TONY MANERO DVD REVIEW

i was just a wee lad of 11 when i saw SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER in the theater. it was rated R because of the gratuitous amount of nudity and profanity which did not shock me that much at the time. i was mature for my age and had already seen A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and the EXORCIST without too much psychological scarring(i hope) so this movie seemed rather tame. john travolta's character in the movie had a much bigger effect on my impressionable mind however. travolta is tony manero. he rules the disco club with his smooth dancing skills and impeccable style. his day to day life was rather mundane but he became someone different when the bee gees song comes on and he could strut his stuff on the dancefloor. underneath the disco ball he became a sex symbol, a powerful man that had to be watched and admired by both sexes. like many others back then i watched the movie over and over. i studied and copied his dancing moves. i tried to coif my hair like he did and dressed in the signature black and white suite when i went to the local roller rink every saturday night for disco night. but as hard as i tried i never became him and by 1978 disco was out. punk was in.

  the movie TONY MANERO is also about someone who watched SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER way too many times and desperately wanted to be the disco god . raul is a 52 year old man living in chile and living the dream that he is tony manero. he lives by himself and has no job. he enters a tony manero look a like contest on a tv gameshow in order to give his pathetic life a purpose. by now you might think that TONY MANERO is a comedy. it is not. you see raul is also a serial killer. yep, when he is not working on his sweet disco moves, raul likes to beat people to death. TONY MANERO reminded me a lot of TAXI DRIVER another gritty movie about a man's dark obsession turned to violence. chile was not a happy place to be during the '70s. it was a police state and anyone who dared to question the government was thrown in the back of a car and never seen again. this environment makes it easy for raul to get away with his killing. he kills the couple that run the local theater for daring to replace his beloved SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER with GREASE. as the police get very close to nailing him, raul finally get's his shot to be his idol on live tv. does he win? does he get caught? does he kill again? watch it and find out.(not available on netflix streaming but available on dvd)

MISSION STATEMENT/ REVIEW UNMADE BEDS

the purpose of this awesome blog is to cut through and destroy the usual pretentious acadamic nonsense you usually see in movie reviews. i don't need to read quotes from howard zinn or whomever. i don't need to be impressed that you went to film school and know obscure technical terms. i just want to know if the bloody film is worth seeing or am i going to want to scratch my eyes out afterwards like when i saw the latest piece of crap from sophia coppola. kabish?  and movie critics don't get it. people don't see movies in the theaters anymore. everyone has netflix, dvd rental places are dead.  so it is up to me to review films you can see on netflix streaming. why me? i am a movie geek that knows a lot more about movies than you ever will. it is my passion and you better listen to me.                                                    
UNMADE BEDS: so what do you feel when you see young hipsters in their precious tight pants and early bob dylan hair? do you want to punch them in the face? tell them to grow up? if so,this flick is not for you. watch an adam sandler movie instead. me, i loved this film. it is the second effort from a  dude from argentina named Alexis Dos Santos. his first film was an awesome low budget coming of age movie called GLUE. GLUE was all about a teen punk riding his bike around his neighborhood, he talks to girls, he pretends to be in a band .that is the entire movie. nothing happens and that is the point. For his second movie he has a bigger budget,real actors and a plot. god bless him. UNMADE BEDS is all about young pretty vacant hipsters looking for something. one is looking for his dad. another one is looking for the perfect boyfriend. you get the idea. it's all set in three locations in swinging london,a warehouse where they hook up,a bookstore where one works and the club that they all meet at. there are lots of scenes of drunken undressing and yes god damn it-shots of unmade beds, numbered and listed no less. why did i like it so much? it made my pine for my youth when i did not have a care in the world and i often woke up in strange places next to people i could not remember the names of.  the cinematography is brilliant, lots of close ups without being herky jerky. the music by the tindersticks, good shoes and black moustache is indie/electro cool. the kids in the movie wear neat clothes. sure not a lot of happens but you won't be checking your watch. Dos santos is a young director that really has the potential to make great films.