to play their instruments when they perform their first concert.  While they do appear to learn to play there instruments, their songs have only rudementary lyrics, which appear to me made up on the spot, and the songs are not particularly enjoyable.  While Corinne (Diane Lane) refuses to wear the costume provided for her by their manager, she wears a much more provocative costume, while spouting the message "We Don't Put Out", which I would say sends mixed messages.  Even more so, as every converstation she has with the leader of the band is antagoistic, she spontaiously sleeps with him.

Strangely,  The Fabulous Stains (in the film) become a huge phenomenon and a sort of feminist movement.   While there appears to be no foundation for this, it is often how bands are catapulted to popularity.

The one revealing point of the film is that bands that are often worshiped may really lack direction and their random spontaneous actions are often perceived as brilliance.

It seems each subsequent film Diane Lane make, I find her to be less interesting.

Americathon (1979)

There was really only one motivation for me to see this movie.  In my childhood, my friend described the plot of this film and the ending, but never told me the name of the film.  I stumbled upon it recently and knew immediately it was the film he described, from the name alone.

It is always interesting to see a film set in the future and see what predictions have (but in most cases have not) come true.  This film depicts a complete decline of the middle class, as well as wide spread popularity of reality shows accurately, but of course misses the ball on a number of other points.

I am always glad to see John Ritter, though it seems like he only made 3 film, 2 of which I have seen including this one.  The other film I have seen is "Hero at Large"  I am planning on watching the third film "They All Laughed" at some point.

It also has notable soundtrack from fairly well know artists, playing songs I had never heard of before, like Eddie Money's "Get A Move On"