52 Pick-Up #12 – Streets of Fire (1984)

Man, where is the time going?

Welcome back for another round of 52 Pick-Up as I come to the close of the third month in this year long bid in the films that have been kicking around my 'I'll Get To It At Some Point' list. As March winds down, I come to a title that's been on the list for a while now.

And damn, do I regret sleeping on this one.

So, let's close out with Streets of Fire.

I'll start by saying it – this movie broke me in a way. As I've gotten older, there are certain phrases in describing films I have tried to strike from my vocabulary. This can be for any number of reasons from being overused or misused or just presented in bad faith.

One I have actively avoided for years is 'they don't make them like this anymore.' In this case, I will break and admit it – movies like Streets of Fire don't get made anymore. Or if they do, they certainly aren't at the level of weirdo ambition that Hill gets away with here on the back of his success from 48 Hours.

It's a mash-up of neon, biker gangs, a larger than life hero figure, a city that seems to be its own separate reality, all wrapped up in a rock and roll musical, populated with a murderer's row of a cast. It's the kind of style and genre mash-up that can be best represented by the famous multi-car pileup at the end of The Blues Brothers.

Let me be clear – this is a plus for me. For as strange as this combination is on paper, and I know it won't work for everyone, this one hit a spot for me I didn't know needed scratching.

For a description that gives this a little more of a 'what even is this' – the movie takes place in a city that seems equal parts throwback and slight future (the movie coins it 'another time, another place' not dissimilar from the semi-futuristic New York of Hill's earlier The Warriors.) The movie doesn't take too much time setting up the background before it plunges us into the action in the form of a concert for singer Ellen Aim (Diane Lane) who has her act interrupted care of a biker gang known as The Bombers. Their leader, Raven (Willem Dafoe with probably his most memorable villain look this side of Wild at Heart) takes an interest in Ellen and promptly kidnaps her. Immediately on the heels of this, witness Reva (Deborah van Valkenburgh) sends word to her brother, Tom Cody (Michael Pare.) Cody, a former soldier and Ellen's ex, rolls into town. After some initial reluctance, our hero has assembled a ragtag team involving himself, Ellen's manager (Rick Moranis), and a scrappy former army mechanic (Amy Madigan...excuse me, Oscar winner, Amy Madigan) to wander into the bad part of town and get Ellen back.

All this and Bill Paxton. Again, murderer's row of a cast.

I should pump the brakes for myself here before we go any further. There's a lot of things in this movie that work, and I will likely be hyping those up again before much longer, but I do want to be fair in some regards to this. 

So, let's start with that cast. In a way, the cast is kind of a good macrocosm for this movie's pros and cons – its leads aren't bad, but I can't really say they're the reason to see this. Pare can hold his own in a scene, and I'm glad he's stayed working consistently, but you can see why he wasn't carrying a lot of the bigger movies of the decade. Likewise, Diane Lane is in a thankless spot for this movie as its designated damsel in distress. Like Pare, she's doing what she can with what she's given, but it's not really the big draw for this one. 

 Having said that, for as much as the leads are kind of underwhelming, the supporting cast makes up for them in spades. As the movie's de facto sidekick, Madigan takes a role that was written with someone completely different in mind (for starters, the character was originally written to be a man) and makes it fit so well you'd think she was always who they had in mind for it. Likewise, Dafoe, who doesn't get to say a whole lot in this, makes a mark on viewers just from a combination of his aesthetic and the weird menace he brings to Raven. Paxton, meanwhile, with only a few scenes, brings a presence to a character who could have been completely forgettable that makes it so I kind of wish we could have gotten more of Clyde the bartender. Granted, that was a charm that just came naturally to Paxton, but it still carries into this role.

Though if I'm giving anyone the big shout out here, it probably goes to Moranis, who takes a character that, on first glance, reads like it will be the sort of role he's played throughout his career, then turns it on its ear. Billy could have easily been another in the stable of endearing hapless characters Moranis got typecast into over his career, but instead, he is almost an antithesis of them – a man who knows he's not the hero of this story, but he also recognizes what value he does bring to this team, and he's not afraid to use it or stand up for his part of things. Watched in the shadow of a lot of his later work, this was a refreshing look and it's kind of a shame he didn't get more chances to play against type like this.

