Angst

(2000)

Johnny Moronic's comments:

I've been putting this off for ages, but it's time to head into the back catalogue and unearth some VHS-only titles of (mostly) Australian films that most likely will never make it to DVD. The technology has gotten to the point where VHS is near DVD quality (depending on the quality of the tape), so why not find some long-lost titles.

Angst is a 2000 Australian slacker comedy about three people who share a house in Sydney. Dean works at a video store and is writing horror movie screenplay as life passes him by. Ian works at a King's Cross sex shop as a failed stand-up comedian. Jade (Jessica Napier) is unemployed with not much going on except trying to dump her ever persistent boyfriend. All are about to have small life-changing moments that will help them get out of their ruts. Dean meets May (Abi Tucker), a goth, who helps him move on from his previous girlfriend. Ian goes to a party of his old school buddy Barnesy, who convinces him to give stand-up one more try. Jade takes a (non-sexual) liking to Mole, a teenage junkie who Jade convinces the boys to take in after Mole fails to rob the sex store where Ian works and tries to help Mole out, even after he steals their precious VCR. Very much of the time, Angst may only be 11 years old, but it feels like a relic and I should know, I was these characters 11 years ago (still am to a certain extent). While it's incredibly easy to see it's influences even without watching the movie, some of those even feel passé. I think it's a film very much of it's time and even the slacker genre has moved on from this, not much mind you, it's still obsessed with marijuana, just less obsessed with pop culture as slackers of the 90s were/still are. An OK film with some funny moments, but feels dated. And the two lead male actors have barely worked in film/TV since (although one is a mainstay of slightly comic ads). And I've always had a thing for Abi Tucker, there's that I s'pose. There's a interesting moment (that only I could appreciate) where one character looks at an internet dating site called 'Love Bytes' and all I could think of is that lost cable mini-series from the early 2000s that I've been trying to find called... Love Bytes, starring... Abi Tucker.

I first capped Angst in early 2002, actually it's the first film I capped with my own video tuner, back in the days when at full size I could only cap at 5 frames per second and the largest size I could get at full frame rate was 480x360, but only on good days. I've been itching for a belated DVD release anywhere since, but it doesn't seem to likely to ever happen, so I did the next best thing. The quality of the videos could easily pass for 'DVD quality', but it's straight from a VHS of the movie, which is something new I'm still trying out. I have a few Australian titles that I've been looking for that are not out on DVD anywhere in the world and would appear to be lost in the vault buried under an ocean. Some titles are of 'DVD quality', others I have are barely passable, so I might not make collages of them. Some titles even have absolute shitloads of nudity. I'll try to release them regularly, usually under the weekend Australian Classics label, but I also have a number of DVDs of Australian films (and TV) I've got to get to as well.

Abi Tucker film clips. Collages below.