Heartbeeps (1981) - a very late night, unedited waffle about the movie.

Wow. Stunning. Maybe because of the introduction declaring my love for all things shit-film, I then go an watch a shit film that has left me thinking "Thats and hour and ten Im not getting back!"

Having said that, there was something about it. I think it was a combination of the music and the overall feeling of gloom. Let's first give a run down of the film and then I'll explain what it was that I liked about this movie.

The film begins with us seeing the Crimebuster robot freaking out. The Crimebuster looks a bit like a black Dalek, but somehow far shittier looking. Like a black Ford Escort with Dalek modification. For those who have seen it, in Great Yarmouth there is a car that drives round in the summer which is modified to look like a giant clown driving a tiny car. This is like that except not a clown...a black mound.

Anyway, Crimebuster is going mad, shooting at tree stumps and sniffing skunks. Cut to Universal logo.

The film suffers from What-The-Future-Will-Look-Like-From-The-Point-Of-View-Of-Someone-In-The-80s syndrome. There are some robots that look like Johnny-5 sweeping using a broom. They haven't created a automatic hoovering robot, but they'd programmed a shitty metal looking turd to sweep the floor. There are computers everywhere but they look as high tech as the ones in the bank in Ghost. And if you don't get the reference, you are an uncultured swine. I refer to tiny monitors with black backgrounds and green old-skool font.

We're now introduced to Val. He is being driven by Randy Quaid and some old dude to a shelf where he is left awaiting repair. Val is a robot. He has damaged his foot by dropping a bin on it. Nevermind the next hour are spent with him walking across a forest (clearly his ailment is minor). Val doesn't look like the other robots - partially because he is a C-Series (apparently that is a thing) and partly because he is Andy Kaufman doing a Muppet Babies voice. Andy Kaufman got the role because they wanted to see if he would work as a leading man. I felt he faired as well as anyone could, to be fair. In this film Andy looks like a cross between SMart era Mark Speight (RIP) and the singer from Primus in the video to Wynona's Big Brown Beaver.

Whilst on the shelf he meets another malfunctioning robot called Aqua. She talks to him about the beauty of the sunset. He reacts as if he'd never heard anyone state anything but fact before (in spite of previously living with humans) and asks her about beauty and the correct responses to such comments are - I imagine this is what an autistic person has to do, learn standed responses to certain comments. Then, suddenly, they hold hands and then stop again.

They are soon joined by a robot Jew that is stuck telling terrible jokes. This robot is on a box with wheels. His jokes are of a groan/ EH!? GEDDIT! nature. Theyre all shit, but they're all meant to be. A shame really, considering they are the only real jokes in the film.

The robots decide to go and get some data on some trees (WHY?!) so head out on a mission where little happens, and what does seems to be filler (such as Val being attacted by a bear and Phil wanting a helmet). Ah yes, Phil. Phil is a little robot created from Aqua's wiring and Val's circuits (I know this from the lines "He's got your wiring" and "Yes, but he has your circuits"). This is essentially the running joke for the rest of the film - things happen and we're meant to chortle at how similar this is to a parent and their kid. JOKES! LOL!

The films other joke is to fast forward things (why didn't it fast forward the whole thing?). By this I mean the Benny Hill thing but without the music and without anyone laughing. Sped up bear, sped up van, etc. Oh, there is also a scene at a party (I looked away for a second and suddenly the robots are waiting at a party) where there is a girl who looks like a more well covered Lady Gaga. High point of the movie.

Anyway, Randy Quaid and the Crimebuster are out hunting them (the Crimebuster overheard a conversation and took this to mean "go get 'em"). So they're on the run and then they meet some nerds who work on a dump. The nerds save them,  they head back to the factory - heartwarming shit happens (though you'll care so little and it is so badly done you'll literally care more for the fungus growing on your washing up). We then hear that the two robots kept breaking themselves so they were eventually scrapped. Sad. Only, as I've just said, the scrapyard is run by those geeks and all the robots are living happily with the nerds! Great.

Now, all of ^ was shit. However, what I liked was the overall atmosphere. There were shots that lingered too long on nothing happening, to the point you could sense Kaufman was looking about for someone to say "you an say your line now." These lingering shots must have been terrible for Kaufman as he seemed to be told he wasn't allowed to blink (Aqua blinked a lot and they just added a roboty noise over the top). There were a lot of scenes where it was rather dark (except the scene where they search party decide to go home because "it is getting dark" - it was about 3pm by the looks of it). And it is so slow. slow, long shots, in the dark. It just makes me remember that a selection of people made this film and they chose for it to be this way. Add in the slow, electronic music that was someones idea of futuristic music but was actually just very 80s.

Apparently the guy who did the music has done the music or all but 2 of Spielberg's movies, so he is a talented man. The music is not bad in this film. It is just slightly warped with age and very 80s fiilmish. It is also slow. It is rarely comedic. And I think, overall, that is what I liked. It wasn't a comic film. It was a gloomy, lumbering romance between robots. Robots with massive inconsitancies over how human and understanding they were. It is just a horrible, misguided mess or a movie. A dark, bare-minimum plot, 80s mess. With stars. People who read the script and thought "This seems like a worthwhile venture." The film cost $10million to make in 1981. Amazing. More amazingly it made over $2million. It's not amazing that the loss is so big, it is amazing that it ever made $2m. There is no way a trailer could make this look entertaining. It isn't.

So - to clear up - what I like about this film - the way it is a very bleak looking, film with rubbish (special?) effects, with slow eighties music and dialogue made up almost entirely of jargon that the writer didn't understand and words like 'data' and 'compute.'