At the time this film was made (the 1980s), it was sometimes the case that a person might enjoy watching horror films. This cultural moment is crystallized in artistic permanence here by the character of Wink Barnes, played by Ned Eisenberg. In his many scenes, Mr. Barnes brings up the topic of horror films despite their inapplicability to the diaphanous and delicate plot of Moving Violations. On meeting a woman, he asks her about her own tastes in horror cinema. Being told that a classmate is anxious about his father's reaction to a dismaying contretemps, Wink advises watching a horror film. When Dana Cannon tells a largely pointless anecdote about violence in the Arab world, Wink arrives and announces that he, given his tastes for violence, would like to see such a thing. Asked to meet his friends socially, he arrives dressed as Jason Voorhees. Some sophisticated viewers might feel that they had come to sufficiently understand Wink's character at this point and would not need to see his schtick reiterated without elaboration any more. Such viewers are in for a surprise as Barnes appears again and again, sounding his one note each time.
Other fashions and political movements of the 1980s are similarly examined by the film (punk music, space exploration, perms), but none with the relentless jackhammer regularity of the mystifyingly dull jokes about Wink Barnes's taste in film.
Other fashions and political movements of the 1980s are similarly examined by the film (punk music, space exploration, perms), but none with the relentless jackhammer regularity of the mystifyingly dull jokes about Wink Barnes's taste in film.