Quincy Punks Cinema Club
A punk expert and a film expert talk about punk cinema classics.
Quincy Punks Cinema Club
Repo Man
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The punk MASTERPIECE Repo Man gets us thinking about the tension between punk ideology and getting that bread! Aliens, homelessness, and flying cars are also discussed, of course.
Intro song by SHARKPACT.
Cheeseburger in Paradise.
SPEAKER_01Do you remember Paul Woods was harboring his mother's Mazda Miata convertible to hide it from Repo Men?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I do. That was so funny.
SPEAKER_01And I remember they called him like really late at night and they were just like, we know where you live and we know you have the car and you have to leave the keys in the ignition. And Paul was just like, All right, you got me. And he left the keys in the ignition, and at like three in the morning, we woke up because we heard like in the driveway the Miata start, and we knew it was Repo men taking it away.
SPEAKER_05My God. They're good.
SPEAKER_01They're good, dude.
SPEAKER_05They go to like a different city.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_05Huh. Wow.
SPEAKER_01It was wild. And I remember I really wanted to go on a date with Paul in the Miata, and I bought this like cute red dress, and I never got to go on the date in it.
SPEAKER_05Damn it. I know. Stunk was the damn repo men.
SPEAKER_01Brian, are you ready to talk about Punk's cinematic masterpiece?
SPEAKER_05I was born ready. Okay, so we're gonna talk about Repo Man on this episode, the third one.
SPEAKER_01So excited.
SPEAKER_05Me too. What is your experience, Shay, with Repo Man?
SPEAKER_01Okay. So my introduction to Repo Man was I remember looking through someone's Criterion Collection DVD book, where they just had like a fat book of everything that was on Criterion Collection. And I saw, you know, the green Mohawk graphic design on the DVD for Repo Man. I'm like, what's this? This looks sick. And I watched it and it was sick.
SPEAKER_05It's nice when it looks sick and it is sick.
SPEAKER_01I know. What a good combo. I always I get literal anxiety, especially when I'm at record stores going through records, and there's this little voice in my head that says, but what if it doesn't look sick and it is sick? That's the biggest fear.
SPEAKER_05I know. I know.
SPEAKER_01See, this is why graphic design is important and why all AI has to die. Because like that's the only thing that can prevent that moment at the record store. I guess AI in general is trying to prevent the record store, period.
SPEAKER_05So it's trying to prevent the whole world.
SPEAKER_01It's trying to prevent the whole world. Yeah, you know, I hadn't watched this film since seeing it initially when I was, I don't know, 19, 20 in film school. Um and re-watching it now, I forgot how beautiful it is.
SPEAKER_05It's a good looking movie.
SPEAKER_01It's a good looker.
SPEAKER_05There's a lot of good walking in this movie.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's a concerted effort to make LA and like the landscapes of LA a character. Yeah. And usually at the violet hour, like right after sunset when everything's sort of that like pastel watercolor painting, especially over kind of like decaying downtown urban scenes. It's it's big, big visual theme.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it definitely makes LA look good.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's interesting to hear you say that because I think that might not have been their intention, but I agree. It looks better than it does now.
SPEAKER_05It just looks so bad now. It looks so bad now. Yeah. It looks like it's it's lively, even if it is decaying. It's like there's a lot going on. There's people everywhere.
SPEAKER_01And tell our audience about the plot of Repo Man in case they haven't seen it, which is a big mistake.
SPEAKER_05We open on a road. A strange man is driving a Chevy Malibu, gets pulled over, cop opens the trunk, standing trying to see what's in it, he turns into dust. Then we meet Otto at a grocery store.
SPEAKER_04Otto? Auto Pods?
SPEAKER_05Um, but yeah, at the grocery store, that's full of generic food items. Candy bar says candy bar. Beans say bean in black and white, basic font. It's pretty, pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01It's very they live.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, they live as very this, you know?
SPEAKER_01That's true.
SPEAKER_05He gets fired after saying fuck you to his boss and pushing like this nerd that he works with. He ends up going to the this punk party where they're moshing outside of someone's house, and then he goes upstairs, tries to fold his pants real nice to get a blowjob, and then his girlfriend hooks up with someone else. So then we, you know, we get the classic punk guy walking the train tracks singing a TV party by Black Flag, a cappella.
SPEAKER_01As punks do.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah. So he he seems like he's walking all night. He gets picked up by Harry Dean Stanton, whose name is Bud.
SPEAKER_01He gets conned by Harry Dean Stanton.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Into becoming a repo man.
SPEAKER_05Who convinces him to take a car, saying, like, you know, help to get his old lady to the hospital.
SPEAKER_01Because she's about to have a baby.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. He's like, wait, where's the old lady?
SPEAKER_01But I'm your old lady.
SPEAKER_00Helling hand acceptance corporation.
SPEAKER_03Shh, I forgot all about her.
unknownWhat kind of car?
SPEAKER_03Well, she'll take the bus. She's a rock.
