Track for June 27, 2025

"CD Repo Man" by The Aquabats!

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What song do you associate with your favorite book or movie?

The Aquabats are such an interesting ska band and I'm happy they're still around today. If I recall correctly, this debut album features a lot of references to the movie Repo Man (1984) by Alex Cox starring Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton. It's the kind of movie that captures a lot of the absurdity of the American people, the punk scene, and sure, aliens.

There's this quote from Roger Ebert's review that is sticking out to me today, after having just watched Paris Texas that also came out the same year:

> Repo Man comes out of left field, has no big stars, didn't cost much, takes chances, dares to be unconventional, is funny, and works. There is a lesson here. > > — Roger Ebert, January 1, 1984

While I agree that this is typically the best formula for making a good movie, it's funny to hear that Harry Dean Stanton was not a big star. That might be true, but looking at his filmography I'd hardly say his resume wasn't pretty impressive as he was in Cool Hand Luke, The Godfather 2, and Farewell My Lovely. And that's just the movies I've seen that he was in prior to 1984. I also couldn't tell you that I remember him from any of those movies though, but it's been a minute since I've seen them too.

Ugh. Fuckin' death. Don't die ok?