Its slim premise involving a couple of 13-year-old boys having fun with a camcorder in the late ’80s, “VHYes” is maybe a little too faithful to their sensibility — being exactly what a kid raised on “Saturday Night Live,” “Sctv,” and maybe cable broadcasts of “Kentucky Fried Movie” would imagine as the coolest home-made movie ever. It’s a freeform jumble of skits spoofing vintage broadcast series, commercials, public access shows, porn, and whatnot, their mildly surreal bent increasing as the short feature goes on.
Duly shot on VHS and digital Betacam, this first feature for Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon’s son Jack Henry Robbins is an amiable goof deploying cameos by the ’rents as well as some other familiar faces. But it’s the kind of enterprise that will only seem as funny, clever, and “weird” as it means to be if watched while very stoned and/or adolescent.
Duly shot on VHS and digital Betacam, this first feature for Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon’s son Jack Henry Robbins is an amiable goof deploying cameos by the ’rents as well as some other familiar faces. But it’s the kind of enterprise that will only seem as funny, clever, and “weird” as it means to be if watched while very stoned and/or adolescent.
- 1/17/2020
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
It's Christmas Day, 1987, and 12-year-old Ralph (Mason McNulty) has been given a VHS camcorder. We follow him over the days between Christmas and New Year's, catching snippets of his life through the Pov of his new camera, as he unknowingly tapes over footage of his parents' wedding and occasionally records scenes directly from late night cable TV.
Jack Henry Robbins' VHYes is at once a nostalgic reflection of a bygone era of analogue TV and video, and a rather demented and surreal dark comedy. The domesticity of Ralph's life - hanging out with his best friend Josh (Rahm Braslaw), recording himself playing music and with his dinosaur toys, occasionally spying on his parents - is contrasted by the bizarre array of television shows into which he tunes every night.
The scenes...
Jack Henry Robbins' VHYes is at once a nostalgic reflection of a bygone era of analogue TV and video, and a rather demented and surreal dark comedy. The domesticity of Ralph's life - hanging out with his best friend Josh (Rahm Braslaw), recording himself playing music and with his dinosaur toys, occasionally spying on his parents - is contrasted by the bizarre array of television shows into which he tunes every night.
The scenes...
- 1/17/2020
- QuietEarth.us
VHYes is more than a celebration of 80s video culture. It provides perfect hindsight for 2020.
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VHYes is a terrible title for a very cool and misleadingly smart and innovative movie. The film was directed by Jack Henry Robbins, the son of Susan Sarandon and Tim Roberts, both cult movie icons. Sarandon for her turns in Pretty Baby and the absolute pinnacle of midnight movies, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Roberts, to me for his Jacob in the dread film masterpiece Jacob's Ladder, but at the very least for Tapeheads, a film about the video industry itself, or Howard the Duck. VHYes is an exciting return to the true cult films of decades ago. But you have to get past the title. That could also be a point.
The film is a comedy anthology, like Groove Tube, Kentucky Fried Movie, and Tunnel Vision. But it is also very creepy,...
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VHYes is a terrible title for a very cool and misleadingly smart and innovative movie. The film was directed by Jack Henry Robbins, the son of Susan Sarandon and Tim Roberts, both cult movie icons. Sarandon for her turns in Pretty Baby and the absolute pinnacle of midnight movies, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Roberts, to me for his Jacob in the dread film masterpiece Jacob's Ladder, but at the very least for Tapeheads, a film about the video industry itself, or Howard the Duck. VHYes is an exciting return to the true cult films of decades ago. But you have to get past the title. That could also be a point.
The film is a comedy anthology, like Groove Tube, Kentucky Fried Movie, and Tunnel Vision. But it is also very creepy,...
- 1/15/2020
- Den of Geek
Tony Sokol Dec 18, 2019
Shot entirely on VHS tape, VHYes trailer promises stranger things from the 80s.
Before the internet, strangely personal celluloid was created on video tapes. Videodrome from 1983 is a frighteningly prescient film if you replace the VHS aspect with the dark web. By the 90s whole films were being shot on Betamax and VHS camcorders. Directed by Jack Henry Robbins, VHYes is a retro comedy of this period which was shot entirely on VHS.