SPEAKER_01Otto's pissed and doesn't want to be a repo man, but like there's some line like, you already are, and he learns about the code of the repo man from Harry Dean Stanton.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03See, an ordinary person spends his life avoiding tense situations. Repo man spends his life getting into tense situations. And then we follow up. So come in, Mike. Let's go get a drink.
SPEAKER_05They hold themselves to a standard and also are completely chaotic and do like snort speed while working.
SPEAKER_01That's part of the code. The speed.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. You're right. You have to you can't sleep. Yeah, this whole so this LA that we're seeing is like very, very like paranoid Reagan vibes, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's a it's about the American dream of consumerism failing. It's based around repossession. Like you can't afford to do what Reagan wants you to do. The repo man's coming. And the only way to get ahead is to become him, to become the repo man.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Another topic I would love to explore, given that Otto was a punk who became a repo man to get ahead in society, is uh what we've observed in our own community in terms of people in quote selling out or making choices that are counter to or adjacent to their punk ideology formed when they're younger and the ways in which they change as adults.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's uh that's really interesting. There's this idea, at least when I was younger, and maybe still, that like punk is kind of what you do and how you spend your time. And like I think a lot of older punks have really leaned into finding some, you know, some form of labor that allows them to feel like they're doing something within their value set. But also that's kind of a privilege, and there's like a lot of like there's not a lot of jobs like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And, you know, with a couple exceptions, the jobs that serve society tend to be the ones that pay less. And it's almost like to continue living in a way that objects to the current system or counters the current system, requires you to be victim to it financially.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it comes at a cost.
SPEAKER_01And maybe that's intentional by design.
SPEAKER_05So does the like the other direction comes at a cost too? Where like I was talking to my one of my oldest friends, uh Nikki, the other day, just about, you know, he he's become like an advertising copy writer. Um and like a lot of the ways he got into it was like using kind of like crime thinky like aesthetics to like learn graphic design. Um and you know, pays the bills and he's able to do other things with his life, which is cool. But I think it like it is there's a sacrifice that we were talking about where you have to kind of you know you're working for the man and you're like creating ads for a peanut butter company.
SPEAKER_01In my own life, some of the choices that I've made to make money have made me shy away from identifying as punk. I mean, sort of the whole, the whole premise of this podcast is that you're a punk expert who's interested in cinema and that I'm a cinema expert who's interested in punk. But in reality, you know a lot about cinema and I know a lot about punk, but I still hesitate to identify that way, kind of out of a sense that I don't feel like I'm doing enough as an adult. Like I really admire you and dedicating a lot of your adult time, despite being a parent to mutual aid projects in Minneapolis, like Sisters of Camelot. Whereas I am doing it in subtle ways, but not in overt ways any longer. So I feel sort of shy or self-critical about identifying that way.
SPEAKER_05I hope this doesn't come up as kissing your ass, but I I do think that teaching is one of the punkest jobs you could have.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think that is also really dependent on how you approach that job because there's definitely ways to do that, not in a punk way, but um things I've done in my own teaching. When I taught English, 12th grade English in Oakland, I had a unit on primary source research and um mass incarceration, where I had my students maintain pen pal relationships with people who are incarcerated. The benefits I saw from that is, you know, at the beginning, a lot of our students, when I introduced the unit, were kind of like giggly or nervous or laughing about um the different crimes that people they could look up, um, like on write a prisoner.com had committed. Um, and there was a learning opportunity for me to shut that down and kind of remind them that everyone who's incarcerated, regardless of what crime they committed, is ultimately a human being with a complexity and a life and a family. And by the end of the unit, I had some students who were quiet up until that point reveal that they had incarcerated family members and they got to talk about it and feel empowered about that. And that was a pretty cool transition to witness and observe within our class.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's huge.
SPEAKER_01Um and you know, now um I'm just wrapping up six years of being the director of a media arts program in Santa Barbara, one that for a long time disproportionately white and affluent in a high school that is majority Hispanic and majority socioeconomically disadvantaged. I've done a lot of work to make sure that the demographics of that program have changed to more closely align with the student body as a whole. I've also tried to place more of an emphasis on why we should all be there, which is to learn how to become visual storytellers and to make worthwhile work that is um reflective of our own narratives and own lives.
SPEAKER_05It sounds punk as hell.
SPEAKER_01At the same time, I'm just like, oh, but I should be, I don't know, there's like this weird like voice in my head like, well, you're not like literally out there fighting the cops anymore. So are you even punk?
SPEAKER_05Well, there's always, there's always more you could do, but there's, you know, there's so many things to be done, right?
SPEAKER_01I remember one of the most disorienting experiences I ever had in regards to this idea, is back when we were really young, living in Santa Cruz, I'm not sure you remember, but I worked as a park aide at a California State Park.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh and essentially all that means is that you sit in the entrance booth and um sell parking to people who want to go into the park for the day. But I remember being very embarrassed of that job and to the point where I like wouldn't wear my uniform in front of my boyfriend or my housemates because I was insecure that it was too cop adjacent, especially because my supervisors were literal cops, like rangers that had arresting power. Yeah. Um and I remember once this particular ranger, he he pulled up to my window in his sort of um opaque cop sunglasses, and he looks down at my desk and he sees my slingshot planner. And he says to me, slingshot planner, huh? I used to have those.
