User Reviews

"Tapeheads", a scrappy, intermittently funny spoof of the music video business, might have been the perfect comedic short, and stars John Cusack and Tim Robbins are effortlessly in the swing of the nonsensical chaos involved. They play two semi-savvy security guards in Los Angeles who start their own company, Video Aces, making hilarious videos for rock groups, parties, and one deathbed star. It's too bad the filmmakers had to invent a dim side-plot to pad the running time (shenanigans involving a crooked politician and his henchmen which doesn't do much except take away from the movie's primary strength, sending-up the music culture of the late-'80s). Still, Cusack and Robbins create a couple of originals here: nerdy but loose, street-smart without being hipsters or posers, these guys are on the same nutty wavelength, and they never put each other down. They're the real thing in buddy-comedies. **1/2 from ****

It's not a bad movie but not worth buying it on DVD (as I did). Funny at times but you somewhat get drawn automatically towards a happy ending.

The DVD version had quite a bad soundtrack (with the exception of the music score).

Reminded me of Weird Al's "UHF" (who b.t.w. makes a cameo in this flick) but less hilarious.

Good for one run, then bury it at the bottom of the stack.

Tragically little seen, Tapeheads is a quirky, fun little 80's comedy starring two actors of fantastic talent: John Cusack and Tim Robbins.

Tapeheads is the story of Josh and Ivan, two security guards who decide to follow their dream of directing music videos after a little fun with security cameras lands them both jobless. Josh, a sweet, intelligent young man is out there for artistic integrity. Ivan is in it for the cold hard cash. Their road to fame and misfortune includes commercials, living wills, 80's hair bands, and a senator with a princess fetish. After stumbling on the senator's secret, Josh and Ivan find themselves in way over their heads.

The film is hard to find, but worth the attempt. For every gag that doesn't work, there is three of four gags that work wonderfully. Highlights include a brief broken elevator ride for Ivan and a music video done on no budget. Watch out for the paint.

Looking back at 'Tapeheads' all these years later is a strange trip! John Cusack is now a respected leading man and Tim Robbins is Mr. Credibility. Back in the day they were two zany dorks up for just about anything. This movie is sometimes surreal, sometimes silly. Very uneven with some segments just falling flat on their face. But there is more than enough unhinged invention on show to make it something unique.

It might on the surface seem like the precursor to Bill and Ted and Wayne and Garth et al, but there is an underlying subversive, almost punk attitude, that puts it closer in spirit to 'Roadside Prophets' (which also featured Cusack) or even some of the movies of Alex Cox. Cox has no direct involvement with 'Tapeheads', but like his 80s cult classic 'Repo Man' it was produced by ex-Monkee Mike Nesmith, and several Cox regulars appear - Sy Richardson, Zander Schloss, Xander Berkeley, Bobcat Goldthwait, and even (an uncredited) Courtney Love.

The plot doesn't matter all that much, at times it's just an excuse for music video parodies, pop culture in-jokes, and cameos by an almost endless parade of musicians, familiar TV faces, and other oddballs, everyone from Jello Biafra to Connie Stevens. It's like channel surfing while tripping and listening to oldies radio. Just the sight of seeing 'The Killers' Clu Gulager being spanked by Courtney Love while cult favourite Susan Tyrrell urges her on (blink and you WILL miss it!!), is almost worth watching this alone for. 'Tapeheads' may not be THE great lost 80s cult movie, but it does deserve to be rediscovered. There's no other movie QUITE like it! And it will put a smile on your face, guaranteed.

Ivan Alexeev (John Cusack) and Josh Tager (Tim Robbins) try to break into the L.A. music scene in the late 1980s. Quirky Samantha Gregory (Mary Crosby) tries to help.

I caught this back in the late 1980s at a small art house. The audience loved it and it was held over for a few weeks. Back then I thought it was just great. Seeing it now, 20 years later, its charms have faded. It is very energetic and Cusack, Robbins and Crosby are just great. There's also a large cast of character actors in small roles that help. The commercial parodies and music videos are funny and inventive. BUT the film gets repetitious real quick--the same jokes are made over and over. It's also very dated (you have to laugh when a character says "Video is the future"), has plenty of bad jokes and some real mediocre songs. Still this has enough good moments to give it a 7 and the closing song/video during the closing credits is lots of fun! Ex MTV DJ Martha Quinn appears as a--music TV DJ! This might work better with an audience.

This oddball comedy delivers an arguably valid comment on the booming music video culture of the 1980s, with John Cusack and Tim Robbins playing two underachievers dreaming of making it big as video producers. The direction is so unskilled and the writing so erratic that the film almost becomes a gaudy curiosity deserving of a cult following. But just almost. If watched with low expectations, it has its moments. Look for 1980s music parody phenomenon "Weird Al" Yankovic in a small role as himself. The director Bill Fishman subsequently continued his career as a music video director, but also directed a few other feature films during the 1990s.