VHYes is a genre-spanning, anthology comedy like Groove Tube, Kentucky Fried Movie and Tunnel Vision. The largely ignored 1979 film Mr. Mike's Mondo Video, from National Lampoon Radio Hour and Saturday Night Live alumnus Michael O'Donoghue, opened with a warning that the film the audience was about to see was shocking and repugnant beyond belief. They advised older people with heart conditions be moved closer to the screen. The director also said children of an...
Shot entirely on VHS tape, VHYes trailer promises stranger things from the 80s.
Before the internet, strangely personal celluloid was created on video tapes. Videodrome from 1983 is a frighteningly prescient film if you replace the VHS aspect with the dark web. By the 90s whole films were being shot on Betamax and VHS camcorders. Directed by Jack Henry Robbins, VHYes is a retro comedy of this period which was shot entirely on VHS.
VHYes is a genre-spanning, anthology comedy like Groove Tube, Kentucky Fried Movie and Tunnel Vision. The largely ignored 1979 film Mr. Mike's Mondo Video, from National Lampoon Radio Hour and Saturday Night Live alumnus Michael O'Donoghue, opened with a warning that the film the audience was about to see was shocking and repugnant beyond belief. They advised older people with heart conditions be moved closer to the screen. The director also said children of an...
- 12/18/2019
- Den of Geek
One of the more bonkers films out of Fantastic Fest was Jack Henry Robbins’ celebration of VHS culture, VHYes (2019).
Shot entirely on VHS and Beta, the film takes place over a week in the life of 12-year-old Ralph (Mason McNulty) when his family gets a brand new camcorder for Christmas. Ralph is fascinated by their new acquisition, particularly when he learns that the camera can be connected to the TV to record television programming. He grabs the first tape he can find (which happens to be his parents’ wedding video) and sets to work documenting his crazy misadventures, as well as the wonders of 1980s cable TV.
The television portions are presented as a late-night channel surf, cutting back and forth between shows and grabbing the occasional commercial. It’s here that the film’s talented comedic cast really shines. From Thomas Lennon as an overenthusiastic QVC host to Kerri Kenney...
Shot entirely on VHS and Beta, the film takes place over a week in the life of 12-year-old Ralph (Mason McNulty) when his family gets a brand new camcorder for Christmas. Ralph is fascinated by their new acquisition, particularly when he learns that the camera can be connected to the TV to record television programming. He grabs the first tape he can find (which happens to be his parents’ wedding video) and sets to work documenting his crazy misadventures, as well as the wonders of 1980s cable TV.
The television portions are presented as a late-night channel surf, cutting back and forth between shows and grabbing the occasional commercial. It’s here that the film’s talented comedic cast really shines. From Thomas Lennon as an overenthusiastic QVC host to Kerri Kenney...
- 9/26/2019
- by Emily von Seele
- DailyDead
“Here’s what every woman knows,” Sarayu Blue says in a voice-over kicking off her new sitcom “I Feel Bad.” “We feel bad about something almost every day.” The show, airing a preview episode Sept. 19 before settling into a Thursday-night timeslot, sets its tone early—it differentiates Blue’s Emet from other sitcom moms by her vulnerable honesty, her willingness to admit that not only is she not omnicompetent, she’s perpetually annoyed with herself for not being so.
The challenges Blue faces don’t go beyond traditional sitcom fare—meddling parents, kids developing minds of their own, balancing marriage and work—all of which it handles with élan and wit. Where the show loses its footing is in its depiction of Blue’s co-workers, video game designers whose outright misogyny the show makes the strange decision to play as comedy.
Emet works as a video-game designer, in an office...
The challenges Blue faces don’t go beyond traditional sitcom fare—meddling parents, kids developing minds of their own, balancing marriage and work—all of which it handles with élan and wit. Where the show loses its footing is in its depiction of Blue’s co-workers, video game designers whose outright misogyny the show makes the strange decision to play as comedy.
Emet works as a video-game designer, in an office...
- 9/14/2018
- by Daniel D'Addario
- Variety Film + TV
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