Escape to the Movies: Heavy Metal
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Soon as i seen Heavy Metal i thought of that South Park epsode where they that th emick outta it. Nice review, i dont think i would see the film like, too many animated boobies for my liking!
I guess I never really thought about how hard it was to see boobs when I was a kid. Bob freaking nailed it!
Somehow, I hope our generation makes it hard for our grandkids to find boobs (because you appreciate something more when you have to work for it)
Somehow, I hope our generation makes it hard for our grandkids to find boobs (because you appreciate something more when you have to work for it)
Oh, my.
The days when I'd find the Playboy channel on the cable dial and peered at the static-filled screen just trying to catch a glimpse of the goods... and considering it was still scrambled, accepting the fact that they were green, meaning whichever bunny was bouncing around was related in some way to She-Hulk...
Thanks, MovieBob, for taking me back in time like that.
The days when I'd find the Playboy channel on the cable dial and peered at the static-filled screen just trying to catch a glimpse of the goods... and considering it was still scrambled, accepting the fact that they were green, meaning whichever bunny was bouncing around was related in some way to She-Hulk...
Thanks, MovieBob, for taking me back in time like that.
Wait... Moviebob is trying to say that it was hard to for kids to see boobs in the 1980s?
Okay, thinking back to the 1980s it occured to me that this was the golden age of the PG-13 "boobie flash" movie. We had films like "Zapped" which used telekinesis as a gimmick to have a dude rip girl's shirts open (more or less). Then we had the whole "Porky's" thing and tons of other movies. Oh yes, and then there was "Revenge Of The Nerds".
Indeed the "nudity" and ultra-violence lead to the entire European "Video Nasties" list and an attempt to basically engage in massive censorship. This leaked into the US somewhat but eventually died out. It reminds me vaguely of the entire scare over sex and violence in video games (and like the video nasties is mostly pointed at horror it seems).
While it's true that not everyone had a VCR and TV in their room, most families DID have one and this was also the golden age of both video piracy, and mom and pops video rental businesses which were literally opening up everywhere as one of the big business booms due to the popularity of the format.
As the "Video Nasties" pointed out most people running these places didn't much care what kids rented. One of the reasons why they make such a big deal about carding kids trying to get "R" rated movies and such nowadays.
The point being that kids could just walk in rent whatever they wanted, mom and dad probably didn't pay that much attention if the kids wanted to go rent a couple of movies and watch them while they were at work or whatever.
-
At any rate as far as Heavy Metal goes, I can see the criticisms despite being a big fan myself. I think one of the problems with it is that it hasn't aged well. While it IS true that there was animation and such that was much better, there was also a lot of it that was worse. For example Ralph Bakshi might be remembered for "Fire and Ice" and working with Frank Frazetta to make it, but he also produced things like "Street Fight", and "Wizards".
While there were similar things I believe Heavy Metal largely succeeded because it was dealing with concepts (science fiction, etc..) that were still uncommon, even if not totally original. I think this is also the appeal of "Wizards" which is another cult classic.
Basically I think there is more to it's status than "it showed tits" but it simply hasn't aged gracefully. Nowadays you can find anime that outdoes it in pretty much every way, BUT that wasn't the case at the time, and also if you look at what the anime of the time period looked like in many cases, it actually held up fairly well in comparison.
Okay, thinking back to the 1980s it occured to me that this was the golden age of the PG-13 "boobie flash" movie. We had films like "Zapped" which used telekinesis as a gimmick to have a dude rip girl's shirts open (more or less). Then we had the whole "Porky's" thing and tons of other movies. Oh yes, and then there was "Revenge Of The Nerds".
Indeed the "nudity" and ultra-violence lead to the entire European "Video Nasties" list and an attempt to basically engage in massive censorship. This leaked into the US somewhat but eventually died out. It reminds me vaguely of the entire scare over sex and violence in video games (and like the video nasties is mostly pointed at horror it seems).
While it's true that not everyone had a VCR and TV in their room, most families DID have one and this was also the golden age of both video piracy, and mom and pops video rental businesses which were literally opening up everywhere as one of the big business booms due to the popularity of the format.
As the "Video Nasties" pointed out most people running these places didn't much care what kids rented. One of the reasons why they make such a big deal about carding kids trying to get "R" rated movies and such nowadays.
The point being that kids could just walk in rent whatever they wanted, mom and dad probably didn't pay that much attention if the kids wanted to go rent a couple of movies and watch them while they were at work or whatever.
-
At any rate as far as Heavy Metal goes, I can see the criticisms despite being a big fan myself. I think one of the problems with it is that it hasn't aged well. While it IS true that there was animation and such that was much better, there was also a lot of it that was worse. For example Ralph Bakshi might be remembered for "Fire and Ice" and working with Frank Frazetta to make it, but he also produced things like "Street Fight", and "Wizards".
While there were similar things I believe Heavy Metal largely succeeded because it was dealing with concepts (science fiction, etc..) that were still uncommon, even if not totally original. I think this is also the appeal of "Wizards" which is another cult classic.
Basically I think there is more to it's status than "it showed tits" but it simply hasn't aged gracefully. Nowadays you can find anime that outdoes it in pretty much every way, BUT that wasn't the case at the time, and also if you look at what the anime of the time period looked like in many cases, it actually held up fairly well in comparison.
This movie had everything a growing boy needs. Sex, female nudity, violence, gore, and rock n' roll! God bless that movie!
Jesus Christ Bob, don't throw a picture of the Gmork at me without giving me a heads up first.
That son of a ***** seriously fucked me up as a young lad.
That son of a ***** seriously fucked me up as a young lad.
The REAL reason we switched to dvds is not higher quality, but the ease of setting up a second vcr and just recording your newly rented movie right then and there. Hell, some vcr's had two slots for entirely this reason. Same thing with tape players. You might have to clean your vcr every once and a while, but compared to losing everything when you scratch a dvd, that's a small price to pay.
I was the same, my only interest in the film was because of my fledgling love of metal and I regarded it as 'a film that featured a Black Sabbath song in it'.Frankydee said:
I didn't even know of or consider the boobs angle, indeed when I finally saw the film roughly 15 years ago the boobs didn't even register, partly it was a cartoon (and therefore the boobs were only drawings of boobs, of which I could make plenty of my own in the back of school books), but mainly because growing up in England, if I wanted to look at boobs I could walk into any newsagent & buy a tabloid newspaper like the Sun or the Sport with pocket change.
When I was growing up I sought out that film because of the Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult songs it contained, not because of the boobs, but regardless of my motivations, when I saw the film I wasn't very impressed... I didn't understand what was going on and it didn't leave a lasting impressions.
Actually after seeing it 15 years ago, the next time I though about it was when I saw the Major Boobage episode of South Park, which made me realise that Heavy Metal was probably more about tits than it was about music, which is why I found it unremarkable as a teenager.
Therumancer, you are wrong on almost everything you said. When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to use the vcr. We had one tv, and you watched whatever the parents wanted to watch. And saying that sci fi was uncommon in the 80's? Ever hear of a movie call star wars? It came out in 1977.
That's right suckers. I was born in 1991. By the time I had any interest in that sort of thing boobs where readily available at the click of a button. God I love this day and age.
