John G. Avildsen, “The Karate Kid Trailer” (1984)

In trying to describe how deeply affecting “The Karate Kid” was for me as a young boy, I come up short. Yes, it’s now an obvious cable-TV Sunday afternoon snoozer, a mainstream by-the-numbers whatever. But in its time, “The Karate Kid” demolished the universe as I understood it and refashioned it anew. In the world of Daniel LaRusso, wimps blossomed into heroes, obsessives found redemption, blonde bullies were humiliated, and eccentric role models provided arcane gateways into unexpected enlightenment.

I first saw “The Karate Kid” on a rainy night in a tiny theatre in the town of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, accompanied by my older sister and a few other kids around our age. The film was rated PG-13, so we did what was apparently then a common trick of soliciting a random adult on the sidewalk to pose as our parent. Thinking back, that was a weird scenario, though one we and this anonymous adult then apparently took as par for the course. But those were different times.

John G. Avildsen, “Mr. Miyagi Lesson 1: Wax On, Wax Off” (1984)

And in the way that time operates differently when you are young, the movie itself seemed ten hours long and massively epic in all respects. And at the movie’s finale, the entire audience of about maybe three dozen rose and applauded. Yes, in a bumpkin town in Scotia on a soggy weeknight, we cheered in earnest as credits rolled the names of humans we were never to meet, never know. Those were different times.

Recently I was made aware of a strange artifact: an alternate version of the film, pretty much in its entirety, as recreated via videotaped (oh, videotape! then so new and modern!) footage of rehearsals, test scenes, etc. put together by its creators, presumably overseen by some production assistant, likely un/underpaid:

John G. Avildsen, “Karate Kid Rehearsal Movie: Pt. 1” (1983)

To view something so embedded in one’s consciousness, its narrative brought to life in the misty strains of nostalgia and gilded youth, yet in this version completely different — reconfigured both in style and delivery, a parallel universe — is to flirt with the uncanny. It’s the revisionism of popular culture approaching the level of trauma. It’s also compelling from a strictly cinephilic standpoint: viewing the scrappy makings of what would emerge as a pretty slick movie, with some memorable and irony-free performances by hard-working, cool young actors in a story that bludgeons every possible resonance without ever quite wading too deep into the maudlin or hokey. For me today, an adult both harder and softer, the “rehearsal version” is actually, in some distanced ways, a more pleasurable watch than the “real” movie.

John G. Avildsen, “Karate Kid Rehearsal Movie: Pt. 13” (1983)

And it’s sort of a mindfuck if you’re a fan. But that’s what makes the vast and ruthless cataloguing reach of the internet, and YouTube in particular, so wonderful and alluring — and, often, kind of upsetting: knowing even more about the things that have made you know what you know.

I sincerely hope kids today don’t take their culture, their “things,” for granted — that, even glutted with the greatnesses of convenience and digital glitz, they remain capable of being swept away in the enjoyment of things as fiercely as us kids so devotedly adored a thing like “The Karate Kid.” Wax on, you kids.

- Rob Benvie

Someday our world will end.

This prospect is chilling, and yet also sort of hot. Time is running out: seize the day, you foxy bitch. This may be the last time we knock boots—or anyone knocks boots—ever again. That student loan debt? That exercise regimen you’ve failed to maintain? That nagging sensation that the person you should be is not the person you’ve become, and that you’ve failed in your basic obligations as a determined, sentient, able human being? Who cares. It’s all finito. Let ‘er rip.

Nicholas Meyer, “The Day After” (1983)

Boner-ified yet? Consider: the prophet Daniel experienced his visions of the world’s rapturous end during an extended delirium of fasting. And skinny people, as we know, are hot. The lingo of John of Patmos’s Revelation returns almost annoyingly to images of “unveiling” and “revealing.” That’s some maximum jizzage right there.

Arousing stuff. Let us all be whores of Babylon, with all the “filthiness of her fornication,” possessed with the urge to pound one another like bonobo monkeys on jello shooters. The atmosphere fills with ash and aerosol and all sorts of cosmic shit. The heart races. Genital tissue engorges. Assuming, of course, we actually know what’s impending and when. Maybe it happens in a flash, leaving us unprepared, flaccid and regretful. Timing is everything; see: “whiskey dick.”

