I only just got hit over the head with a shovel with the understanding that subconsciously (or not), Streets of Fire is responsible for atleast 80% of my sentimental education. I tend to attribute the remaining 20% to Roxanne and Some Kind of Wonderful, depending on the mood. If my idea of romance is - to this day - imagining someone walking around wearing a sullen (or mopey, or brooding) expression and suddenly bursting into song trying to lure in their humble abode beautiful strangers as sullen mopey and brooding, that’s its fault. Not Romance & Cigarettes’. No.
On a side note - how cute and totally adorable were these trailers? How totally clueless were we, the viewers? In that these things were 2 and a half minutes long on average and were basically *the* movie, the whole story condensed, often with full fledged spoilers and all that jazz. Little did we knew, at the time: we could have kept our 7000 lire, or whatever the ticket cost, and waited it out until a BluRay edition came out, twenty five years later. What? No BluRay edition? Bummer.
So, we’re here, twenty five years later. I still love how this movie has it all. A desperate marketing move or just the Reagan-induced hallucinations of a whole nation, it is difficult to say. But do follow me when I point out that Streets of Fire is
- Purple Rain, with a lot more pussy
- The Warriors, with a love story
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with a lot less make-up (hello, Willem Defoe!)
- Gremlins, without the Gremlins
plus,
- For unknown reasons Rick Moranis seems taller for at least half of the movie (the second ever case of cinematography payola, everybody. The first being Humphrey Bogart’s in The Big Sleep. For everything in between, hell I was distracted by the Looney Tunes. Now shut up)
- This is the first lesbian flick I ever saw where lesbians are completely absent (Amy Madigan: you don’t call, you don’t write and you certainly are not preserved in carbonite. Couldn’t you just do what Diane Lane did? or Han Solo?)
- For years I believed Dan Hartman was an African-American. The real Millo Vanillo!
- And just how priceless is the evoking of Stevie Nicks throughout the movie - not just the musical numbers? Although she did write “Sorcerer”, and just the title was in retrospect a dead giveaway, Stevie seems to have inspired the costumes, the hairdos, even the Lindsay Buckingham lookalikes (yes Willem Defoe, I’m still talking to you. but also Michael Pare).
- Still speaking of soundtracks: a wall of shame for Ry Cooder. Or maybe not? Doh, there’s even Lee Hazlewood! Turns out this is an indie flick and we didn’t realize ‘til it was already too late and it infected our DNAs. Epic win, as they say.
Trailer for Bruce McDonald’s Hard Core Logo starts easy enough. You get a minute of faux-Rattle and Hum band life in slow motion, with the obligatory dreamy/moody voiceovers. Then you get to that ’90s staple, the fasterfasterfaster montage of random shots. And then, well, you die.
Final title card notwithstanding, it looks like it tries to disguise the film’s mockumentary nature (whose own volatile, in-your-face approach becomes very aggressive past the 50-minute mark). But it might just be a sendup of the rock documentary as a genre.
Still, the online love surrounding HCL made it essential viewing for many - and it’s been hard to find for a looooong time, thanks to Quentin Tarantino acting like Daddy Champion Of the Film and then never bothering to give it a proper release. God bless Amazon.ca.
Random wisdom from YouTube commentators: “i forgot about this movie!”
The backstory for Berry Gordy’s Mahogany is probably more captivating than the final product. From the firing and/or death of multiple directors, to the bunch of not-so-veiled references to star Diana Ross’ relationship with producer/suitcase pimp Gordy, to the signals that point to co-star Anthony Perkins’ offscreen struggle with homosexuality - if all that were the case, it would make for an extraordinary case of Unintentional Metafuckery.
Still.
Movie’s supposed to be a mishmash between two semi-genres, “good girl gone bad” and “rags to mega riches”, and the video trailer is pretty straightforward on both counts: premise (check), clothes (check), fame (check), creepy dude (check), palace of excess (check), big redemption (check).
If this montage is to be believed, the overall look of the picture is aptly represented too.
Italian fans are sweet on the car crash scene (check), which presents an empty Rome tangenziale at dawn as the death pit of doom.
Following Dreamgirls’ release, Mahogany was maybe made available on DVD, but not a single seed is to be found on torrents. So I guess I’ll never know.
Blogger and single mom Dolores Point Five has seen the whole thing, says that it’s “wack as fuck”.
