{"id":809,"date":"2013-02-19T20:48:34","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T01:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=809"},"modified":"2013-03-01T21:24:06","modified_gmt":"2013-03-02T02:24:06","slug":"wanna-hang-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wanna-hang-out\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Wanna Hang Out?\u2019, or, Airheads is Better Than Dog Day Afternoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"airheads2\"
\n

\nThere’s an odd video on YouTube where Quentin Tarantino lists his 20 favorite movies<\/a> that have come out since he became a director in 1992.\u00a0 The video was made in 2009\u2014making it a 17th year anniversary celebration of him being a director.\u00a0 The arbitrariness of this echoes The Simpsons\u2019 138th episode spectacular<\/a> (although that was a joke).<\/p>\n

His list is surprising\u2014in good ways and bad.\u00a0 I love that he lists The Matrix<\/a> and also makes a point to disregard the sequels \u201cthat serve only to tarnish the mythology of a badass movie\u201d.\u00a0 And with Jan de Bont’s Speed<\/a>, he adds a clever caveat that we “forget everything that happens after the bus stops.” \u00a0But then, for some reason, he names Woody Allen’s Anything Else<\/a>\u2014one of his least significant movies.\u00a0 (It’s also kind of a bummer since Allen’s best<\/em> movie, Deconstructing Harry<\/a>, came out in \u201997\u2014well within Tarantino’s arbitrary 17-year timespan.)
\n
\nBut the pick I’m most interested in of his is Dazed and Confused<\/a>.\u00a0 Not because I like that movie (I don’t) but because he describes it as ”possibly the best \u2018hang-out\u2019 movie since Rio Bravo”\u2014Rio Bravo being one of Tarantino’s three favorite movies (the other two being Blow Out<\/a> and Taxi Driver<\/a>.)\u00a0 And he goes on in great detail about the movie\u2019s \u2018hang-out\u2019-ness.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been aware of the concept of a hang-out movie for a long time, but have never heard anyone call it out by name<\/i> until Tarantino.\u00a0 It’s a weird label that’s hard to pin down, because it transcends genre, and story structure, and is basically dictated solely by feel and circumstance.<\/p>\n

I love hang-out movies because I love the idea of hanging out with a piece of art.\u00a0 Every time The Big Lebowski<\/a> ends, I want to keep hanging out with those characters, and it affects me so deeply that I get choked up as the shot of the bowling lanes comes up and the Townes Van Zandt version of \u2018Dead Flowers\u2019 starts playing. \u00a0But I don\u2019t feel that way because it’s a hang-out movie, per se\u2014I feel it because the characters are so well crafted and the narrative is so freewheeling. \u00a0Everything just feels real.<\/p>\n

Making a movie feel real is probably the hardest thing to do because you have to make impossible things seem possible.\u00a0 The success of Ghostbusters<\/a> lies is its believability. \u00a0The crazier the story gets, the more real it seems, because the well-acted, earnest dialogue grounds it.\u00a0 I believe everything Egon says because he says it with a fluid, nonchalant confidence that Venkman (our weirdness barometer) resents. \u00a0Ghostbusters is a perfect synthesis of writing, performance, and visual craftsmanship. \u00a0It is seriously one of the most underappreciated artistic achievements of all time, and I’m not being hyperbolic here\u2014I’m dead fucking serious.<\/p>\n

So basically, Ghostbusters and The Big Lebowski give you a warm hang-out feeling because the characters feel real, and you feel like you’re really<\/i> hanging out with them\u2014but neither are technically hang-out movies.\u00a0 (Basically, because the characters never literally just sit and hang out.)<\/p>\n

It’s all about containment.\u00a0 In Living in Oblivion<\/a>, the characters are all confined to a space (a movie set) and they all have a shared goal (to make a movie). \u00a0That containment\/goal combo creates a hustle and bustle that makes you feel like an active member of an event. \u00a0You are there.<\/i>\u00a0 You feel the frustration when takes keep getting ruined, and almost feel partially responsible for all the calamity.<\/p>\n

Living in Oblivion was a huge inspiration for me in becoming a filmmaker.\u00a0 My mom has a huge crush on Steve Buscemi, and when I was about twelve, she was on a mission to track down all of his movies (this was the late 90\u2018s\u2014pre-Netflix).\u00a0 As you might imagine, this unearthed several very obscure indie movies (many of which only featuring Buscemi for about 2 minutes) such as Ed and His Dead Mother<\/a>, 20 Bucks<\/a>, The Search For One Eye Jimmy<\/a> (which at the time, was quite rare, and I found, weirdly enough, at Blockbuster, on VHS\u2014can you imagine a world where that was possible!?) Trees Lounge<\/a> (directed by Buscemi) and, of course, Living in Oblivion.\u00a0 The mania captured in Oblivion seemed more fun to me than frustrating.\u00a0 Hanging out on set with a cast and crew seemed so wonderful.\u00a0 I had been wanting to make movies for years already, but that was the first time I had really seen the inner workings of life on-set.\u00a0 And the movie does such a good job of making you feel like you’re part of the crew that it’s intoxicating.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very good hang-out movie.<\/p>\n