If there's one component that could be said to be the biggest MVP of this movie, it's the soundtrack. This isn't by accident – the movie literally introduces itself as a rock and roll fable, after all. Still, it is an area where, if the music had fumbled, it would have seriously hurt the film. Thankfully, it all works with its 'almost a musical' mix of several songs created for the movie's in-universe groups to perform. Two in particular are worth pointing out here. The first of these being easily the most famous song of the movie, Dan Hartman's I Can Dream About You, an earworm of the highest order that still makes regular play even if a lot of people may not realize it came from a movie. The other I have to give to the movie's closing number, Tonight Is What it Means To Be Young, one of two songs by Fire Inc, written by longtime Meatloaf collaborator Jim Steinman. As someone who grew up with Bat Out of Hell as an album in rotation, this end theme scratched a sweet spot for Steinman's signature bombastic power ballad style of songwriting, to the point I had a feeling it was him behind it before I looked up the music credits.

More than the kind of weak leads, if the movie can be said to have any particularly big weakness, it's the fact the script feels like an afterthought. As a complete product, the movie is INCREDIBLY heavy on vibes and atmosphere, and in that regard, it knows what it's doing. As such, the story mainly exists to move things from point A to point B and you don't really want to dwell on it too long, you just take its conceits as they are with the 'it's not quite our world' setting. The individual components are carried either on the cast, the music, the aesthetics, or the sheer audacity of some of the sequences (I'm still processing the fact this movie's climax involves a sledgehammer fight.)

Yes. I repeat - a sledgehammer fight.

In a weird way, the movie can almost read as the rambunctious, 1980s younger sibling to The Warriors. The set-up changes, but both are very stylized films to their decades about a ragtag team of heroes who wind up deep in the heart of an unforgiving city and have to fight their way out while being pursued by a leather gang led by a cold-blooded psychopath, all to the strains of a great soundtrack. Besides the era, the biggest difference between the two is that The Warriors finds a good balance of all of its different elements. Streets of Fire, in some ways, feels a bit more ambitious than The Warriors, but by comparison, it's also more of an uneven movie. The parts that work work VERY well, to the point where one can't really say they cover for the parts that don't work, but they also keep those parts from hurting the overall experience.

With that, we bid March adieu as 52 Pick-Up keeps rolling.

Kicking off April, we get a more recent title as I get an opportunity to follow up on the work of the man who directed my favorite movie of last year – which is my round about way of saying I'll be back next with Jafar Panahi's No Bears.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 11 – Multiple Maniacs (1970)

“I think Divine made drag queens hipper because they were really square before he came along. Van and I wanted Divine’s look to scare hippies, because those are the people who went to see underground movies. If you watch that documentary The Queen, all of those drag queens wanted to be Miss America. They were all trying to dress like their mothers back then, but Divine didn’t wanna be a woman—he wanted to be Godzilla!” – John Waters

Okay, so normally I don't start these with a quote, but given this movie and this quote, this one demanded it.

With that, welcome back for the 11th go of 52 Pick-Up, a year long dive into my cinematic to do list. After promising this two weeks ago (and again, sorry about that) we're back on track this week. Coming on the heels of last week's excellent but bleak political thriller, it's time to go back into Uncharted Waters and continue to explore the remaining parts of John Waters's filmography. For this month, that involves his 1970 sophomore effort Multiple Maniacs.

Last time I did a John Waters movie here, I had reflected that, if I came into it early into my journey into his filmography, I might have liked it more. I bring this up because, the more I think of it, I feel like Multiple Maniacs is the reverse of this idea for me. Coming into this near the end of the run through John Waters's movies enhances the appreciation of it for me as a milestone in his career. A milestone that led to me almost subtitling this entry 'Dawn of the Divine.'

I feel like if this had been one of my first encounters with Waters as a filmmaker, it might not have landed as much for me. I don't think I would have hated it, but the looser narrative and the flow of events might have just not landed as much. Watched now, especially seeing the films that came immediately after (including Female Trouble, which at the time of this writing is still my favorite Waters movie) I don't see as much the kind of less formed parts, but the pieces that would become more concentrated in the movies that followed.

