Special Edition!
Revolutions Per Movie:
Host Chris Slusarenko (Eyelids, Guided By Voices, owner of Clinton Street Video rental store) is joined by actors, musicians, comedians, writers & directors who each week pick out their favorite music documentary, musical, music-themed fiction film or music videos to discuss. Fun, weird, and insightful, Revolutions Per Movie is your deep dive into our life-long obsessions where music and film collide.
Patreon:
The Revolutions Per Movies Patreon is where you can get weekly bonus episodes and exclusive programs like Metal Machine Mind Meld where I talk to guests about subjects ranging from fear of technology to Blue Oyster Cult, all while listening to Lou Reed’s punishing noise masterpiece Metal Machine Music, or Coffee With Krummenacher—a deep dive into the life of Camper Van Beethoven’s Victor Krummenacher where we discuss everything in his wild life including the genesis of Camper and the night they backed Tiny Tim, and A Very Opinionated Look At Urgh! A Music War—a story in 34 bands (where we dissect the iconic movie band by band from The Police to XTC from Wall of Voodoo to Joan Jett and even Invisible Sex) with Chaki The Funk Wizard. You also get an incredible full-color vinyl sticker designed by My Metal Hand & an exclusive hand-numbered and signed Revolutions Per Movie membership card in which I will assign you your very own exclusive music movie spirit animal. Will you get Stop Making Sense, Rock N’ Roll High School, or Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls?…no two are alike.
New episodes are released every Thursday and are available on any podcast app.
Bonus Patreon episodes are released on Sunday (patreon.com/revolutionspermovie)
@revolutionspermovie, X, Bluesky
WatchThisPDX: Are you originally from Portland?
Chris: I moved here when I was two and I’ve been here except for going away to college. Everything I’ve done has always been very Portland centric. One of my first jobs out of college was at the Northwest Film Center. I worked in the education department repairing equipment, helping people sign up for classes, and stuff like that. I also got into every single movie theater for free.
WatchThisPDX: Living the dream.
Chris: Yeah! And there were so many cool little indie theaters, like the Guild and the Movie House. And that’s all I did, seven nights a week I went to different movies. One night I’d go and see Cassavetes’s Husbands at Cinema 21 and then Office Killer at the Guild. It was a really amazing lesson in terms of devouring film.
WatchThisPDX: Sounds like a lot of Portland movie theaters have disappeared.
Chris: A ton of them. There were at least six or seven downtown that are gone. Some of them were quirky. At the Movie House you’d go in and there would be all these chess boards and love seats in the theater. It was really kind of falling apart. But that’s where you’d go to see Tampopo. And it just felt really alive. Movies would sell out and play forever if they just caught on. You would just go see stuff regardless of whether you knew what it was.
WatchThisPDX: I feel like that’s almost gone now because of how so many of these theaters have disappeared, where you would just go and see something because you trusted the programmer. Not to mention the lack of repertory programming.
Chris: Totally. Cinema 21 originally had these calendars that would put on your wall. So, you would know that on Monday it would be something by Fellini, on Tuesday it would be Cassavetes night. It was amazing how Tom Ranieri, who has been programming there since the early 80s, had those printed up and mailed out every month. I was lucky to grow up in the late 80s and early 90s in the American indie boom. It was a fun time to just devour movies like She’s Gotta Have it and Strangers in Paradise in real time.
WatchThisPDX: There must have been something so satisfying about having that physical calendar and marking off what you were going to go see.
Chris: Yes, it was that joy of discovery that led me to opening Clinton Street Video.
WatchThisPDX: When did the store open?
Chris: It was when Blockbuster and Hollywood Video were coming in and putting all the independent stores out of business. We couldn’t get a business loan because there was a moratorium on lending to anyone opening a video store because they were just dying. We maxed out our credit cards and began stockpiling stuff in our house until we got the space that we wanted, which was on Clinton Street. It felt like a neighborhood and it’s just one block of businesses in a giant residential area. I remember the first time I went to the Clinton Street Theater to see The Man Who Fell to Earth and was like, lost. A movie theater in the middle of a neighborhood? It was charming! 22 years was enough (the store closed in 2018). I had really loyal, incredible employees.
WatchThisPDX: Did you have a collection of films, or rarities that you were especially proud of?
Chris: The music section. It was my pride and joy. I felt like a lot of video stores didn’t really go too deep into that stuff. I miss having the store sometimes, and I miss being a video bartender. I miss talking to people about films.
WatchThisPDX: Is that why you started the podcast?
Chris: Yeah. I wanted to talk about music films and documentaries. I would be on tour with my band and would not stop talking about films that other people in the band hadn’t seen. I’d go, oh my god, you have to see it! This is incredible.