SPEAKER_05Oh my God.
SPEAKER_01And I'm like, wait, what do you mean? He's like, Yeah, I used to live at Zombie and he showed me this picture of him with like a pink mohawk. No, dressed as a punk. And I'm like, what is happening right now? And it it made me reflect a lot on, you know, the decisions this guy made maybe to survive in an extremely unaffordable community like Santa Cruz. But yeah, how like he I'm he likely had a narrative for himself about, you know, what attracts a lot of people to being in quotes rangers, which is um protecting natural resources and sort of being a steward to the land. Yeah. But I I imagine there was probably a tension for him as well, which was policing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I would, you know, I'd say most jobs, like you have to navigate some some aspect of like working within the system or like even thinking about, you know, jobs that I maybe at the time thought were very within my values, like working in youth homeless shelters. Um and you are like in this role where you're deciding who gets a bed in some ways. And you do have to kick people out, and like you are expected at your job to call the police if there's violence or threats of violence or theft. And obviously you can use your discretion there, but there is like so many jobs that are not even rangers or police, like you you do have to kind of um navigate having holding power or like making life or death decisions for other people, right? I I had an interview uh a month ago with child protection services, which definitely had me like questioning my worldview because it it is, I feel like it's the closest thing I could even imagine doing to being a cop. Like and I think there is a lot of like the same logic that people have when they go into like something like policing where they're like, um, well, some people go in saying, I'm going to change the system from the inside or I'm I'm gonna be the good cop.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean this is all to say it's just um repo man brings up for me the ways in which people compromise their value systems to survive within the very system that their value system is opposed to.
SPEAKER_05Should there be jobs? I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, should there be jobs, maybe not.
SPEAKER_05Um But if you're gonna do a job, uh I don't know, I guess I'd avoid being a repo guy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, agree. Um, and I think that ultimately Otto makes a pretty mindless decision at the first opportunity for larger sums of money. He's like, I was a punk, but now I repossess property from the poor. That's my new job. And he seems very unreflective about it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. But he is young, so I'll give him that.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Maybe, maybe he'll find the error of his ways when he comes back down to earth, so to speak. We'll talk about that later. Um The reason Otto takes this job is because his family is in dire financial straits, and they're in dire financial straits after giving all their money to a televangelist.
SPEAKER_05That seems kind of like Reagan like era morality televangelist kind of vibe.
SPEAKER_01And it's sort of implied that it's like Dianetics adjacent. They're making fun of Dianetics in this movie.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Even, yeah, isn't that the other repo man like wants him to read that book about that, right?
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Yes, he does. He calls it diuretics. Read the book I gave. Diuretics, science of metal for mine. I wanted to loop back to the scene where the parents are watching the televangelists and they've given all their money to them and they're smoking a joint while watching it. You know, I didn't grow up religious, but it honestly it kind of made me think of you. And I wanted to see if maybe you wanted to talk about being a Southern California punk who was raised in a religious family. Like, what what was that like for you? Or do you did you resonate with that that main character's plight at all?
SPEAKER_05I I kind of did, but it was also so it's so like extreme, you know, and like extra. Like I think that whole thing exists, especially in California. There's like a big televangelist like broadcast center off the freeway with a lot of Christmas lights all year around. But my family was a little more low-key than kind of the culty like T V minister vibes.
SPEAKER_01But would it be fair to say that your parents were even encouraging of you being punk or like at least supportive?
SPEAKER_05I think they were, yeah. Generally just like, oh, I want you to be into something because I just bef previously didn't like anything, you know, sports or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So shout out my parents, you know, they were they put up with me. My dad bought me the sex pistols CD when I was in seventh grade.
SPEAKER_01Ooh, edgy.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And then he bought me X, Los Angeles, and he was like, I heard this is good.
SPEAKER_01Oh cool.
SPEAKER_05And I was like, it is good.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that's the cutest thing for your um religious conservative parents to do for you. They loved you so much, they got you the sex pistols on this is after they uh tried to get me into like Christian punk.
SPEAKER_05Like they showed me some bands at the church bookstore.
SPEAKER_01What is a Christian punk band? Like what what's one God?
SPEAKER_05What was there? There were so many in the in that time. Like there was a classic MXPX, right?
SPEAKER_01They were Christian. I never tuned into their lyrics.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, they were Christian, but I don't think they sang about Christianity as much as they sang about like funny goofy stuff. Like going to a punk rock show. There was Five Hour and Frenzy. There's kind of there's a lot of like ska, like ska punk Christian crossover. I think like the supertones was one that my dad got me a CD of. It was like a it's kind of like the boss tones.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Jesus was into ska.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. You know what they say.
SPEAKER_01He just skanked right out of that tomb on Easter morning.
SPEAKER_05He sure did. Pick it up, pick it up.
SPEAKER_01That's what the Romans were saying when he was carrying the cross.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Pick it up. Pick it up. Hey. So while this is all happening, uh-huh, Otto uh learning, kind of learning this new trade. His old friends are just robbing stores. They're the ones that keep saying, Let's do crimes.
