DVD Review: The Vice Guide to Travel

By: Lee H | in: General, Movies |

For those unfamiliar with Vice Magazine be forewarned that it’s not for the squeamish or faint of heart. Articles include “How to Do a Homemade Tattoo”, “One Homo’s Guide to Borking Straight Dudes” & “Movies that made us wanna do drugs” Weather you know it or not you’re probably familiar with Vice Records whose roster includes Bloc Party, The Streets, Panther, Charlotte Gainsbourg (Stéphanie from “The Science of Sleep”) and plenty of other great bands. You might even know their books like “The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll” and their “Do’s and Don’t” Dolls but last fall they released their first DVD: The Vice Guide to Travel. It is the first installment of a quarterly DVD magazine. In it the Vice Corespondents travel to all the places we’re told we shouldn’t go. For instance cofounder Shane Smith discuses his trip to Beirut to get footage of the PLO Boy Scouts of Palestine. In the segment we find that most of the suicide bombers are children. Hearing cute 8 year old Palestinian girls and boys singing “The Jews are dogs” and “Die, Israel Die” in their native language with the same tone that a child might sing “Marry Had A Little Lamb” is a bit daunting. It ends with him talking about all this with video director Spike Jones and the both of them are at a lose for words. Shane also visits Bulgaria to discuss Capitalism over Communism with Mr. “Ivanov” (which apparently is like Mr. “Smith” in Bulgaria) and talks about how he sold a Nuclear warhead to the Bin Laden family.

Not all the segments are that serious though. Smith also visits Chernobyl, home to the worst accident ever in the history of nuclear power, to get drunk and hunt mutant animals that supposedly inhabit the woods there.
One of my favorite scenes in when Vice correspondent David Choe travels to the Congo to get a glimpse of Mokele-Mbembe “The last living Dinosaur.” David is in his hotel room playing a tiny drum set (quite well I might add) while 3 naked pigmy women dance on his bed in the nude. The scene has nothing to do with the expedition at all but everything to do with Vice magazine. The extra with David Cross and Gavin McInnes exploring China is worth the price of admission.

For some reason I couldn’t find a DVD that didn’t have German subtitles and there was no way to turn them off. Also, at an hour it was a bit short but for a DVD series that’s forgivable. All in all, if you watch this to actually learn anything about the gun market in Pakistan or to learn about the Slums of Rio you’ll be disappointed and not to mention mislead. You shouldn’t watch this for anything more than entertainment. The Vice Guide to Travel is great for conversation starters and “Holy Shit” moments but not much more. I definitely look forward to the rest of the series.

[Buy The Vice Guide to Travel]

Watch the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUzTzUZEqLw

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Posted on June 5, 2007

Comments

3 Responses to “DVD Review: The Vice Guide to Travel”

Ryan of the RSLMusic Weblog on June 5th, 2007 3:30 am

Where can this be had? That video had the same tone that all the press releases that Vice Records sends to me! Holy Hell! That whole company is bonkers. I want to watch that movie.