{"id":13088,"date":"2016-02-16T02:46:24","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T07:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=13088"},"modified":"2016-02-16T02:47:45","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T07:47:45","slug":"bobby-roths-heartbreakers-nick-mancuso-and-the-stuck-betamax-tape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=13088","title":{"rendered":"Bobby Roth’s Heartbreakers, Nick Mancuso, and The Stuck Betamax Tape"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Valentine’s Day now done, it seems appropriate to move from a day of love and devotion to a film about two womanizers who sort of learn that behaving like brats can’t be sustained into full-grown adulthood without consequences.<\/p>\n

\"Heartbreakers1984_poster\"I think every critic has a small collection of films that have yet to migrate to DVD, some archived on long dead formats in home taping jobs, or as actual pre-recorded media.<\/p>\n

Case in point:\u00a0Heartbreakers<\/a><\/strong> (1984).<\/p>\n

Not the 2001 Sigourney Weaver comedy, but the 1984 Bobby Roth drama (with dry comedic touches) which did the rounds on videotape and TV (mostly cable & Pay TV due to its bits of R-rate boobery), and has seemingly vanished from distribution. Orion Pictures<\/a> released this small drama in cinemas, and Vestron Video<\/a> handled the domestic tape distribution on VHS and Betamax.<\/p>\n

Roth’s film stars\u00a0Peter Coyote and Kathryn Harrold, and Canadians Nick Mancuso and Carole Laure, and although not a CanCon production, this marks the second pairing of the latter actors, having appeared in the Quebecois classic\u00a0Maria Chapdelaine<\/strong> a year earlier.<\/p>\n

Because my viewing the film on tape was preceded and followed by a series of classic analogue mishaps (dirty heads from VCR disuse + stuck tape syndrome, or STS), I’ve posted details and stills at my filmmaking blog, Big Head Amusements<\/a>, and made a short cheeky video covering the not-quite delicate extrication of the vintage tape.<\/p>\n

If said Betamax tape could be folded out and flattened like a box to examine its surfaces and sides in fetishistic detail, it would look like this:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Heartbreakers_Beta_tape_composite_flat_mm\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And if said tape sleeve (actually made of cardboard!) could be folded out and flattened, it would look like this:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Heartbreakers_Beta_composite_flat_m\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The shorty-short video, appropriately titled The Stuck Betamax Tape<\/strong> (not to be confused with The Magic Beta Case<\/strong>, another short linked at the end of this prior blog<\/a>), is available on Vimeo and YouTube in 1080p:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Vimeo:<\/p>\n