SPEAKER_03Fuck this. Let's go do some crimes.
SPEAKER_05And they're yeah, they're just kind of like comic punk movie villains, but in a really fun way.
SPEAKER_01Are they quincy punks?
SPEAKER_05I don't know. I guess that's a question we should ask.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_05Maybe they are like maybe a prototype. Because they're not, they're like, they're still kind of likable in a way.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_05And they're not like total bullies, but they do like kill people unnecessarily.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_05Like they're definitely like villains, but they're funny. So yeah, around this time we meet the competitors of these repo men, the Rodriguez brothers.
SPEAKER_01And unlike the Harry Dean Stanton Repo man crew, the Rodriguez brothers do not approve of drugs.
SPEAKER_03Hermanos Rodriguez don't approve of drugs.
SPEAKER_01Our country's divided right now into repo men who are into speed and repo men who are against drugs.
SPEAKER_05That's so true.
SPEAKER_01Which kind of repo man are you?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Red state, blue state. I don't know which is which, actually.
SPEAKER_01But unfortunately, even though I love him, I'm gonna go with that. Harry Dean Stans, a Republican.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he is really good in this movie. And I actually think, like, to be fair, Harry Dean Stans' character, like, he would vote for the Libertarian Party, but he's like, they're not gonna win anything.
SPEAKER_01A few years after this movie, he probably voted for Ross Perot.
SPEAKER_05Who do you vote for in 2016?
SPEAKER_01Who did I vote for in 2016?
SPEAKER_05No, who did he? Who did who did Bud who did Bud vote for in 2016?
SPEAKER_01That was the election where I went to go watch the results come in live at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland, which is like an indie theater that has like couches instead of seats, and they'll bring you pizza and beer. And I was watching with all my high school students. It started as a party and it ended in people sobbing.
SPEAKER_05That's bleak.
SPEAKER_01I know. And then the next day they all walked out of school to chant fuck Donald Trump in front of Oakland City Hall.
SPEAKER_05Damn good for them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And here we are.
SPEAKER_01And of course, you know, there's there's a love interest. There has to be. Yeah. Um, and the love interest here for Otto is a girl named Layla who is sort of like an alien conspiracy theorist who's also looking for the Chevy Malibu. She knows it's driven by a guy with only one lens and his sunglasses.
SPEAKER_05So Layla, she ends up kind of connecting with the feds, which is interesting. Like they I think they capture her, but then she's like, they're looking for the same thing as me.
SPEAKER_01Whoa, whoa, whoa. Can we pause though, really quick? Something that I discovered. Maybe everyone knows this, but my I my mind was blown. Do you know who one of the feds is?
SPEAKER_05Who?
SPEAKER_01Fucking Jimmy Buffett. What?
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_05Jimmy Buffett's in this movie?
SPEAKER_01Yes, he's one of the feds.
SPEAKER_05No way. Why didn't we open with this?
SPEAKER_01This is in the Blew Out My Flip-Flop Greater Universe, this film.
SPEAKER_05Even without Jimmy Buffett, like the cast is incredible. Emilio Esteves was like, you know, he was kind of a nobody at this point, I imagine. But still, it's like with people who had name recognition and people who would become like the face of the Mindy Ducks or whatever, like this is an all-star cast.
SPEAKER_01His claim to fame.
SPEAKER_05Did you, unrelated, did you like, were you into aliens as a kid?
SPEAKER_01You know, can I just like officially turn this into a conspiracy podcast? Because I I had, as someone who's like very logic-driven and skeptical, I did have an alien experience when I was a kid.
SPEAKER_05No way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So we are in Woodland Hills, California. It's nighttime and we're playing. We look up and we see this little, like literally saucer-shaped object with flashing light panels that are almost like primary colors. It looks like a Simon says, remember that toy? Simon Says?
SPEAKER_07Yes.
SPEAKER_01What's also weird is that the size of it was about that. Like it, there's no way that a human-sized figure could fit in it. That at best, it would be the little alien in men in black who is trying to tell everyone that the galaxy is in Orion's belt. Like he's that small. It was coming down and lights were flashing on us, and we got really scared. So we ran back into the house of the garage and we grabbed adults and we ran back outside. And of course, there was no one or no thing. I thought about that for a long time. And then years later, like I was probably like four when that happened. And I just kind of regarded it as a fabricated memory. But then as a teenager, I brought it up with my cousin Matt. I'm like, Matt, do you remember that time that we saw that weird thing in the yard? And he instantly was just like, Oh, you mean the time we saw a UFO? Okay. And I was like, okay, it's kind of weird. We haven't talked about this as adults yet. And um to this day, I have no idea what it was. Like, honestly, it now feels like it would be like the equivalent of a drone, like something very small, remote control. Like, but I don't know if if that was happening in like 1992. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_05We weren't droning back then, were we?
SPEAKER_01I don't think we were.
SPEAKER_05I don't think most people were.
SPEAKER_01How about you? Do you believe in aliens?