After losing their jobs as security guards, best friends Ivan (John Cusack) and Josh (Tim Robbins) start a music video production company called "Video Aces".

This is very much a 1980s movie, which captures that 1980s music video culture perfectly. For me, I missed most of that and really got into music around 1992-1994, still a great time for MTV and music videos. So I get the general idea, though the 80s were by far a crazier decade.

This is also a great entry in John Cusack's career. He could not have made this much later than the mid-80s teen movies he was working on, and yet seems like such an adult here. A fun-loving, Fishbone-liking adult. But still an adult. Was there ever a time when Cusack was not at the top of his game?

Tim Robbins and John Cusack are two actors I have appreciated throughout their careers, and that was the only reason for choosing to watch this movie. Well, all I can say is I totally regretted it! These two great actors humiliate themselves all the way through by performing a number of irrelevant, unimaginative and kitch to the extreme (not that this is bad on its own)sketches that are supposed to make people laugh, but fail to do so. The only reason I can think is that the director was their friend, and they decided to support his movie by starring in it-I can't think of anything else because this movie is SO cheap! Fortunately Tim Robbins and John Cusack haven't disappointed me ever since. I would recommend you to avoid this film, unless you want your opinion about the two actors spoiled.

This off-the-wall, instant cult favorite 80s comedy stars John Cusack and Tim Robbins as Ivan and Josh, two goof-offs who get fired from their dead-end security guard jobs. So they take advantage of the situation to pursue their true lifes' work: making music videos. After a rough start (including doing videos on spec for a character named Mo Fuzz (Don Cornelius)), they soon take the L. A. video world by storm. They also get mixed up with a presidential candidate (Clu Gulager) who's been caught on tape indulging in a fairy-princess fetish.

Full of energy and attitude, "Tapeheads" gets most of its mileage from the non-stop parade of guest stars from the worlds of both film and music. Junior Walker and Sam Moore, in particular, get real showcases as a legendary soul duo dubbed The Swanky Modes (whom Ivan & Josh idolize). It's really an eclectic mix of individuals ranging from Susan Tyrrell to Jello Biafra to Mary Crosby to King Cotton to Bobcat Goldthwait to Lyle Alzado. The soundtrack itself is quite the marvel, with a score by ska-punk band Fishbone. It's highly reminiscent of the films of Alex Cox (no surprise, really, given that it is also "presented" by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith), and in fact includes small roles for a number of Cox regulars (Sy Richardson, Zander Schloss, Xander Berkeley, etc.).

Not all of the movie works that well, but in general it's zany enough and upbeat enough to make it hard to completely resist. It does have a couple of genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Certainly Cusack and Robbins have solid odd-couple chemistry, with Cusack filling out the role of the big talker with the business mind and Robbins as the more even-keeled creative type. It has a great pace and knows how to leave its audience with smiles on their faces.

Robbins' song "Repave America", which later turned up in his directorial debut, "Bob Roberts", was first heard here.

Seven out of 10.

Bill china plays a man stuck in solid inflexible (kind of battle ridden) barny costume. He lays on pacific street (new york) for 100% of the film its bills vantage point from within the costume. What bill hears (and can not see) is the the voice of a lego woman saying 'bill have you been trying to communicate with me?' Her lego hands break as she grips the barny costume. Bill presses multiple unmarked buttons within the costume and it births a candy cain from the mouth. Bill saying, "i havent gone passed the first step, i havent been building a family of humans i can command like youve been doing." Also: katy looked fine as heck in the movie.

In the 80's, back when MTV actually played videos, I spent plenty of time with it on in the background, the way radio was in earlier decades. Tapeheads captures that in spades - the glitzy, superficial, just plain stupid, yet weirdly captivating 80's music video scene, from behind. With spoof videos like King Cotton in the "Roscoe's Chicken and Waffle Commercial", and Devo backing Cube-Squared's video ("The hottest thing from Sweden since Abba") in mock-Swedish, and some stunningly good performances by "The Swanky Modes" (Sam Moore and Junior Walker), it sticks in your head. This is no "The Shawshank Redemption" or "Grosse Point Blank" - If you're seeing it for Tim Robbins and John Cusack - this is late-80s throwaway kitsch, and it shows - and there's nothing wrong with that. If you think more "Better off Dead" or "Cadillac Man", you're in the right ballpark. Frankly, it's refreshing to see them in something early in their careers, having some fun. If you enjoyed your videos in the 80's, it's worth checking out.

