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A hand-drawnfaux-MPAA card appends a rating of Z for UNSUITABLE to what were about to see.
We didnt pay, we got in on a pass, for nothing, and this oughta be good.
Yeah, it oughta be good for nothing.
Let nobody mistake Joe Dante for having taken this all seriously.
00:21 Why does everyone cutting a rug to Walk Like a Man onAmerican Bandstandlook so serious?
Youre on TV, kids!
At leasttryto look enthused!
Hard to tell if modernitys getting weirder, or if its just as weird as it ever was.
00:48 Time to get propagandistic!
underscore the unsettling veneer of pep and gaudiness America has always used to clean up the military-industrial complexs image.
Its far too early in the game for me to be hallucinating already.
01:23 The animated instructional filmstrip on proper tampon use was as informative as it was unexpected.
Earlier, he spliced together vintage smut with reaction shots of eager children to create mini peeping toms.
Take away the context, and you could make anything into anything else.
Blink a few times.
Hoping that stops of its own accord.
Same as it ever was?
03:15 While the whole film maintains a wry levity, it doesnt seem to oscillate between genres.
Also, I can begin to feel myself sinking into a pleasant state of lowered consciousness.
I could feasibly see myself watching Dantes endless channel-flip forever.
I would be okay with dying like this.
04:13 Theres no need to think of menstruation as a curse.
Four hours in, everything sounds like itd be good on a T-shirt.
04:41 The broken-record echo of an announcer chirping in color!
gradually melts into nonsense syllables.
Hes captivated by conspicuous fakery, by artifice, by good lord, is it nighttime outside?
When did that happen?
05:17 Still plenty of time for a little sacrilege!
The countercultures signature contempt for every pillar of the Establishment runs strong through Dantes work.
My memories of the world beyond this film have grown faint.
For a viewer in 2018, whats disarming is the familiarity of this sensation.
The most prescient foresight of the film isnt in the text it synthesized, but the reaction it yields.
Joe Dantes only problem was that he did his job too well for our own good.
