Thursday, November 08, 2012

'Streets of Fire' (1984)


Missed this one when it came out. Trying to be an artsy action pic? (It’s been described as a feature-length music video.) I think I see everything that’s wrong with it but like it anyway. (I don’t think it’s ironic hipster satire. Amy Madigan as the ’80s-coiffed cardboard-butch sidekick – like Athena to Michael Paré’s Ulysses? – didn’t work.) Classic cars, fights, a badboy hero and 19-year-old Diane Lane. (Rick Moranis is the comic relief.) It helps that I like the ’80s music in it. Surreal with deliberate anachronisms mixing the golden and modern eras, like sci-fi’s Dark City but without an explanation; just an alternative world or 1984 as I would have liked it, with ’50s noir and cars, or the Sixties never happened. (Sort of like Havana.) Like Moulin Rouge; you either love it or hate it? (I loved Moulin Rouge.) I like Michael Paré, the anachronisms and clichés of Eddie and the Cruisers notwithstanding (Springsteen/E Street Band look- and soundalikes in ’63: no), for his starring role in the time-travel film The Philadelphia Experiment (based on the legend of a destroyer escort briefly disappearing in a WWII electronic-force-field cloaking experiment).



1 comment:

  1. OMG - Streets of Fire is an exciting, rockin' pic. Great visuals. I've seen it about 5 times. It's kind of dated now I suppose. But still worth seeing for the acting and cinematography.

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