Cusack and Robbins are very good together. This is funny most of the time but definitely could've been better. I dig it so definitely worth a watch.

I can't explain why but I've watched this a hundred times and I keep laughing, alongside Cusack's Better Off Dead. John Cusack and Tim Robbins were still playing losers and became good friends off camera when they made Tapeheads, as they play bumbling would-be music video makers. In order to get their boyhood heroes The Swanky Modes (played by real-life singers Sam Moore and Junior Walker) the gig of all gigs, they scam and plug their way through unpaid work, Roscoe's chicken and waffles, relentless hitmen and a vengeful politician. Great character acting by Jessica Walter, Don Cornelius and Clu Gulager. Cameos by a ton of folks, including executive producer Michael Nesmith (from the Monkees), Jello Biafra, Fishbone and the Nuge. Along the way are all kinds of catchy little jokes that you either like and remember forever or. just don't like. "We love Menudo." "On spec." The mounting parking tickets. At least watch it for Cusack and Robbins passing the Brothers Against Drunk Driving (BADD) alcohol test: going through the alphabet backwards with your eyes closed, skipping all the vowels and giving the hand sign for each letter.

The DVD is letterboxed and has a strong analog track with Nesmith, director Bill Fishman and production designer Catherine Hardwicke. Much of the time it is as light-hearted as the movie and interesting. Unfortunately, Fishman brings up tons of scenes that were deleted from the film but aren't included on the DVD. I'm sure there's some reason for this, maybe they just weren't available, but it's kind of frustrating - they actually sound funny instead of the usual deleted scene that deserved to be cut out and forgotten. I was surprised that so much stuff was actually cut out, and that Cusack and Robbins wanted to play the opposite roles when they auditioned. But, this ain't the high theater either. At times the analog track has some of those "Remember when that happened" stories, that only work if you really really like the film. But then, why else would you watch the whole thing with the analog track on?

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.

More than just a few similarities between these two 80's cult films. Both have punk rock elements. Both have major settings in downtown LA's industrial area in the 1980's, well before the arrival of loft buildings and gentrification (post 2000). At that time, only misfits, hard core artist types and homeless were living there. Both parody media of the times, including music videos. (Repo Man specifically skewering televangelists and Tapeheads specifically roasting self-help types like Tony Robbins, or more likely Don LaPre.)

Both have goofball government agents chasing after the protagonists. Repo Man has The Circle Jerks doing bad lounge music in a dive bar. Tapeheads has Fishbone doing bad country music in a dive bar. Both have authority figures with "perverted" sex secrets (Tapeheads' Norman Mart with his spanking games, and Repo Man mentioning that John Wayne was gay.) Both films were produced by Michael Nesmith. (Sure The Nez must have been on familiar ground here with Fishman's script, just coming off Repo Man a few years prior.)

As others mentioned, director Bill Fishman employed a number of Cox's previous collaborators, including Zander Schloss, Xander Berkely and Courtney Love. So, was Fishman intentionally, slavishly copying Alex Cox with Tapeheads?

Honestly, I don't care, but the similarities are just so striking that I could not write a review of this film without mentioning them. If Repo Man is a 10, then Tapeheads, a similar take on LA in the 80's is an 8, the film's rating elevated largely by the game, appropriately goofy performances of Cusack and Robbins as the two leads. Cusack is really great in both comedy and drama, especially considering he would go on to a heavily dramatic (and successful)role in Stephen Frears' The Grifters only a couple years after this film.

It's not for everyone, and people use the term "quirky" far too much for my tastes. But this movie really is a quirkfest of the highest order and one of my personal fave pet movies.

(I should also note the similar plot point from Christopher Guest's movie The Big Picture, released about a year later, where the protagonist leaps from obscurity to fame after directing a no-budget, goofy music video which gets his name mentioned on MTV, by Richard Belzer of all people. Yet another element for me to confuse in my addled brain...wait, wasn't Richard Belzer in this movie? Oh no, that was The Big Picture!)

If you haven't stumbled across the movie, and you like Repo Man, early MTV or goofy 1980's comedies, you should check this out. And be on the watch for super brief cameos from Michael Nesmith, Weird Al Yankovic, Bobcat Goldthwait, Courtney Love and Jello Biafra. There's a cast list for ya, film fans.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm really hungry and could do well right now with a Scoe's Special from Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles.

Tapeheads is not a subtle film. It is not brilliant film. What it is is one of the most unique and funny American comedies in a long time. What allows this movie to rise above the stupidity in which it revels in is two-fold. Its quirky sense of humor is so unique and refreshing, that you're not only willing but looking forward to the plot which can politely described as asinine. Secondly, it has the Swankey Modes, who are actually soul legends Sam Moore and Junior Walker. They bring a delightful energy and great music to the movie.