SPEAKER_05I don't know, probably. I mean, I liked I was interested in them as a kid. I would like see the tabloid magazines and be like, let me read that.
SPEAKER_01I guess at the end of the day, some of us are just Reaper men who do speed and others are Reapamen who don't like drugs.
SPEAKER_05And which one believes in aliens?
SPEAKER_01I think we know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I know. I don't know why I asked. So yeah. Anyway, throughout this movie, we get some wisdom, right, from different guys, but especially the like homeless guy who kind of hangs out in the parking lot and maybe is a repo man too.
SPEAKER_01Miller. He's the most important character, especially for the end of this film. But I also feel like he is the character that Alex Cox, the filmmaker, is just using as a vehicle for profundity or like profound meaning. And it's sometimes at times it feels like a little force.
SPEAKER_02Like they view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things. They don't realize that there's this like lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything.
SPEAKER_01And he talks about aliens and he talks about how UFOs are actually time machines. Something that clicked for me, like a callback to our favorite Suburbia quote about buses. I hate buses. Do you know he has a quote about buses in this film? I thought that was amazing.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I do my best thinking on the bus.
SPEAKER_00That's how come I don't drive, see?
SPEAKER_02You don't even know how to drive.
SPEAKER_00I don't want to know how. I don't want to learn, see? So he's like the antithesis of Suburbia.
SPEAKER_01Pro bus punk movie.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Which is what we need for LA, especially.
SPEAKER_01But there's another line at another point where it's like we'd be out of a job if everyone carpooled.
SPEAKER_05So I just Googled, is uh Miller homeless? And an article called him homeless adjacent, which is interesting.
SPEAKER_01Nice. I've been there. I don't think he's homeless. I think he just I think he's just a scuzzy repo man.
SPEAKER_05You think he's not homeless?
SPEAKER_01No, I think he works for them.
SPEAKER_05I guess maybe the reason I think he's homeless is because he's always standing next to a metal trash can that's on fire, or like a a few times, like which is such like a homeless coded activity.
SPEAKER_01That's true. When he's saying, well, I think he's supposed to be burning the possessions of of the people who aren't going to get their repossessed cars back. And that's what he's always saying, like his profound statements over the burning trash can. Let me tell you, Brian, this is the moment I'm like, oh, this was a very meticulously made film, and I actually have a lot of respect for it because this is the kind of shit I aspire to do in my own filmmaking. So there's that sort of like forced, like mystical line about imagining a plate of shrimp.
SPEAKER_02Suppose you're thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly somebody will say, like, plate or shrimp or plate of shrimp, out of the blue. No explanation. No point in looking for one either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.
SPEAKER_01And did you notice that about 45 minutes into this film, when the Rodriguez brothers stop at the bodega to get sodas and the the Malibu gets stolen from them, that on the window of the bodega is a flyer advertising a special that's a plate of shrimp?
SPEAKER_05I did not notice that, no.
SPEAKER_01So sick.
SPEAKER_05Damn, I love that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's not like a punk cinema move, but that's like a cinema move. Good job, guys.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. This is a fucking movie.
SPEAKER_01This is a fucking capital movie.
SPEAKER_05This is a film.
SPEAKER_01This is created by an auteur.
SPEAKER_05That's for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I hate myself.
SPEAKER_05I don't know. I kind of think I know we're just kind of going through it, but it is like one of the punkest movies, in my opinion, but it's also like a movie movie, you know? Like the film guy's punk movie or the punk guy's film movie.
unknownMm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01Did you just set a vape?
SPEAKER_05No, I I burped and I tried to hide it.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna be mystified. I'm like, okay, so you've been a secret vapor this whole time.
SPEAKER_05Becomes a dad once.
SPEAKER_01Becomes a dad once. Does Minnesota have flavored vapes or no?
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah, we got all the flavors.
SPEAKER_01But like above board, like it's it's legal to have like flavored tobacco in your state?
SPEAKER_05I don't really understand because in the city limits they made it illegal at some point. But every I think it's like there's like um there's an easy workaround. If you call it a a tobacco shop, you can you can sell anything.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_05So at the gas station now there's a tobacco shop and it's just like behind a wall, a fake wall.
SPEAKER_01That's funny.
SPEAKER_05And that's where everyone gets their vapes.
SPEAKER_01Because maybe as you know in California flavors aren't allowed.
SPEAKER_05And fucking nanny state, you know. I mean here too.
SPEAKER_01Just run run by the Rodriguez brothers over here.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, for real.
SPEAKER_01You know, last year I dated this guy for about six months, a guy I met on Field, um, who was a really nice guy, but one thing that was really hard about dating him is that he vaped 24-7. He would like he had this crazy vape that had this LED screen that would light up. So suddenly I'd be like 90% asleep in his bed, and all of a sudden, like the whole room would light up, and I'd hear him be like, I'm like, oh no, he's and then like right when he woke up, he'd he'd vape. And yeah, the man, the man's body was not a temple. The man's body was a squat. He was a punk, to give him credit, but the man's body was a squat.
SPEAKER_05I'm like kind of amazed at how much people vape. Like young young people, you know, like the students at the high school I worked at, like all the kids who would have never been smokers in our time vape all the time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Which is kind of incredible. Speaking of consumerism, you know, they really like they want they got one over on everybody.
SPEAKER_01They sure did.
SPEAKER_05And everyone looks really silly. Anyway, everyone's looking for the Chevy Malibu. We s I think the Rodriguez brothers find it. And then Otto, you know, has like a shootout trying to repossess a car. Things are kind of falling apart for him. Layla tells Otto to meet him at this club. It's a really funny scene, actually. Um, because the circle jerks are playing. Yeah. But they're like a lounge band.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're they're playing uh when the shit hits the fan.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, like really snap, snap, slow. And Otto's like, I can't believe I used to like these guys.
SPEAKER_06Do biddy do wop wop say what, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Otto's old friends are at the club, they give him shit for being a repo man. The what's the original guy's name with the one glass in his glasses? Whatever, that guy takes the car back. Um, then we have Bud and Otto riding together, and Bud gets it, just gets out of the car and takes a very, very gorgeous walk down like what looks like Skid Row or something. It's like a really uh well-shot, just kind of like walking scene of just a very lively area. Um and then he sees the Malibu, which he chases until the the driver who's the guy with one glass in.
SPEAKER_01So Fox Harris is the name of that actor.
SPEAKER_05He's good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But yeah, they they talk about like he has he kind of goes on like a wing nut rant, but it's like all kind of interesting, it's like punk paranoia topics. Like he talks about the neutron bomb, talks about how he his friend got a lobotomy and like how the government's after him, just kind of normal punk stuff, which is interesting. And then he dies, Jay Frank Parnell.
SPEAKER_07Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_05Otto takes the Malibu to the repo lot, right? Bud picks him up and they end up in this liquor store shootout with the punks, like a Renacop, and Bud. There we get this like really brilliant scene, which I used as a sample in this sort of like vaguely Malcolm in the Middle themed crustband I used to have or be in.
SPEAKER_00Say no more, I'm on board. Society made me what I am. That's bullshit.
SPEAKER_02You're a white suburban punk, just like me.
SPEAKER_05When I hear that, I'm like, okay, I'm ready to play guitar. The punks all die, right? So here the feds capture Otto and torture him. He's being tortured. He gets broken out by some fellow repo people. By a variety of fellow repo people, and taken to the hospital, where like seemingly everyone in the movie is, which is kind of interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they have like the the lady who gets mad at Otto earlier in the film for like hitting her trash cans, and they have the supermarket coworker and they have Yeah, the nerd. Yeah, they have the nerd, and they have like the Christmas tree air freshener that they talk about like at the beginning of the film as being in every car. Like it's all there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's all it's all there in the hospital, right? And everyone, everyone is really after the Malibu. It's like they're all kind of coming together, right?
SPEAKER_01By the way, did you see that uh thing that said that the Malibu really did get stolen while they were filming this film?
SPEAKER_05No way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it did.
SPEAKER_05That's so funny.
SPEAKER_01I know. They got it back. Okay, so continue.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so yeah, Otto escapes, right? He heads back to the the repo shop lot and finds uh Bud in the Malibu. He's he's kind of just like Bud is kind of given up at this point, right? He doesn't have a job, he's he has no prospects, he doesn't seem to care what happens. The feds are like in a helicopter and they shoot him, they kill him. And then our our homeless friend gets into the car casually. He says he's gonna go for a spin, and then he waves at Otto.
SPEAKER_01So Otto climbs into the glowing green car. He's one of only two people who can climb into the car without getting zapped, just him and Miller. And when he gets in the car, it lifts off the ground, and Miller turns to Otto and says the most important thing that is said in the entire film. He says that there's a new album coming out. Tell us about it, Brian.
SPEAKER_05That's good. Okay. So there's a new album by Visual Learner. It's a seven inch, it sounds like this. Tim plays drums on it. Anyway, and then after saying that to Otto, they fly away.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and this is the part of the film that, like, I'm Brian, I I'm curious to hear what you think about this ending. Like, I I know what the internet says it's about, but what do you think it's about?
SPEAKER_05Well, I'm glad you asked, because I didn't read anything. Um Excellent. I didn't want to know. And I've never I guess I've never really wondered. Like, for me, it's just kind of about escape. Like, this world sucks. It's alienating, they're poor. There's not like a lot going for them. And like, in a way, they they just get it they get to leave.
SPEAKER_01I think your answer is honestly more accurate that it's an it's an escape fantasy from the economic landscape of the Reagan era and failing trickle-down economics. But the internet thinks that it says all this heady shit. What let's see. I the flying car ending serves as a surreal anti-materialist punchline. Otto rejects a mundane hyper-capitalist existence and instead embraces the cosmic-chaotic unknown alongside the eccentric savant miller flying away into the night sky. So it's somehow supposed to symbolize a rejection of materialism. And I feel like that's a bit of a stretch.
SPEAKER_05I think you're right. I do like the aspect of into the unknown. All this shit sucks. Let's just try something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But I don't want to like overintellectualize it because it is just it is a movie about vibes in a big way, right?
