On Irony and The Alamo Basement

The Alamo Basement has become a bit of an irony hole, hasn’t it? A place for all of us to gather around and chortle at shitty movies and cutesy wink-fests made to send up other shitty movies. We’ve got old commercials that are kind of socially backward; we’ve sometimes got cutesy concessions that go along with the movie—Hawaiian spam pizza, cube gleamers, all sorts of stuff.

It’s been a blast, but I think it might be getting to be a little much. So after next week’s double feature, in which we’re going to follow a good movie with a ridiculous remake, The Alamo Basement is going to go on a temporary irony hiatus.

That doesn’t mean the goofy old commercials and food will go anywhere, and it doesn’t mean that we can never, ever watch Death Wish 3 or some 80s horror movie with a washed out synth score and bad monster masks, but let’s just give it a break for a few weeks to fill up our eye rolling tanks again.

The trailer choices are going to start exploring some other corners of moviedom: horror movies, pretentious shit, westerns, whatever. Sky’s the limit here. And hopefully we can avoid becoming tiresome douchebags who can’t actually enjoy anything, at least for a little bit.

That being said, this week’s movie is The Room.

Look, I said the irony hiatus starts after next week.

With that business out of the way, in celebration of our newly clear eyes, pooping troubadour Michael C. Michael Warren will be putting together a documentary night that’s going to make us all feel totally miserable about being alive!

- Kris

"Gleaming the Cube" (1989)

“The title is skateboarding jargon for reaching the ultimate—which this movie never does.” – Leonard Maltin wagering a guess and sneaking in a burn in The Leonard Maltin Movie Guide.

This week’s movie is Gleaming the Cube the world’s only crime thriller centered around skateboarding. Christian Slater and his frosted blonde hair star as a rebellious young skater who becomes embroiled in a smuggling ring after the mysterious death of his adopted brother.

The film is directed by Australian Graeme Clifford, who worked with Robert Altman on a few movies and directed an episode of “Twin Peaks,” and written by Michael Tolkin, who wrote The Player (hey!), but also Deep Impact and Nine (aww).
 

It’s difficult to tell what to expect from Gleaming the Cube, considering that press on the movie is pretty much limited to a single contemporary Washington Post review. It isn't even available on Netflix. The Post review calls it “ridiculous, but good,” adding that it looks more like an after school special than an actual movie.

The trailer makes it seem like one of a rash of movies from the late 80's that tried to capitalize on a hot new trend, but didn't bother getting bogged down with minor details like "research" or "understanding the culture." Kind of like if The Wizard, but with skateboards instead of power gloves. I suspect that the film is darker than that, though, likely taking itself way more seriously than any movie featuring a young Tony Hawk as a supporting player ever should.

The film opens with a scene that features Slater and his crew radding it up on an active airport tarmac, so if one thing is for certain, Gleaming the Cube should prove to be a ridiculous piece of culture-vomit.

“Gleaming the cube,” by the way, is a term coined by pro skater Garry Davis in a Thrasher magazine interview.

It doesn’t mean anything.

- Kris