Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Retro doesn’t mean boring. This week I’m looking at two retro movies, a drama and a documentary. There’s sexually active college jocks in the early 1980s and politically active filmmakers from the late 1960s.

Here Come the Videofreex

Dir: Jon Nealon, Jenny Raskin

The late 1960s is a time of huge changes in the US. People are out on the streets, holding demonstrations, civil disobedience, and sit-ins. Against the war in Vietnam and the powers that be, and for black power and women’s rights. At the same time a strange new medium is making its first appearance. It’s recording events as they happen. Its images are black and white, fuzzy, and a bit distorted around the edges. It wobbles when you watch it. It’s a medium that lets you see what you’re filming as it’s going on. The concept is unheard of in a time where film takes days or even weeks to develop. It’s revolutionary!

And what is this new medium? Video. People are carrying their own mics and Sony cameras to rock concerts (like Woodstock) and recording everything they see – not what’s on stage but who’s in the audience.

CBS News takes notice. A producer puts up the money and the equipment for a group of young men and women to go where journalists aren’t welcome. They call themselves the Videofreex. They go to California to take in the mood. They travel east again, to record Yippie Abbie Hoffman before he’s arrested and Fred Hampton from the Black Panther Party only weeks before he’s killed by the Chicago police. The Videofreex are not dispassionately observing things like a TV journalist. Video lets them be a part of what they’re filming. And with women and men both starting from scratch in a new medium, there are no glass ceilings to break.

In the end, though, CBS News rejects their work as too radical and different. CBS wants to use it their footage on their news shows but under network control. The Videofreex say no way. The venture is short lived. But the members keep recording things for decades to come. And they start their own community TV station in a small, rural town in upstate NY.

This movie is an amazing look at the old videos from the dawn of public-access video. They’ve been lovingly restored and are explained by the former members of the collective still around today. It’s a great documentary on public journalism decades before youtube,

Everybody Wants Some!!

Wri/Dir: Richard Linklater

It’s late August, 1980. Jake (Blake Jenner) arrives at a university town in Southeast Texas with a milk crate full of record albums and the glow of small town success. it’s just a few days before classes start. He’s a baseball pitcher on an athletic scholarship. But he’s not impressed by s new home. Two ramshackle, clapboard houses donated by the city, holding 25 guys – more than two baseball teams worth. In high school he pitched the team all the way to the state championships — but here he’s less than nothing. Everyone’s a former best in town. Now he’s just a freshman, subject to hazing, sneers and brutal competition. And he’s in a house filled with highly competitive, intimidating guys, all baseball jocks with awful moustaches. Guys brimming with machismo, including one who can hit a baseball with an axe in midair — and chop it in half. They hate pitchers, they say. And freshmen. It’s up to Jake to fit in to the house without giving up his true character.

But there are entitlements, even for freshmen. These include Lone Star Beer, and free entry to the local mirror ball disco. The boys go there to strut and try to pick up girls. And despite the constant homoerotic fog over their locker room practices, they never stray from conventional gender roles.

Jake is better than that. He likes poetry, listens to Devo, and doesn’t treat women as goals to be conquered and bragged about to his buddies afterwards. And he really likes Beverly (Zooey Deutch), a woman studying performing arts. She’s from a separate universe,  with its own teams, hierarchy and competitiveness.

I really like Everybody Wants Some!! It’s a lot of fun, with great acting and a terrific soundtrack. But don’t be misled by the trailer; this is not a reboot of Porkies or Animal House. It’s not a formulaic, slapstick comedy. What it is is a typical Richard Linklater film, like Dazed and Confused. If you saw Boyhood two years ago, think of this as Manhood. Boyhood gives you 12 years, while this one is condensed to three days. There’s a great ensemble cast that you get to spend a bit of time with.

Everybody Wants Some!! opens today in Toronto: check your local listings. And you can see Here Come the Videofreex beginning on Wednesday. And be sure to check out the Canadian Film Fest this weekend for the latest in new Canadian movies. Go to canfilmfest.ca for more information.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com