Mod Fuck Explosion
((16mm))
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Certainly, helmer Jon Moritsugu, who also shows up as the squirrely leader of a pack of "Nipponese" bikers, doesn't care about normal aesthetics. (The pic didn't make its intended preem in S.F. because of sound problems.) He frequently positions the camera so far away from his characters and loops them so loosely that it's hard to tell who's talking.
His leading lady, Amy Davis, is on record as having "no interest in acting," and it shows. She plays a bleached-blond teen called London who considers giving up her virginity for a black leather jacket, or maybe just making out with M-16 (Desi Del Valle), a dropout of indeterminate gender who tends to throw up in the clutch. With its moony voiceovers and mock-poetic tone, London's part of the saga reads like an episode of "My So-Called Life" on bad acid. The rest aspires to sub-Roger Corman glories, with the least scary gang leader of all time (Jacques Boyreau) and his pill-popping mods pitted against said Asian-American cyclists, whom he taunts with such vicious ethnic slurs as "rice jockeys" and "Hunan chickens." Naturally, it all ends in tears -- and ketchup -- and no one is quite able to express his/her cool adolescent feelings.
Fueled by an appropriately thrashy soundtrack, pic's a guaranteed hoot for like-minded youths at midnight screenings, although it won't be exploding into suburban venues anytime soon. And given its asterisky title, the complete absence of nudity or sex may shock vid-renters in an unexpected way.
Camera (color, 16mm), production design, art direction, Jennifer Gentile, Todd Verow; music, Unrest, Karyo, Tengoku, the SF Seals and others; sound, Alberto Garcia; costume design, Jason Rail; associate producer, Timothy Innes. Reviewed at Vancouver film fest (non-competing), Oct. 8 , 1994. Running time: 75 MINS.
With: Amy Davis, Desi Del Valle, Bonnie Steiger, Jacques Boyreau, Jon Moritsugu, Victor of Aquitaine, Alyssa Wendt, Bonnie Dickenson, Lain McLain, Issa Bowser, Elizabeth Canning, Lisa Guay, Christine Wada.
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