On the other side of this in the timeline, this was the movie Waters made following this debut, Mondo Trasho. In the larger arc of Waters lore, Trasho is a movie that mainly holds value for the circumstances around it rather than the movie itself – i.e. it's his first movie, and one that will likely stay out of print due to the music rights issues. It's a movie I would really only recommend to someone who's going for Waters completism, because the movie as it is mostly just feels a very rough, unpolished movie that has occasional glimmers of the Waters we all know and love, not in such a capacity that it's worth the run time for much beyond saying you've seen it.

Coming on the heels of that, Multiple Maniacs feels like a big step up. There's a confidence and a clearer sense of style and the kinds of things Waters wants to do on screen here that makes for a much more enjoyable watch by comparison. Right at the center of that is – you guessed it – the elevation of Divine from a support in Trasho to the center stage in Maniacs. We get other notable names in the Waters canon as well – Mink Stole, Cookie Mueller, and David Lochary all have great appearances among others. In particular, shout-out for the late Lochary who kicks the movie off in a memorable fashion in full carnival barker more for 'Lady Divine's cavalcade of perversions' – a wild sales pitch intro I would happily try to crib for an audition in the future if I though I could get away with it.

I never would have imagined I'd see
a John Waters rendition of the Stations of
the Cross before, but it's there
and it is absolutely insane in all the right ways.

But again, Divine is what makes this movie shine. This first variation has parts of what we would see Waters later adapt into Babs Johnson and Dawn Davenport in later movies, and as the prototype, Divine (as Divine) is in full chaotic force of nature mode, going from a life of crime, to a foray into religion, to a rampaging finale that may be the closest thing John Waters will ever make to a kaiju movie. Even beyond just her role in Dreamland history, she is a lot of fun in this movie and gives it a pulse that the earlier movie doesn't quite have.

So I feel like I'm rating this movie on two levels. On its own, it's a very watchable, if genuinely weird, piece of the more gonzo early years of John Waters with some truly bonkers set pieces that need to be seen to be believed. Taken as part of the larger Waters canon, I really enjoy this as that first really clear statement of Waters as a filmmaker. So much of what comes after can be seen in its early stages here. Multiple Maniacs walked so Pink Flamingos could tear down the streets in a psychotic Weapons-style sprint.

Believe it or not, this isn't the part where the movie
goes full kaiju.
It STARTS here, but this isn't it yet.

As you can imagine, this was also a great mood lifter after last time (though again, DO seek out Z.)

Alas, with this, I have completed the journey into the early days of Dreamland and sometime next month it's time to journey into the late 90s and beyond for Waters.

But before we do that, March has one more movie in the queue and it's one I have been circling for years. In closing out March, 52 Pick Up discovers what it means to be young as the month closes out with the Walter Hill cult classic Streets of Fire.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 10 – Z (1969)

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up.

And for anyone who's reading this because they read last week before the edit and are now thinking 'What the Hell? Where's Multiple Maniacs?', I will explain once again – simple human error. I mentally flipped which movie to which point in the schedule. Multiple Maniacs will be coming up next week, but I didn't want to skip this movie, because damn I'm glad I rolled it.

So, once again, as some may have missed it, I will recycle the set-up from before – if I had a nickel for every European movie from 1969 that I've watched this year that aged uncomfortably well, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice.

Without further ado, let's get into Costa-Gavras's political thriller Z.

While I'm falling on my sword this week, I have to take this moment, in discussing what this movie is about, to say it took me way too long to realize this inadvertently dovetails with last week's movie. Like In the Realm of the Senses, Z is its directors stylized take inspired by a true story – in this case, the assassination of Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis and the events that came immediately after.

That origin in reality is a good place to start this review, especially as Gavras begins his movie with the statement 'Any similarity to real people or incidents is not coincidental. It is intentional.' Despite this, unlike Oshima, Gavras doesn't present this as the original Lambrakis story (adding to this, Gavras also took inspiration from other acts of political violence, such as the disappearance of Mehdi Ben Barka) but instead keeps many of the details in his telling ambiguous. We get some generalized names, but a country is not specified, and those characters who are named receive a first name only. It's a move that has helped add to how this movie has aged, as even while it can be compared to a single incident, the open nature of the place and time makes it feel relatable beyond just Greece of the 1960s.

Honestly, I feel like that's the part of this that stuck with me the most – despite the movie being over 50 years old, and the incident that inspired it even further back, Gavras's film still feels relevant nowadays. It's not even a single moment or element. Right from the start, there's a sense of how little has changed, as the movie begins with a scene of a government meeting which starts off talking about combating mildew on vines and then pivots to using the same language for ideologies they disagree with.

