Monkee turned millionaire Michael Nesmith, after financially backing the cult classic REPO MAN, joined that film's producer Peter McCarthy who co-wrote TAPEHEADS with music video director Bill Fishman...
The perfect candidate for an underdog video-director comedy about an early-twenty-something odd couple in slick-salesman-type John Cusack as Ivan and best friend Josh played by a meek/mellow Tim Robbins, the artistic side of a video-making team who start out as multi-monitor-manipulating security guards...
Then the boys (much too quickly) wind up running their own makeshift studio-space business alongside cute secretary Katy Boyer, dying for shy Robbins's love/interest like Annie Potts to Harold Ramis in GHOSTBUSTERS only with sexual success (she also waits patiently by the phone for any kind of gig for her longshot employers)... while dark-haired/dark-dressed corporate-media-fatale antithesis Mary Crosby is reluctantly geared towards the snarky, money-seeeking Cusack...
Aesthetically, TAPEHEADS embodies the colorful 1980's new-wave-punk scene also featured in the aforementioned REPO MAN and the quirky likes of DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN, AFTER HOURS and ECHO PARK...
Only here the offbeat comedy flows not through hit-or-miss dialogue but zany, montage-driven madness as the characters are developed along with their status/talent making eclectic videos (mostly on the cuff) for assorted arts covering all music genres, and even a commercial and last will...
But when when a politician's sex-tape is sought-after by mobsters, the niche pop-culture aspect is derailed...
A shame since the initial struggle to capture the perfect game-changing video was intriguing enough while urgent plot-lines are more suited to mainstream vehicles, which TAPEHEADS was supposed to provide an alternative escape from.
The perfect candidate for an underdog video-director comedy about an early-twenty-something odd couple in slick-salesman-type John Cusack as Ivan and best friend Josh played by a meek/mellow Tim Robbins, the artistic side of a video-making team who start out as multi-monitor-manipulating security guards...
Then the boys (much too quickly) wind up running their own makeshift studio-space business alongside cute secretary Katy Boyer, dying for shy Robbins's love/interest like Annie Potts to Harold Ramis in GHOSTBUSTERS only with sexual success (she also waits patiently by the phone for any kind of gig for her longshot employers)... while dark-haired/dark-dressed corporate-media-fatale antithesis Mary Crosby is reluctantly geared towards the snarky, money-seeeking Cusack...
Aesthetically, TAPEHEADS embodies the colorful 1980's new-wave-punk scene also featured in the aforementioned REPO MAN and the quirky likes of DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN, AFTER HOURS and ECHO PARK...
Only here the offbeat comedy flows not through hit-or-miss dialogue but zany, montage-driven madness as the characters are developed along with their status/talent making eclectic videos (mostly on the cuff) for assorted arts covering all music genres, and even a commercial and last will...
But when when a politician's sex-tape is sought-after by mobsters, the niche pop-culture aspect is derailed...
A shame since the initial struggle to capture the perfect game-changing video was intriguing enough while urgent plot-lines are more suited to mainstream vehicles, which TAPEHEADS was supposed to provide an alternative escape from.