But, my favorite hang-out movie of all time, and perhaps the purest of all hang out movies, is Michael Lehmann’s Airheads<\/a>. \u00a0And it has the best cast ever assembled on screen.\u00a0 (Please check the IMDb<\/a> if you don’t believe me.)<\/p>\n

Airheads is basically a metalhead Dog Day Afternoon<\/a> (which, in its own day, was an early touchstone in hang-out movie history.) \u00a0In it, a down and out rock band known as The Lone Rangers hold a radio station hostage so that they’ll play their demo tape over the air.\u00a0 The result is a group of misfit characters being contained in a space (a radio station) and having unexpected fun.\u00a0 The hostage situation is so fun, in fact, that one of the hostages, played by David Arquette, wants to be let back in to keep hanging out after he escapes.\u00a0 When Chaz doesn’t let him back in, my heart always sinks. \u00a0I feel so bad for the guy.<\/p>\n

However, the real hanging out comes as a result of the audience that develops outside the station.\u00a0 See, as the stakes get raised in the movie, something starts percolating in the air. \u00a0We see this through a series of short, atmospheric scenes around town where you see a few burnouts listening to a news report about the holdup on a boom box.\u00a0 There’s something in the air that day\u2014fun.\u00a0 We begin to live vicariously through the party crowd that accumulates around the radio station.\u00a0 And, as the plot thickens, the crowd begins to directly effect the plot.<\/p>\n

By the way, if I’m talking about Airheads, I have to mention its quotability.\u00a0 Airheads is quite possibly the most quotable movie of all time.\u00a0 My friend George (you don\u2019t know him) once said that the climax of the movie is when Michael Mckean’s character says “Alright, I know you guys think I’m a real dick\u2026 cheese… burger\u2026 or whatever.”\u00a0 In fairness, George was actually insulting the movie by saying it’s only worth watching for the quotable lines.\u00a0 While I don’t share his cynicism, I do share his enthusiasm for lines like “You look like half a butt puppet!” and “He wipes his ass with his record contract, I love this guy!”<\/p>\n

The plot of Airheads glides along with a delightful subversiveness, as the Gen X-ers gather around the station to help \u2018stick it to the man\u2019.\u00a0 But the movie takes an interesting stance in that it points out the pitfalls of all sides involved.\u00a0 We root for the Lone Rangers because they’re just good guys trying to catch a break.\u00a0 However, a news beat accurately comments on the absurdity of the situation, and writes off their plight as an entitled, suburbanite plea for attention.\u00a0 To continue with the generational commentary, Joe Mantegna’s character is candid with Fraser when he says “Rock and Roll has been all downhill since Lennon died”.\u00a0 However, Fraser confidently rebuts with “All my life people have been shoving this classic rock down my throat\u2014are you gonna tell me that Purple Haze says<\/i> something?”\u00a0 Fraser’s response is pointed and accurate and is a clever \u2018fuck you\u2019 to the curmudgeon-y spirit of proud baby boomers who think their artistic export is the be-all and end-all.\u00a0 I like to think that this moment of bonding is what telegraphs a scene later on where Mantegna gets ahold of a real gun, but then shrugs and passes it to Fraser so he can continue on his mission (a moment that is perhaps one of the most underappreciated in the movie, and also, movie history).<\/p>\n

Basically, what Mantegna is doing in that scene is letting the hang-out continue.\u00a0 His passing of the gun is an admittance that hanging out is fun<\/i>, and that fun trumps all<\/i>.\u00a0 We are the crowd of metalheads that form in the parking lot.\u00a0 We are them because we also<\/i> want to stick it to the man and party with the Lone Rangers.\u00a0 In that sense, Airheads is an vicarious experience that happens alongside a clever narrative.\u00a0 It’s basically Dog Day Afternoon (but fun!)<\/p>\n

Which leads me to the best and most fun movie ever made\u2014The \u2018Burbs<\/a>.\u00a0 (Well, one of the best.\u00a0 The only reason it isn’t the absolute <\/i>best is because there are about four other movies that are approximately 3%-13% better.)\u00a0 But basically, The \u2018Burbs is perfect, and one of the most advanced pieces of movie art that has ever existed.<\/p>\n