WatchThisPDX: I don’t watch a lot of music documentaries, so I really appreciate your podcast. It gives me a list of new things to check out, movies I didn’t know existed like the Nancy Sinatra special—Moving’ With Nancy. I was listening to your Duran Duran episode and had no idea they made so many weird, high budget videos. You started describing the video for “Night Boat” and it’s all a reference to Zombie 2. So, I paused and had to watch it. It’s an incredible video!
Chris: The cool thing is that my guests are picking that subject matter, so for that Duran Duran one with Annie Zaleski—she was the author of the 33 1/3 book on the band and to just have her energy and knowledge sucks you in. She had me watch things I hadn’t seen. That’s the fun of it! People are picking what resonates with them and just share it. It’s infectious. Some of the episodes can be serious like the Sisters with Transistors one, and some can be totally weird like the Movin’ With Nancy with Julie Klausner. It’s fun to see where people want to go with it.
WatchThisPDX: Do you have any parameters for the movies your guests pick?
Chris: It just has to be about music. It can be a documentary, narrative, music videos, whatever. I’ve had people come on and talk about Velvet Goldmine and The Wall. I have a Patreon episode coming up that’s all about the marriage of music videos and wrestling.
WatchThisPDX: What are you watching?
Chris: Dolly Parton did these videos with Hulk Hogan and Phil Collins was doing stuff with the Ultimate Warrior and you were like, why did this happen? What did people think of it? What’s it like to the wrestling fans and the rock fans, what do they care about? I have a guest today that pitched talking about a documentary that doesn’t exist about one of their favorite bands because it’s a documentary they’d like to see.
WatchThisPDX: What else is coming up?
Chris: Andy Zax picked this film called The Phynx. It’s about the government creating a garage band in the late 60s to rescue Colonel Sanders, Busby Berkeley, and The Dead End kids. It’s about how the counterculture is so bad, and we watched it and it’s horrible! Andy had some great insights into it, but it was slow and tedious.
WatchThisPDX: I just want to circle back to this because I can’t get it out of my head, but you mentioned earlier that there are videos with Hulk Hogan and Dolly Parton?
Chris: Let me find it! It’s for the Patreon. Colette Arrand suggested it.
WatchThisPDX: Colette from The Best Show!
Chris: Yeah! Colette works for Merge Records. She’s a poet and a writer and has been involved with the independent wrestling scene for years. One of her books is called Hold Me Gorilla Monsoon. She sent me five videos about wrestling and rock—one called “Headlock on My Heart” which was part of a Dolly Parton variety show from the 80s. She made this video where she imagines that’s she’s going to marry Hulk Hogan.
WatchThisPDX: Who wouldn’t want to marry a guy who looks like he’s made out of hot dogs.
Chris: And in the video, he’s wrestling under the name Starlight Starbright or something, one of the worst wrestling names you can imagine. Dolly fantasizes about being in his arms and it’s probably one of the worst songs she’s ever done. It showed the power of where wrestling was and how present it was in pop culture at the time.
WatchThisPDX: We’re running out of time, but I want to ask about Clinton Street Video before we go. I was reading an old Willamette Week article about the store that said Clinton Street Video was consistently voted as having the best customer service in terms of recommendations. It referenced a guy coming in and asking for recommendations based on his mood and he left the store with Hacksaw Ridge and Robocop. My question for you is what kind of mood was this guy in?
Chris: I didn’t do that one! You can spin a wheel and find out what mood that is. I had gone to famous video stores like Kim’s Video in New York, and they would be nice to me because I could speak the “movie” language, but then I would see them just destroy someone who had come in after me, just being snobs. I wanted to make my store a place where people could rent or ask whatever questions they wanted. Plus, their business let me put obscure movies that no one would never want on my shelves. I had employees that didn’t come from film backgrounds but were amazing customers. They all worked for 18 – 20 years! I always felt like I was learning. We had a closing party at the Clinton Street Theater, and it meant a lot to me to see all these people who cared about the store. I was lucky to do this what the people I had.
WatchThisPDX: We don’t realize how important spaces like that are, especially with streaming services taking things down constantly.
Chris: Yeah. There are so many boutique DVD and Blu-ray companies right now that are putting out so many movies that were gone.
WatchThisPDX: Well, thank you for your time! We didn’t even get to talk about your band!
Chris: Next time! See you around town.
Before we go, I just want to add that Chris’s band Eyelids is great and has made some terrific music videos. Check those out here. Regular newsletter out Friday! And if you’re a Portland filmmaker, programmer, or whatever with something to promote email me at Watchthispdx@gmail.com.