It would be pointless to bring up specific scenes, except to say that this movie has approximately ten or fifteen of the funniest vignettes of the year. There are also plenty of misses, but the joy in seeing them make the effort allows you to forgive all the misses.

John Cusack and Tim Robbins, both exceptional actors capable of great subtlety, exhibit none of it here. What they replace it with is a great comic energy and a willingness to do almost anything for a joke. Cusack is especially endearing as a total sleazeball who will do anything for a buck. Michael Nesmith (yes, That one!) produces this farce and demonstrates what we already knew- He was really the talented one, and the funniest one.

I imagine that there will be people who hate this movie. People who hate its lack of subtlety, who hate the implausible plot, and who just don't get a humor that most can most aptly described as off kilter. What they don't understand is that the humor in this movie is a complete original, and the lengths this movie takes to see it through are admirable and at times breathtaking. And it is for those reasons that Tapeheads is one of the great American comedies of the 1980's, and one of the most underrated movies ever made.

Tapeheads is a surprisingly perfect satire of the eighties made at the end of the eighties. It is very funny, with an intelligent script and great dialog. Fine comedic performances by Cusack and Robbins. Multiple intertwined plots. There is a love story between a female artist and Robbins' nerdy video artist. A self-help guide with Cusack trying to better himself and his buddy. A music marathon with wonderful performances. A corrupt politician caught in a delicious scandal. All this combined with an hysterical dysfunctional family drama, make for a thoroughly wacky and wild time. The soundtrack is fabulous too. In particular, Roscoe's Rap manages to send up MTV, KFC, TV advertising and Rap music. Loved it!

It's a next-generation Blues Brothers. Quick-moving visuals, good script, well executed. Funny, irreverent, and best of all the music is great. Love the two leads (Cusack & Robbins) and wonder if they remember having fun making this movie because it sure looked like they did. (Cusack can dance; Robbins can't.) Great to see some old-timers in the music roles - Sam Moore and Junior Walker, for two; plus there are several tunes I've never heard before so I got to hear and appreciate them for the first time. Cinematographywas well done. I'm surprised it's not a cult film for old r & b rock & rollers. The DVD came with a CD of the ending song "Ordinary Man" by the Swanky Modes (Moore & Walker), guaranteed to get you moving in your chair.

starting with the opening credits with the song "bet your bottom dollar on me" and the line "dad put his fingers in it!" i knew this was a cult classic in the making. this film should not only be awarded posthumous awards for sheer, naked drop dead funny lines ("work time's over, drinkin' times begun") to obnoxiously funny music video parodies (can anyone forget the feathers in "my baby doll"?) to bobcat goldthwait as a pre-tony robbins influential speaker (cash-flow, cash-flow, cash-flow). my best friend and i watched this movie for years, and now a dvd release...to hell with extras, this is TAPEHEADS... btw, if anyone has the soundtrack....

The chemistry between Cusack and Robbins is readily apparent in this off-beat comedy. The film is full of clever, yet not-so-obvious sight-gags including the casting of Zander Schloss as both a heavy-metal fan and an R&B concert-goer.

Sam Moore and Junior Walker pair up as the fictitious band "The Swanky Modes" adding a number of very soulful tunes to the soundtrack. To quote Josh & Ivan in the movie "We love the Swanky Modes."

...oh, yeah, most people are braying morons who wouldn't know a whip tight 80's comedy if it came out on DVD 15 years later with jokes that could still bite a chunk out of Adam Sandler's/Ben Stiller's/even Will Ferrell's ass. I saw this in the theater when it came out and couldn't fathom how the rest of the country wasn't chanting "Let's get into trouble, baby!" Then I remembered the country's median IQ and dismal reading levels and it was clear that this flick just moved too quickly for cinema dwellers who were looking for something a little less challenging than "Mannequin". "Teach me to read." "Sign my butt." "Don't bulls--- me! I'm a big cello fan! Casales died years ago!" "Josh is a visual visionary he communicates in images not antiquated verbosity, maybe that's why he's been so hard to understand recently." RENT-A-FACADE. "The Blender Children are mulch!" "Waffles' just pancakes with little squares on 'em." Not to mention the fact that the whole shebang is a slap in the face to Mtv produced by the creator of the network, Mike Nesmith. If that ain't subversive enough for you then go rank "Mannequin 2: On the Move" a ten and leave the real comedy to those that get it.

I thought that this movie was so funny I was crying during the baby doll music video. Also during Hermans will. "Okay I'm tired now I think I'll go to sleep!" Then his head rolls over. I thought the voice John Cusack used for that was hilarious. A definate must see!