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UNLOCKED BONUS: Burning Paradise Ep. 5 "Class of 1984" · Tales From Aztlantis

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Curly Tlapoyawa, and I love movies.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I spent a good chunk of my childhood being snuck into the drive-in by my parents, where I took in double and triple features of cinematic greatness.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And when movies became available on home video in the 1980s, well, all bets were off.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's no exaggeration to say that my life was largely shaped by movies.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: In 2004, I opened Burning Paradise Video, where I offered a carefully curated selection of independent, foreign, underground, and cult films to the public.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Burning Paradise, my love letter to a bygone era.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Episode 5.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Among the great cinematic achievements of the 1950s are the mini masterpieces known as juvenile delinquency films.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: This underappreciated genre, which includes such greats as High School Caesar and Blackboard Jungle, features slick cautionary tales of youth gone wild, warning us against the perils of drug abuse and violence.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: That fellow you just saw, that's me playing Honey West.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: Age 17, juvenile delinquent.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you might call it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: But to everyone that attends that school is the blackboard younger.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like to tell you about the blackboard younger.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: When I first read this story, I had no idea any story would ever bring such a hellful book to the screen.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: I had no idea I'd just like to do it.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Don't take my word for it.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Neither does this picture.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: For better or worse, the 80s saw a resurgence in this genre, with offerings such as 1987's The Principal starring James Belushi.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: But this latter-day yarn of reactionary violence all but pales in comparison to Mark L.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Lester's incredible Class of 1984.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Perry King of The Day After Tomorrow Fame plays Andrew Norris.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's an uptight and idealistic square who just moved from the Midwest to serve as the new music teacher at the inner city hellhole known as Lincoln High School.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: On his first day, Norris is shocked to see the complete disregard for authority running rampant among the students, standing in disbelief as they pass knives to each other to get around the metal detector at the main entrance.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, poor old Andy has only seen the tip of the iceberg because he soon has a run-in with high school tough guy Peter Stegman, played excellently by Timothy Van Patten and his gang of no good nicks, who've been running an organized crime ring within the halls of the school.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, at first Andy tries to reach out to the little shitheads.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: After discovering that young Stegman is actually a piano prodigy, he resolves to try and set him straight.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in today's sugarcoated lame ass Hollywood formula films, Stegman and his nefarious ilk would see the wrongs of their ways, and Stegman would belt out a bitchin' piano solo at the senior assembly as the music swells and credits roll over a triumphant freeze frame.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Luckily, we're spared such feel-good theatrics and are instead treated to copious amounts of insanity.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So for some strange reason, Norris just can't get it through his thick skull that dope pushing racists might not be model students.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: The poor dumb bastard even goes so far as to confide in fellow teacher Terry Corrigan, played by the always awesome Roddy McDowell, that he thinks Stegman's actually a good kid.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But then Stegman and his gang mutilate Corrigan's biology animals and smear their carcasses all over the school lab.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, great bunch of kids.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: This heinous act pushes Corrigan over the edge, driving him to pull a gun on his class when they won't listen to his pleas for discipline.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: The brain dead principal refuses to lay any blame whatsoever on the students, and Norris starts to come around.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Our hero finally starts to kick ass and take names when Stegman and his cohorts kidnap his wife, initiating a pretty suspenseful game of cat and mouse.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Norris tracks the thugs through the school halls, leading to a dramatic face-off with Stegman.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: So while the drug use, racial tension, and violence depicted in the film must have scared parents shitless back in the day, they're pretty tame in comparison to the realities of our modern world.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Still, the film makes a strong case without becoming all preachy, providing some solid thrills and a little message at the end.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: We also get a young Michael J.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Fox, here just going as Michael Fox, sporting an awful Davy Jones haircut and belting out truly atrocious one-liners.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Summers man, Tuba.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know that's a trumpet.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're all in big trouble.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Trumpet, man, they've been lying to me all these years.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Clarinet Bassoon and Elbow.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I orchestrate?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Anything you don't do?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she don't put out.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: But she conducts a class.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Did you conduct this class?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Shit, we learn more from her than we ever did from old Bad Breath Goldstein.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So my old DVD put out by Anchor Bay did an excellent job on the film transfer.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It provides us with a freshly restored print and a 5.1 surround sound mix.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: The extras include the original trailer, TV spots, and a commentary track by director Mark L.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lester.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So let this be a lesson that when it comes to the option of streaming movies or owning a physical copy of the media, I will always go with owning the physical copies of my favorite films because extras like this is stuff that you just don't get when you're streaming.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Also included is a cool featurette exploring the making of the film and its predictions of school violence.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I suggest watching both this film and its bizarre sci-fi sequel, Class of 1999, in which the teachers are replaced with ass-kicking cyborgs.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: I guess they learned their lesson.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Class of nineteen eighty-four.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: Their only goal is power.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: Their only law is survival.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_04: If you want to survive around here, you have got to look the other way.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_04: Like this.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_04: He's trying to kill me! Somebody's gonna stop this insanity.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: They've gone too far.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_03: Now he's going to give the class of nineteen eighty-four the lesson they deserve.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: Is this the future?