When apocalypse unfolds there will be no more longing, with nothing to long for. Our fantasies will not be of lovers to come, but only to lovers to come into/upon. In the great dissolution of the world there is nothing petit about this mort. In terminus we will judged not by the robustness of our portfolios, or the bulleted entries of our CVs, but by our general vibe, our virility, our sexiness. Sweaty and clenched, the world will heave, grunt, and blow the fuck up.

- Rob Benvie

Nazim Tulyakhodzhayev, “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1984)

This beautifully melancholy 1984 adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains” was created by Soviet animation studio Uzbekfilm. Though the parents and children of the house are now dust, their affectionate robotic appliances live on, carrying out their duties unabated.

Michael Haneke, “The Seventh Continent” (1989)

The family in Haneke’s “The Seventh Continent” also robotically performs domestic chores. However, theirs are not duties of household maintenance, but of self-annihilation. Only the destruction of an exotic fish tank interrupts their cool, measured destruction.

Michael Haneke, “The Seventh Continent” (1989)

Apparently test audiences were most deeply appalled at the sight of fistfuls of cash being flushed down the toilet. Spoiler alert: things don’t end well.

Harold Ramis, “National Lampoon’s Vacation” (1983)

It always seemed to me the underlying tension of “National Lampoon’s Vacation” was not in the Griswolds’ MacGuffin-esque desire to reach Walley World, or even in the fraying of Clark Griswold’s sanity through such a quest. The Griswolds indicate the fracturing of an ideal, a familial grotesquerie filtered through the shittiness of commodified, highwayed America (it is not insignificant that Clark brings home the bacon as a “food additives researcher”).

Lesser sequels undermine this gut-wrenching, though hilarious, depiction of domestic decay, a family as a dispersing cosmos. The Griswolds are doomed.

- Rob Benvie

Rock music in a live setting derives its might from volume – the movement of wind, the blare of jacked amps. Its power is in its effect—that cliché that finds us in ‘the moment.’ In that exchange between crowd and performer, something uniquely stirring occurs. We as audience bear witness.

Televised rock typically does not favour such an experience. While TV may have created many pivotal moments in music history — “The Ed Sullivan Show” was a big part of sculpting twentieth century rock’s trajectory, and shows like “Saturday Night Live” and “Top of the Pops” boast bountiful archives of thrills — it too often gives us promos, mere glimpses of the genuine article.

The Smiths, “William, It Was Really Nothing” (TOTP, 1984)

Punk rock is a unique beast. Punk is, or should be, about defiance, not finesse and digestibility. Winding it up and letting go on a directorial cue is antithetical to its purposes. The band that howls onstage will find its voice muted in the studio setting.

Hüsker Dü, “Could You Be the One” (Joan Rivers Show, 1987)

The mandate falls upon any contender worth its salt to subvert such occasions. One solution is total sabotage: spew the chaos into the living rooms of the masses.

John Joseph remembers the “Fear” appearance on “SNL” in 1981

“SNL” is notoriously protective of how its footage ends up online, but you can view Fear’s actual performance here — mediocre band, great TV.

Or you can take the piss out of the whole farce of performance. “Top of the Pops” was widely criticized for its longstanding insistence on backing tracks and ‘miming’ (as the union deemed it), but adherence to recorded versions is completely in line with its celebration of singles and ‘number ones’ over any spontaneous ripping-up-of-shit.

Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (TOTP, 1991)

Punk is, of course, deeply invested in image, or anti-image, or anti-anti-image. Such vexations can make for thrilling television, especially in the context of a squaresville institution like “American Bandstand.”

Public Image Ltd., “Poptones” and “Careering” (American Bandstand, 1980)

In the hands of an unskilled engineer, even the mightiest band, isolated and exposed, will sound like ass through TV speakers; rockers everywhere fear the dreaded “board tape”: a mix of midrange-y hi-hat and warbly backing vox. Sometimes, however, the wimp-ification of television sonics lends a certain charm.

X, “Hothouse” (David Letterman Show, 1984)

Or maybe suck is just suck, punk cred or otherwise.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, “I Get Around” (2005)

- Rob Benvie