A sample of some of the 'mildew' they refer to needing to
eliminate.
Yeah, it's sad we keep letting these guys have power 50+ years on.

Many of these characters don't appear again for much of the rest of the movie, but this scene echoes through much of what follows. From the government offices where higher ups loftily speak of opposing views with the same degree of disdain as molds, we head to the other end of where their ethos takes hold in the form of protests against a government deputy (Yves Montand) who is advocating for nuclear disarmament. Cutting to specific figures among the crowd, it isn't long before Gavras shows us that these are people ready for violence and just waiting for the right opportunity to kick it off – even if they have to do so themselves.

That becomes the parallel that drives the movie – the 'civilized' disdain of the right wing leaders at the top and the antagonistic street violence on the ground, at first presented in contrast, are soon presented to all be part and parcel of the same larger political undertaking. The leaders can happily talk of their opponents as simply dirt or mold because their own rank and file people are the ones who will dirty their hands to deal with them (and, if necessary, take the fall for the cause.)

I'm trying not to get too into the details on this, because, despite the age of this movie, I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it. Especially because I would argue it is incredibly worth seeing. Not just for the relevance (though that is a big part of it), but also as this is in general a well made thriller in its own right. Besides the very palpable sense of anger Gavras imbues this movie with for the abuses those in power inflict with little to no meaningful consequence, it is also a genuinely tense, well made movie that keeps you engaged with seeing how far it will all go and to what end.

As an additional general note goes – the title of this movie comes from an actual political sentiment from Greece at the time, a shorthand referral to Lambrakis said to mean 'He lives.' It feels both encouraging and sadly appropriate as a title nowadays. Encouraging for the feeling that, even in death, the ideals of people like Lambrakis (or his fictional on-screen counterpart) continue on after their death. Sad as it also applies to the above mentioned feeling of anger Gavras works into this movie. Even over half a century later, the maneuvers in this movie feel sadly familiar, even as the technology changes, the plays remain the same. Even more familiar than the strategies, however, are the consequences – those in power see their opponents discredited, cast aside, or flat out killed, and suffer no real meaningful losses, save for the occasional resignation or a foot soldier who has to be sent to prison. They repeatedly get caught in abuses of their authority and are then left free to keep right on abusing them.

Tale as old as time, as it were.

Okay, that was a bit more of a downer note than I intended to go out on, but it's hard not to feel a bit gloomy with this movie (he said after endorsing people watch it. Hey, not every moviegoing experience needs to be about comfort.)

In all seriousness, this is a very worthwhile movie. Just, maybe have something light for a chaser afterward.

Speaking of which, next week, as promised it's back to Uncharted Waters with the movie that arguably ushered in the rise of Divine as a force in Dreamland lore – it's Multiple Maniacs.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up #9 - In the Realm of the Senses (1976)

 You know, its funny? We go into February light on the romance and then start picking up just as the month ends. Then we come into March with another story of--

Oh.

OH.

Well, this is certainly going to be a different take, but then this project is all about trying something different.

So, before we get into this movie, I'm gonna start with a disclaimer, both for the audience and to cover my own backside on this one. This week's entry, as stated last time and above, is on Nagisa Oshima's controversial 1976 movie In the Realm of the Senses. For anyone not familiar with this, it's a movie with a reputation for its rather frank depictions of sexual acts – most infamously scenes of unsimulated sex between some of the performers.

Okay, so TECHNICALLY the Japanese title
for this roughly translates to Bullfight
of Love

I'm going to be trying to keep this worksafe (or as worksafe as I can), but if this is something you'd rather not stick around for, I can understand on that. Feel free to come back next time if you step out though – in a rare courtesy for those checking out early, next week continues the journey into Uncharted Waters with his sophomore feature Multiple Maniacs.

EDIT - Okay, it hit me at work earlier that I realized I made a mistake in the schedule. Multiple Maniacs is coming, but it won't be for another week. My apologies, as we all know, this year has been a lot.
Which is kind of fitting in light of what next week actually is - to borrow the oft-used internet paraphrase: If I had a nickel for every international feature from 1969 that feels hauntingly relevant to watch 57 years later, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice. Next week will be the Costa-Gavras political thriller Z.

