TOP THAT: THE FP’s alternate-universe trailertown smackdown and its 80s predecessors

A hybrid of 80s gangland dance-off and arcade throwdown, the Trost Brothers’ SXSW smash The FP makes its International Premiere tonight at Fantasia – with filmmakers Brandon and Jason Trost (the latter also the film’s eye-patched star) in person! PLUS! After the screening and Q+A, we’re hosting an official Phantom Beat-Off Afterparty at GamesCentre in the AMC Forum, where JTRO (Jason cheap uk viagra Trost) will be taking on all comers at Dance Dance Revolution, mysterious culinary treats will be served, tunes will pop, spirits will flow, your senses will be clocked!

—————–

In tribute to The FP’s candy-coloured alternate-universe trailertown smackdown, Spectacular Optical takes a look back at levitra 20mg some of the most tuff and enduring close-quarters competition films of the 80s!

BERRY GORDY’S THE LAST DRAGON (1985) – Directed by Michael Schultz (Car Wash, Cooley High) and produced by Motown prez Berry Gordy, this insane martial arts flick riding the Karate Kid’s coattails pits virginal Bruce Lee fan Leroy Green (an African American youngster so obsessed with martial arts flicks he wears a rice paddy hat and eats popcorn with chopsticks!) against one of the 80s’ cheesiest movie villains – the histrionic gang leader Sho’Nuff, the self-proclaimed ‘Shogun of Harlem’ – while he tries to win the heart of TV dance show superstar (and one-time Prince first lady) Vanity – in her first screen role! This film is an overload of ridiculous fun.

WILD STYLE (1982) – Charlie Ahearn’s game-changing early hip-hop staple features a legion of familiar faces from the scene playing themselves – Fab 5 Freddy , Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizard Theodore, Kool Moe Dee, The Rock Steady Crew, the Cold Crush Brothers, no wave actress Patti Astor and more – with renowned NYC graffiti artist Lee Quinones in the lead as a talented artist being wooed by the uptown arts crowd but tied to the streets through his relationship with fellow graffiti artist Rose (Sandra Fabara aka Lady http://www.spectacularoptical.ca/2021/02/generic-levitra-prices/ Pink). Among the many DJ battles, guerrilla graffiti sweeps and breakdance blowouts is a particular setpiece that will always remain etched in the memory: the Basketball Rap Battle.

RAD (1986)– A BMX Dancefloor Flatlander Bike-off! Only in the 80s could a school dance bust out into slo-mo co-ed BMX levitra cialis acrobatics with a soundtrack by Australian synth-pop band Real Life and an awestruck audience that includes identical twins wearing beige spacesuits. Famous stunt director Hal Needham (Smokey and the Bandit) helms this classic 80s athletic competition flick that cashes in on the BMX fad.

THE WIZARD (1989) – Fred Savage and his mentally disturbed, video game wiz younger brother run away from home to participate in The Video Armageddon, a tournament across the country on the West Coast where he stands to win $50,000 playing Super Mario Bros. 3 (which hadn’t been released yet at the time of filming) against some jerk with a mullet and a Power Glove. By some weird coincidence, this film features the same Real Life song that appeared in the BMX dancefloor scene in Rad.

THRASHIN’(1986) – Apparently 1986 was not only the year of mainstream BMX-ery, it was also the year Hollywood caught on to California’s proliferation of skatepunks and decided to hegemonize them for use in a motion picture. Josh Brolin (who has since redeemed himself) plays a recent provincial transplant to the tuff skate scene of Venice Beach, who gets caught up in a vicious whitebread gang war! On skateboards! With real skate faces like Tony Alva, Per Welinder, Steve Caballero, Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi and a host of others, as well as ethereal beauties Sherilyn Fenn, Pamela Gidley and 80s character staple Josh Richman – plus, demented ‘punk’ skate gang the Daggers was actually based on real west coast skate gang the JAKS Team (who also appear in the film), thereby cementing the film’s cult film status despite any cheesy missteps. The film was co-written by Alan Sacks (Du-beat-e-o and Welcome Back, Kotter) and directed by David Winters, the super famous choreographer (Kitten with a Whip, The Star Wars Holiday Special) who was also behind the legendary 1970 Raquel Welch TV Special and Alice Cooper: Welcome to My Nightmare.

BREAKIN’(1984)– If NYC underground sleeper Wild Style prefigured the hip hop explosion and Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon saw it carried to surreal heights of supernatural flash, then Joel Silberg’s Breakin’ was the phenom’s most Hollywood-ized depiction that brought it to the attention of suburban white kids everywhere. A white jazz dancer becomes obsessed with street dancing after seeing Shabba Doo and Boogaloo Shrimp in action, and teams up with them to face off with rival breakdancing gang Electro Rock, resulting in a number of dance battles at the Radiotron nightclub, with a then-unknown Ice T on the mic as the club’s MC.

BODY ROCK (1984) – Lorenzo Lamas plays Chilly D, the hottest, hairiest thing in parachute pants! Other than some choice moves from the New York City Breakers this film is more of an eye-impaling cocaine binge gone wrong than any kind of window into the breakdancing scene, but it does feature someone come barrelling out of a giant ghetto blaster in one of the film’s many overwrought club scenes. Misguided – yes. Amazing – double yes.

JOYSTICKS (1983) – Ah, Joysticks. Greydon Clark gave us Skinheads, Angel’s Brigade, Black Shampoo and so many other essential trash classics, but Joysticks, for my money, remains on the top of the heap. When chiselled young arcade owner Scott McGinnis is hassled by grouchy local business owner Joe Don Baker and his two goon nephews, the result is an arcade battle that introduces us to the punkest of all movie punks – King Vidiot (played by Jon Gries, later to achieve fame as Lazlo in Real Genius and Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite). King Vidiot forever!

TEEN WITCH (1989) – this is not really a smackdown picture perse, but it does feature one of the most stupidly entertaining suburban musical battles on record: the quintessential honky geek rap TOP THAT.

– Kier-La Janisse

——————-

THE FP has its international Premiere July 30 at 9:40pm in the Hall Theatre with the Trost Brothers in person – followed by the interactive Phantom Beat-Off Afterparty at GamesCentre in the AMC Pepsi Forum at Midnight (the party is free admission!). More details on the film page HERE.

Thanks to Sam McKinlay as always for his occult skateboard knowledge!

About the author:

Kier-La Janisse

Kier-La Janisse is a film writer, publisher, producer, acquisitions executive for Severin Films and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. She is the author of Cockfight: A Fable of Failure (2024), House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (2012/2022) and A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi (2007) and has been an editor on numerous books including Warped & Faded: Weird Wednesday and the Birth of the American Genre Film Archive (2021) and Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s (2015). She wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021), and produced the acclaimed blu-ray box sets All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror (2021) and The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle (2023).