– Remote Control is this weekend’s pick. Every Saturday or Sunday, Celluloid Dimension selects a film to spotlight for your weekend viewing. We like to champion underrated gems and forgotten titles that deserve a wider audience. Dive in and enjoy the ride. –
Directed by Jeff Lieberman
Written by Jeff Lieberman
Starring:
- Kevin Dillon as Cosmo
- Deborah Goodrich as Belinda
- Christopher Wynne as Georgie
- Frank Beddor as Victor
- Jennifer Tilly as Allegra
- Kaaren Lee as Patricia
- Bert Remsen as Bill Denver
Rating:
In this wonderfully eye-catching meta-film yarn—or should I say, meta-videotape?—Jeff Lieberman stages a nostalgic romp that channels the allegorical sci-fi horror extravaganzas of the 1950s through the golden glow of the ’80s video rental craze. In full command of his pop instincts, cult maverick Jeff Lieberman rolls out a feverish slice of alien conspiracy and analog terror. Kevin Dillon’s Cosmo—part dreamer, part skeptic—works amid the neon hum of an L.A. video store until he’s swept into a strange occult of machines: a television, a VCR, and a videotape whose false façade of 1950s sci-fi whimsy conceals fatal consequence. It’s Ringu before Ringu, wrapped in a rental case. As both a testament to the video rental age and a loving nod to 1950s sci-fi, the film moves with a sharp sense of cultural interplay—refracting McCarthyite hysteria through the glitzy self-assurance of Reagan’s America. It reminds us that social commentary need not come dressed in intellectual jargon. Part satire of nationalism’s fever and part working-class spectacle, it might feel dated today, its finale too whimsical, yet for those who remember the ritual of browsing VHS shelves, it evokes a time when cinephilia felt almost sacred.