SPEAKER_01It's a movie about vibes.
SPEAKER_05And I actually think watching it this time, I really feel I felt like it captured a lot of the kind of classic like Reagan-era punk songs that offer like a feeling of alienation, but don't really offer a solution.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it has a cool soundtrack.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, definitely. And I I kind of I don't know, I l I love those kind of songs. I'm thinking about like the California Uber Alice by Dad Kennedys, a lot of Agent Orange stuff, like every flipper song, the song 1984 by Feeders, songs that kind of just feel like alienation. And what and they they don't like tell you like, oh, well, we're gonna fix it by doing this, but it's kind of like gives you like this this kind of poke, this prod that like, oh, other people are feeling like that. And maybe you could you could be around them and maybe you could like kind of escape together.
SPEAKER_01Maybe the glowing green car is the power of community in the face of capitalism.
SPEAKER_05The Malibu is the friends we made along the way.
SPEAKER_01The Malibu is the friends we made along the way.
SPEAKER_05I wonder like how many academic papers have been written about this movie.
SPEAKER_01Not none.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm I'm a high risk for writing an academic paper about a film like this. So I know there's some other jump out there just like me who is in grad grad school writing about Repo Man.
SPEAKER_05Um I wish I had like a JSTOR login. I would check it out. What did this make what did this movie make you feel? Like when the credits roll, like what do you feel?
SPEAKER_01Great question. When Repo Man's credits roll, I feel like I've just walked out of an art museum and I need to contemplate what I've just witnessed.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_01More like I've just walked out of the museum of Jurassic Technology. Like there's a lot of weird shit that was just presented to me. I understand that it's a conceptual art piece, and yet I still have questions that are unanswered. But it didn't fill me with sadness or existential dread. It kind of made me reflect on how different LA is now. Definitely was something I was thinking about while the credits were rolling. But it it also left me feeling like, I want to watch this again. I'm gonna watch it again.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, it's a good like movie with friends, like a movie night movie.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. It definitely is.
SPEAKER_05Well, I might do that double feature. Maybe if you visit, we'll uh we'll do it then.
SPEAKER_01So I'm gonna be unemployed starting in January. And I really want to take the train to see you and Oh, that'd be fun.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And just for all our punk listeners, no, I'm not as cool as like hopping freight from Southern California to Minneapolis in the dead of w in the dead of winter.
SPEAKER_05I'm talking about No one should be that cool.
SPEAKER_01So I'm not riding the cushions, y'all. I'm trying to get a little sleeper car and take the scenic route, so to speak.
SPEAKER_05That'd be nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So maybe this is a good time to talk about the filmmakers, especially in relation to the aesthetic. So the DP of this film is this guy named Robbie Mueller. And this guy is like, you said this is a vibey film. This is the king of vibes, the cinematographer.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So this cinematographer shot Paris, Texas, Coffee and Cigarettes, Dead Man, Ghost Dog, to name a few. All those early ones are shot on film. Like half of them are black and white, aren't they? Some of them are black and white. A lot of a lot of natural light, a lot of low light conditions, and he makes it look really sexy and vibey.
SPEAKER_05That's cool. I didn't I didn't know that was that that was the same guy. That's really cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I can't I I don't know if he's like punk or not punk. I just can tell he's a prolific visual artist.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then the director, Alex Cox, jury's kind of out for me on if he's punk or not. So he after this, he directed Sid and Nancy.
SPEAKER_05Have you seen that?
SPEAKER_01I haven't, and I think I need to.
SPEAKER_05I'm kind of bummed that we're gonna have to talk about it for this podcast because it's such a fucking bummer. I mean Is it?
SPEAKER_01It's so it's just I mean the story is a bummer, but is the film a bummer?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's just like watching this like fucked up relationship for two hours. But I think it's it's well made. It's a good, it's a good movie.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05It's not like fun. It's not fun like Rebo Man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I also read that he was dropped as the original writer of the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas screenplay adaptation. And he and there was a lawsuit about it.
SPEAKER_05Damn. Yeah, he kind of had a falling out with Hollywood, right?
SPEAKER_01Um he he did because um something decidedly unpunk, the Writers Guild of America, barred him from future membership because he worked on scripts during the writer strike. He was a scab.
SPEAKER_03Really? So unpunk.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So so that makes him not punk. And yet, and yet he was interested in Latin American revolution, and that theme found its way into some of his filmmaking.
SPEAKER_05Well, see that I the the way I always heard it, I think the folk version of it is like Hollywood started hating him because he made, you know, pro-socialist Western film, what's it called? Uh do you know what I'm talking about? Walker.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And that's why.
SPEAKER_05And and that's I think that's maybe his story, but that's interesting to hear that he was a scab.
SPEAKER_01He was a scab. Like Alex Cox has historically downplayed his punk status, but there's some evidence in the character design for Otto that he was familiar with the hardcore scene in Los Angeles at the time. Like he just seems to have like a finger on that pulse a little too uh successfully to not at least be punk adjacent.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, he gets it, I think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I feel I feel like this dude is is punk adjacent and he's he's probably like my level of punk, like Sun Ends I succeed, but then like ultimately I'm gonna do something like write during the writer's strike and get canceled.
