Am I Missing Something?

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Boogievision (1977) * (out of 4) Michael Laibson plays Mick, a young filmmaker who thinks he has gotten his big break when he learns that his girlfriend's father is a producer. The only problem is that the producer wants a porno movie but the young filmmaker wants to make a science-fiction film.As I go through the films of director James Bryan, I can see why this movie was made. He started off making sexploitation movies before making two porno titles with Rene Bond. I'm going to guess that he wasn't overly interested in making the porn movies but he had bills to pay and they were jobs. It seems this film here was his way of saying that but sadly the end results really aren't all that good.Again, I can see what Bryan was going for here but it just doesn't work because the satire is just poorly written and nothing here is overly funny. Another problem with this film is the fact that its 80-minute running time is really dragged out to the point where you're bored out of your mind before you hit the half-way point. The film is edited in a fairly strange way and add in the boredom and you can quickly lose track of where the plot it.There's a little bit of nudity but certainly not enough to please sexploitation fans. This one here is basically just for those who want to check out everything the director has done in his career.

I bought this because I've been a fan of "The Groove Tube" and similar movies like TunnelVision (I have a 35mm print of that!) and Kentucky Fried Movie, and the DVD cover claimed it was of that genre- the title Boogie Vision just about guaranteed it'd be a great movie also. Well, I just watched it and was a bit disappointed- it's more a conventional narrative about the guy making the movie, then a few random things are just thrown in (5-second news updates, a few commercials and a couple promos for phony TV shows) just to pad the running time. The animation at the beginning is pretty cool though and must have cost more money than anything else in the movie.Recommended only if you have to see every movie made in the 70s, or just a fan of bad and/or weird movies in general.

Struggling independent hippie filmmaker Mick (affable Michael Laibson) gets his big break after he finds out that his girlfriend Marlene's (hot blonde Marlene Selsman) father Burt (an amusingly smarmy portrayal by Bert Belant) is a movie producer. Unbeknownst to Mick, Burt specializes in porno pictures. Mick cranks out a hilariously cruddy sci-fi schlocker in three days for Burt, who demands countless changes and has a hard time figuring out how to distribute Mick's lousy flick. Writer/director James Bryan gives this delightfully screwball comedic romp an authentically hip'n'heady oddball and irreverent experimental 70's vibe while tossing in a wealth of mock TV commercials, phony news broadcasts, plentiful tasty female nudity, and even a generous sprinkling of funky animation. The loosey-goosey narrative meanders all over the place, the playful throwaway tone remains extremely silly throughout, and the cheerfully dumb and zany lowbrow humor is anything but subtle or sophisticated, but this picture still manages to be quite funny in a pleasingly goofy sort of way. Victoria Miller contributes a charming performance as flaky feminist Mouse. Popping up in cool uncredited bits are Renee Harmon as the histrionic narrator of Mick's uproariously atrocious Lizardwoman epic and beloved 70's drive-in icon Chreyl "Rainbeaux" Smith as a naked hippie chick on a motorcycle. The rough, grainy cinematography by Frank Mills gives the film a suitably raw and unpolished look. The groovy-jammin' score by Bill Spater and Gene Sturman likewise hits the loopy spot. A total wacky hoot.

What would you get if you gave a movie camera, a couple of hours worth of film, and a few thousand bucks to some hippies in 1977? The answer might well be "Boogie Vision," an amusing time capsule that proves if nothing else that virtually anything could get distributed to drive-ins back in the day. I'm reminded of "Mr. Hand" from Fast Times at Ridgemont High who was convinced every single student in his American History class "must be on dope." Mr. Hand would undoubtedly think the same of every single person involved in this movie. Something of a "Groove Tube" knockoff, much of the footage consists of unrelated comedy sketches including mock news reports, commercials, and random shots of nude skateboarding. There is also some strikingly good 70s animation that reminds one a little bit of "Yellow Submarine." But there is also a main plot (using the term loosely) that does its best to hold the film together. A would-be movie "director," who has to panhandle every penny and dime he can to buy rolls of film, suddenly hits the jackpot after his girlfriend informs him that her daddy is a "producer." Turns out daddy really only makes porn and has little intention of letting this guy direct, but hires him anyway to just to appease his daughter. Well, wouldn't you know it, daddy is called away for a few days so our lead protagonist seizes the opportunity to blow an entire film's budget in three days to create his own artistic vision. Needless to say, daddy, upon returning, is none too impressed with the result, which comes to be called "The Lizardwoman from Outer Space Meets the Radical Feminoids." But with the money blown and the film in the can, he really has little choice now but to distribute it. One might conclude whoever put up the money to finance "Boogie Vision" was left thinking the same thing. Oh, man, this movie is weird. I'll give it a 5 for its unconventional spirit. For better or worse they sure as heck don't make 'em like this anymore.