Episode #48 -- Videograms of a Revolution

(or: “The Long Finger of Grandpa Andy Stretches Across Many A Pie”)

There isn’t a trailer for the movie, but here’s a good-sized clip to give you a feel for things, at least. Look, we’re doing our best here, alright? Our best, as far as you know? Right?

How much do you know about the revolution that took place in Romania back in 1989? If you’re like us, not much. If you’re unlike us, you know a lot, in which case this episode will probably be mildly to moderately frustrating, which to be honest, sounds like more of a YP, not an OP. Regardless of your levels of familiarity with the aforementioned revolution, what is disputably indisputable is that Videograms of a Revolution is a very compelling video document capturing the revolution, as well as the days leading up to it and the chaos that followed as the leaders of the revolution attempted to keep things from spiraling into even worse chaos. It’s a movie that neither of us had heard of, and if one can reference its web presence as an indicator of the general level of awareness of it among the public, we’re not alone. This is unfortunate, as it is incredibly compelling, really getting right up into the guts of what took place, mixing broadcasts from the main (only?) television station in Romania with handheld footage filmed by those who were close enough to the action and had the foresight to realize the value in having a visual document of what was going on. What it doesn’t offer is much background information on the events leading up to the revolution, but that’s what we have Wikipedia for these days, so we would highly encourage anyone even remotely interested to check out this page for some important context. At the risk of spoiling the contents of that page, we’ll just say that Nicolae Ceaușcescu was a real fucking piece of shit, and he deserved everything that he got.

We also briefly mention the movies Madeline’s Madeline and Sorry to Bother You in this episode, and both are very good movies, for very different reasons. You may have seen trailers for Sorry to Bother You when it was out in the theaters, and if they didn’t entice you to watch the movie nothing would, but we would just like to say that we thought it was fantastic. Madeline’s Madeline didn’t get quite the same amount of exposure, but it is also really fucking good, and we would encourage everyone to at least watch the following trailer— it’s not going to sell everyone on the movie, but if you watch this and think that it might be up your alley, trust us: it definitely is, if only because of how amazing a job Helena Howard does at at playing an incredibly complex role in it: