VHYes

'VHYes' first came onto my radar last year when it received a lot of positive feedback at Fantastic Fest. It didn't sound particularly like my type of movie, so it took me a while to get arounds to seeing it. I only had time for a short runtime film tonight and at only 72 minutes 'VHYes' fit the bill perfectly. I will always be a person who enjoys a film with more of a narrative, but I was certainly able to appreciate 'VHYes' for what it was. There is some very clever and well edited humour in this film.

Considering the amount of ideas this film tries out its actually quite astonishing how many of them work. Some don't, but that is okay because they never last particularly long. The biggest stand out for me was Kerri Kenney. She was hilarious. Also her 'Reno 911' cast mate Thomas Lennon was in fine form. They're so great in off-beat comedies.

I think the short runtime was a good decision for the film. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I probably would have started to get sick of it pretty quickly had it run much longer. There are some fun cameos to look out for too, so keep your eyes open.

I can't really call this a movie, in the common sense. Sure you'll see some semi-recognizable faces who have held smaller parts across many comedy shows and movies, most notably a few cast members from Reno 911, but there is not a straight forward narrative here. Instead we have more of an anthology of faux-public access and infomercial skits (think Tim & Eric Awesome Show) specifically created and filmed deliberately in amateur style under the pretense that a young boy recorded these bits of cheesy TV over a VHS tape that was originally once reserved for his parents' 1987 wedding footage. You'll see classic clips of horribly acted 80's porn (the story scenes), exaggerated jazzercize infomercials, the blue vertically scrolling preview channel, absurd advertisements, boring public access programs about rock bands and conspiracies, knock-off Antiques Roadshow and HSN bits, and peppered in between all of this you have quick shots of the kid's parents' wedding video and times where him and his friend were messing with the camcorder during sleepovers. Everything is pretty convincing here and as an 80s/90s kid myself, I appreciate the authenticity. This is a love letter to a certain kind of person, of a certain age, with a certain sense of humor. If you get it, you really get it. If you don't, then you just weren't the target audience. This film is like one endless inside-joke, and it's absolutely brilliant for what it is.

Directed by Jack Henry Robbins. He is the son of Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.

VHYes is some ways wants to be a nostalgic smorgasboard of late night 1980s television as well showing how camcorders became the precursor of found footage movies.

It is Christmas Day 1987. 12 year old Ralph gets a camcorder as a present and mistakenly uses his parents wedding video tape to record life as he sees it as well as various things on the television.

So you see snippets of shopping channels, learn how to paint shows and even some risque stuff.

It is meant to be an affectionate parody and comes across as zapping through the tv channels at great speed.

However this kind of spoofing was done better in something like Kentucky Fried Movie. Here as I am not American some of it just went over my head. Even If I was American, I doubt I would still find it funny.

Weird is the only word i can think of. not really a movie... just weird clips. the painter lady scares me a little

2.7

I came to find out it's just a patchwork of the filmmaker's short films, which I think is slightly lazy.

Annoying anachronistic detail: One vignette features a painting of Dennis Rodman in his red #91 jersey. This film is supposed to be take place in 1987. Dennis Rodman wasn't even playing for the Bulls as #91 until 1995. Again, pretty lazy filmmaking in my opinion.

As a fan of vintage video technology, especially VHS, and the culture VHS birthed in the 80's, I found this film rather insulting.