This movie had so many things going for it. I think the main problem might be how the script is stupid in a really distinctly awful way. There are these moments that feel like it was supposed to be a vehicle to launch Rick Dees? But by making him seem like a manic cartoon. It really reads like live action cartoons. And like I said, great cast. No fault to the cast and crew and hard working people that made this but dang. What a mess. Also we love and respect Frank Gorshin but damn he chews up scenery here like he hasn't eaten in weeks. THEN GALLAGHER SHOWS UP like whaaaaaat are you even talking about but it was just clearly fueled by tons of terrible drugs that made people feel a very false sense of confidence and belief in this script and it's execution. Oh Ed Begley Jr. Is in this and he's awesome and it's crazy because he's deep in a real character and everyone else is serving ham at 11 like weirdly horny and everyone is on a different level. The director like maybe had something going on in their personal life and weren't keeping their eye on the ball for any sense of consistency in the performances. Which is, again, infuriating because of how interesting and genuinely good the cast is. Also the racial and sexual stereotypes have aged super poorly but no shock there. Being super weirdly racist and homophobic was pretty standard in lowbrow comedies of the era. In every scene, every single character is as loud and weird and sleazy as humanly possible and by halfway through the film my brain has melted. It boggles the mind that at no point in the pre-release of this film not one person said,"maybe we should wait for the drugs to wear off and watch this again."

I mainly watched this film to see Kinky Friedman who is a character of legend in Texas. And an interesting dude. Let me tell you he is the most normal and grounded part of the carnival of madness that is this film. The echo-amplified voice of Rick Dees reverberates through this film like the shrieks of the faithful as the sept exploded per Cersei's orders. Where was I? Oh yes. This movie kind of sucks in a bad-horny way but suffers from a weak script and absent direction wasted on an icon like Ruth Buzzi. We forever stan RB. Also I'm not saying don't watch this movie. Just go into it knowing how much better it could have been and tell me you're not like dayumm. Okay thanks for reading.

Record City is no High Fidelity, Empire Records, or even FM. Not even Trax in Pretty In Pink. Nope, Record City is a huge story filled with way too many people that all meander around with no story whatsoever, but if you're interested in film as time capsule of an era, this is certainly one worth opening and looking inside.

DJ Gordon Kong (Rick Dees, the creator of "Disco Duck," which along with "Dr. Disco" appear in Saturday Night Fever; Dees also wrote the theme for Meatballs, plus hosted Solid Gold and the late night show Into the Night Starring Rick Dees) has a fake gorilla arm and is hosting a talent show in the parking lot while we watch the records get sold inside.

This is an American-International Picture, believe it or not, but it comes at the end of a great run. Get ready for 1978's best - or worst depending on your point of view - cast, replete with pop culture bit players, the kind we love most around here. There's Jeff Altman, two years away from The Pink Lady and Jeff (the kind of culture clash that we really would write about if we covered television series, as an engineer. Altman's in a ton of stuff that I love, like American Hot Wax and Easy Money, as well as some stuff I downright hate like Wacko and Highlander II: The Quickening. Familiar faces include Ed Begley Jr., Sorrell "Boss Hogg, but he's also in Devil Times Five" Booke, Ruth Buzzi, Pittsburgh native Frank Gorshin, Ted "Isaac the Bartender" Lange, Gallagher, Harold "Oddjob" Sakata, Larry Storch, Tim Thomerson and Wendy Schall (who is in everything from Innerspace to Creature, Munchies, The 'Burbs and Small Soldiers; you'll also recognize her voice as Francine on American Dad).

But the film excels at presenting those on the fringes of relevance, even in 1978. Like Dean Martin's dancing uncle Leonard Barr. Sylvia Anderson, who was in She Devils In Chains, Angels' Brigade and Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. John Halsey, who was Barry Wom in The Ruttles. PSA star Joe Higgins. Russell Howard, a skateboarder who also ends up in two Andy Sidaris movies, Hard Ticket to Hawaii and Seven. Nadejda Dobrev from Ed Wood's Orgy of the Dead. Alan Oppenheimer, the voice of Skeletor, Man-At-Arms, Beastman, Cringer, Inch High Private Eye, Vanity Smurf and more. Alice Ghostley (Bernice from Designing Women and Mrs. Murdock in Grease). Tony Giorgio, Satan in Night Train to Terror! March 1974 Playboy Playmate of the Month Pamela Zinszer. And weirdest of all, one-time leader "The Texas Jewboys," writer Kinky Friedman.

I can't stop you from checking this out for yourself. I can only tell that this is a total mess. But sometimes, those are the movies we love best, right?