The \u2018Burbs is contained on an idyllic suburban block in the middle of\u00a0 America.\u00a0 If we follow the wonderful zoom in from outer space that opens the movie, it looks like we’re somewhere in Wisconsin.\u00a0 The \u2018metalhead crowd\u2019 in The \u2018Burbs is played by Corey Feldman, who effortlessly shepherds us through his universe of bumbling neighbors.\u00a0 At one point, he even acts as a Greek chorus by giving us a blow-by-blow commentary on what’s happening\u2014a scene that is more character-coloring than expository, as it’s more important for us to know that Feldman watches his neighbors for pleasure rather than to garner specific information from what he’s describing.<\/p>\n

For the last line of the movie, Feldman looks into the camera, says “God, I love this street”, and then takes a bite of pizza and excitedly runs back to the goings on a few yards away.\u00a0 And it seriously makes me cry.\u00a0 I’m even misty writing this now.\u00a0 That moment is such a pure summation of everything that is great about movies.\u00a0 The experience we the audience just had was so fun, and Feldman\u2019s youthful exuberance perfectly captures that fun, and also, directly acknowledges it.\u00a0 It\u2019s absolutely beautiful.<\/p>\n

Like Airheads, the plot of The \u2018Burbs becomes a spectator sport for characters in the movie.\u00a0 And again, said audience slowly builds as the plot thickens and the stakes grow higher.\u00a0 This device of creating a built-in audience for your plot is pure genius because it creates a ‘fun loop’ that feeds off itself.\u00a0 If the movie is good, it will become more fun as it goes along because the plot gets more layered and detailed, and in turn, the audience in the movie slowly begins to build at a rate congruent to the intensity of the fun. \u00a0By the time The \u2018Burbs ends, the block is crowded with people.\u00a0 And anyone who has grown up in suburbia can attest to how much fucking fun that sight would be on a hot summer’s night.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, there is no actual genre called \u2018hang-out movie\u2019 because it’s not a plot in an of itself, but really something that’s happening along with (or as a result of) the plot.\u00a0 In the case of Airheads and The \u2018Burbs, the feeling is intentional, but as I said, I get the same feeling from The Big Lebowski and Ghostbusters.\u00a0 While those are not hang-out movies, they benefit from the feeling that we are hanging out with the characters.\u00a0 It’s a difficult tonality to identify though, because that’s all it really is\u2014a feeling.<\/p>\n

Often times the best movies ever made transcend genre.\u00a0 This is because,\u00a0 although useful, the rules of genre are often restricting rather than liberating.\u00a0 Signs, The \u2018Burbs, Airheads, Ghostbusters\u2014these movies are all a mix of comedy, sci-fi, drama, comedy, western, monster movie, and more.\u00a0 But, above all that, floating in the ether somewhere, is the sense that hanging out with the characters would be a fun thing to do.\u00a0 I get the feeling that Kevin Smith wanted to capture that when he wrote Clerks<\/a> (which makes sense since it was based on Slacker<\/a> and Do the Right Thing<\/a>, two hang-out movies.)<\/p>\n

But the pitfall of Do The Right Thing and much of Linklater’s work is that the emphasis is too heavy on the hanging-out.\u00a0 Hanging out is only fun if it’s achieved on top of, and because of, the narrative.\u00a0 The \u2018hang-out\u2019 feeling of Clerks spoke to Gen X-ers so profoundly that it informed much of the culture to follow, and spawned a Smith-helmed media empire based solely on the notion of hanging out (spoken word engagements, live podcasts, etcetera.) But the real triumph of Clerks, and what truly makes it successful, is the narrative that the hanging-out hangs on.\u00a0 Without a narrative it is impossible to care about the characters, because their \u2018likability\u2019 is hinged on how they overcome obstacles. \u00a0So while Slacker and Dazed and Confused and Do the Right Thing are interesting, they lack depth, and as such, can only ever be looked at as atmospheric, experimental pieces. \u00a0Clerks sneaks a very logical and taught narrative underneath long-winded conversations about Star Wars, and, as a result, has become more popular than the movies that influenced it, and one of the most popular American movies of the last few decades.<\/p>\n

The feeling of \u2018hanging out\u2019 is a feeling so hard to pull off that few even try. \u00a0(Recent disastrous failures include Pirate Radio<\/a> and Be Kind Rewind<\/a>\u2014two of the worst movies ever made.) \u00a0Other notable hang-out movies include Apollo 13<\/a> and Can’t Hardly Wait<\/a>. \u00a0What movies do you like to hang out with? \u00a0Leave ’em in the comments.<\/p>\n