SPEAKER_05So he's he's where he's at. I think he is his politics are pretty radical, which is yeah, something he's known for. So um I also one thing I know about him is he like lost the rights to repo man.
SPEAKER_01But it was a flopperino at first.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. But he yeah, you know, because it's a cool classic, and you probably just sign them away. But he uh wanted to make a sequel at some point, but couldn't, but then he ended up kind of self or like in a very DIY way making repo chick. Um, which I I have still not seen. I've me and my friend Caitlin have been talking about doing a double feature in my yard uh for like three years, because she has the DVD and I have the VHS of Repo Man, and there we go.
SPEAKER_01In this world, there's two kinds of repo men. They're the ones who have Repo Man on VHS, and there are ones that have repo chick on DVD.
SPEAKER_05And the you know, the latter, it's hard to find them, let me tell you. It's a rare rare kind. I hear that Repo Chick is a movie with a lot of green screen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's pretty low budget. But I've actually heard it's really good.
SPEAKER_01Alex Hawks was like, you know how cool that green light was? What if we just green screened everything? Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_05We'll have to do it on this podcast eventually. Though, because I imagine it'll be interesting, is that uh it almost didn't come out. Okay, you hear Mogwai?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05She's on my lap.
SPEAKER_01You can't see her, but let's see if I can get scraps and say hi.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay, look Mog.
SPEAKER_04Look at this.
SPEAKER_01Cat podcast.
SPEAKER_05Anyway. Anyways. Um okay, one production thing I know about this movie is that uh it almost didn't come out. Like I think the whoever made it, the company that made it was like is not was not even gonna bother putting it out, but then the soundtrack was a super hit. And because of that, like the record label that put the soundtrack out was like, you guys gotta put this movie out. Like people were buying the soundtrack and they're like, What is this movie? And that was part of them putting the or like having a release of it.
SPEAKER_01It's kind of an argument for paying like ridiculously expensive use rights to use like cool music in your shitty indie film, because maybe just maybe that soundtrack could save the distribution of the film.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean, yeah, get some like genuine bands people like. And like I I do like how a lot of 80s and 90s soundtracks will be like actually just a really good mixtape, you know. And I think Repo Man is actually is one of those soundtracks where you're like, this is you know, no skip. Everything is good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no skip.
SPEAKER_05I would listen to these songs without watching a movie.
SPEAKER_01To our listeners, just so you know, Brian and I had an extremely serious talk recently about how we want to start introducing punk films from different decades as well. Because I think that, you know, it is true that all of the seminal the canon punk films are 80s, it seems like, but there's some important ones in each decade. So we're we're gonna get there. Just letting you know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, pretty soon. We're gonna keep moving, moving forward. And then we'll probably move back again and then we'll move around.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you know, it's also gonna be cool to talk about the different music used in each era. We might even review a contemporary film and it could feature new music from bands such as Isn't there an album coming out, Brian?
SPEAKER_05Local Minneapolis band, Visual Learners, coming out with a seven-inch.
SPEAKER_04They'll be on tour. Ow, my cat just bit me. They'll be on tour in the Midwest in October. What are you doing, Mogwai? Okay, you heard it before, so you get the point.
SPEAKER_01Mogwai Mogwai.
SPEAKER_05He doesn't want to be a little bit more. This episode is brought to us by Visual Learner, local South Minneapolis punk band.
SPEAKER_01And and also Mogwai and Scraps.
SPEAKER_05And our cats.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, I mean, just overall, I think that Reaper Man is indisputably a punk classic, but was perhaps made by a punk adjacent person who made some mistakes, as we all do, but probably ultimately had good politics. And I love it. I'm so excited we got to talk about this film. This was for me one of the first punk films I saw that really resonated with me. It fucking rules, and I'm really glad we got to talk about it.
SPEAKER_05It fucking rules. It's yeah, it's one of the best movies that I've ever seen, probably.
SPEAKER_04This episode is thanks to Visual Learner.
SPEAKER_01Thanks so much for joining us for episode three. This episode marks the official launch of our podcast.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we are official.
SPEAKER_01So now that we're official, our goal is to put out about one episode a month. We're gonna be pumping them out like punks pump out babies in their late 30s. Speaking of selling out, you can support us by following us on our Instagram at Quincy Punk Cinema Club.
SPEAKER_05You can also support us by commenting on the episode wherever you listen to it and sharing it with a friend.
SPEAKER_01Also, if you'd like to run an ad, uh, then you can DM us on our Instagram, and we'd love to work with you.
SPEAKER_05We want to host ads from people doing, you know, people's projects instead of like some weird therapy app or an AI company.
SPEAKER_01So or a repo company.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that would be kind of funny though.
SPEAKER_01We would really appreciate your support. If you're having as much fun as we are, please uh like and subscribe, as they say, in the parking to our time. Thank you so much for joining us. See you next time.