So, to recap - Z next week, Multiple Maniacs the week after.

Okay. Now you know for next time. Hopefully will see you then. Not looking to change this format so much in the future.

Now then – on with the main feature.

Like I was saying above, this is a fairly controversial movie for this selection, particularly with regards to its depictions of sex. Watching it I was getting flashes of some of the recent discourse in some circles of the internet regarding the question of necessity for sex scenes in film and it felt like as good a jumping off point as any for this particular title.

First, as a general thought on this question, I frequently find myself at odds with this topic. Partly because this question seems to be predominantly raised towards sexual content, nowhere near as often is it applied to questions of language or violent content, creating a weird question of what has artistic merit vs what doesn't. Which comes to the much larger part of why I tend to take exception to this question – it presents a scenario where art is treated as an algorithmic formula. The question of 'necessary' basically presents a scenario where everything exists only to serve a particular need. Now granted, there's times I'll look at something in a movie and say, for my part, it feels excessive or needless – but that's all in execution. One movie's overkill is another movie's effective hammering of a point, and it's all a matter of context and how it's done, and the idea that there's a universal standard here feels antithetical to the whole undertaking.

Okay, now just let me take a moment to climb off my soap box and we can get back to how this ties in to today's movie.

This isn't quite as caption iffy as The Damned,
but damn, I can't find a safe word joke here
I don't come away from thinking 'This is a little much'

For context for anyone not familiar with it – In the Realm of the Senses is Nagisa Oshima's own stylistic telling of the real story of Sada Abe – a geisha in 1930s Japan who began an affair with her employer, Kichizo Ishida. Their relationship culminated in her murder of the man, after which – to put it politely – she removed his wedding tackle and carried it with her. In the years since, the case has been subject of no shortage of art and speculation, with Oshima's being but one of many pieces inspired by the story.

With that context, and in regards to the above question, I would say that yes, In the Realm of the Senses can be argued to be a movie where one can argue the sexual content is necessary. It certainly won't be to everyone's tastes, but one would be hard pressed to say it has no narrative significance, both in terms of the on screen facts of the story as well as thematically.

Oshima focuses his telling specifically on the relationship between Sada and Kichizo (often shortened to just Kichi in the movie) and how their relationship is defined primarily through the sex they experience together. Thematically, this becomes one of the most interesting elements of the movie, because throughout the movie, Oshima has characters using sex as a way of conveying power. Kichizo, for example, is presented as someone who frequently engages in sexual activities with geishas or hired help. In most cases, he is the one dictating the actions in what's being performed.

Operative word most – enter Sada. Sada is presented by Oshima early on as a character who uses her sexuality as a means of power. This is established even before she begins her relationship with Kichizo with a set of scenes involving a vagrant that apparently knew Sada from her past as a prostitute. He is presented as ultimately powerless and begging her for attention. When she finally does grant him that audience, to her amusement, he is utterly unable to perform. It's an effective way of helping really convey that sex is how Sada wields power, and she is aware of it and not afraid to use it.

...and then there's this scene.
Just...again, this kind defies captions.

It's that confidence, and awareness of it, that makes it so when she and Kichizo meet, she clearly becomes the more dominant of the two. It's not explicitly presented in their relationship like that wording would suggest – it's in the broader sense that Sada doesn't simply comply with Kichizo's various proposed experiments, and instead approaches them first as his equal, then as the one leading the relationship.

This all leading to the final act, where Sada is the active component in their sexual activities as Kichizo becomes more and more passive. By the time he comes to his end, he is literally just lying there as Sada carries out the fateful final activities that make up the movie's finale.

I'm sure someone could still try to argue the sexual content of this movie as unnecessary, but I would continue to disagree. You could, in theory, make a sex-free version of Sada's story, but it wouldn't be remotely the same movie, save for coming from the same point of inspiration.

If you've not seen this before, and aren't put off by what's been said here so far, I would recommend seeking this out. It's definitely not a movie for everyone, but Oshima makes this truly engaging without feeling like he's just trying to shock or titillate. It's present, and often graphic, but in the service of a larger theme.

With that, I can't help but be amused that I'm going from a defense of a very sexual, but artistic movie, into another round in John Waters's earlier transgressive phase of filmmaking.

So, once again, Multiple Maniacs, Z. Next week.

Till then.