I absolutely remember when Streets of Fire came out. I was in 11th grade. I was kind of a dork. And in my mind, Streets of Fire was the kind of movie the popular kids went to see, and that was most certainly not my clique. I knew it had something something to do with rock and roll, but the only song from the movie I’d heard on the radio was “I Can Dream About You”, and for a kid whose tastes were decidedly metal/prog/British invasion, that did nothing for me.
It also helped that the reviews I saw of the movie said it was horrid. So yeah. Easy miss.
What I did NOT know is:
Walter Hill wrote and directed it. I freaking love Walter Hill. I don’t think he’s a great director or anything, but he knows his way around an action script, and no one has more fun with violence in his movies. A true Peckinpah disciple.
And, uh, a very young Willem Dafoe is in it as the badguy? And a very young and alluring Diane Lane is the female lead? Well then.
In recent years I’ve seen more and more praise for Streets of Fire as an unrecognized, before-its-time work that deserves critical reassessment. And I’ve been mostly bemused by that, thinking “I was there at the time. Critics hated this movie.” And also noting: the public was indifferent. The cool/popular kid cliques at my school? They didn’t see this movie. They couldn’t have cared less.
But hey. Maybe it is worth a contemporary reassessment?
This video from a youtube movie talker who I frequently enjoy has me intrigued to say the least!
What say you, Qt3 cinema cognoscenti?
Streets of Fire, see it or flee it? (And by see it, I’m talkin’ 4k restored, HDR etc)
I vote yes, though I’ll admit I haven’t seen it in years. But I think of it fondly mainly because I’m a big fan of Rick Moranis and this movie has one of his few (maybe only) turns as a villain. I don’t remember much else.
Streets of Fire was a product of cocaine-era Hollywood. I expect people are mostly nostalgic for these huge, gaudy, swings-and-miss spectacles that were released regularly in the 70s and 80s, and nowadays hardly ever get made.
Because the movie itself is just terrible…but in such a ridiculous and overblown way. So unlike today’s flops, that are just Marvel movies that mildly disappointed the fanboys or whatever.
Willem Dafoe is indeed at his Bobby Peru-vian best, however, and it’s worth seeing just for him.
huh - I had no idea. I liked the movie, but wasn’t very old when it came out, and we lived more in a bubble back then and wasnt influenced by critics and the non-existing internet.
I say yes - I had fun watching it, even though I didn’t really understand how the violence could really happen like that in a real city.
Mike Pondsmith cites it as one of his inspirations for Cyberpunk, along with Hardwired and Bubblegum Crisis. If you like Cyberpunk 2077 I bet you’ll like Streets of Fire.
That’s kind of exactly what I want out of this – weird and indulgent. :)
I peeked at the some of the acting credits, and holy cow! Moranis, a very young Amy Madigan, Bill Paxton, Ed Begley Jr…OK, this movie has my attention.
Yep, I can imagine that. And again, that kind of crazy excess has a ton of appeal to me looking back.
The main thrust of the critical barbs was that this was a full-length MTV video as feature film. Which – at the time – was meant as the most dismissive and gravest-possible criticism. And which filtered back, oh hey, this might (I haven’t seen it yet!) be a snapshot of a fast-moving, fairly ephemeral moment in time, which would be an absolute gift.
A friend told me that most people what-if this movie by doing dream recasting of Michael Pare’s character…but that I’m going to spend the movie what-iffing on the music and Jim Steinman. We’ll see!
Absolutely I can see it, if only just from the clips of the film I’ve seen. That and the incredible, super-stylized original film poster.
You should also watch the 1984 film Streets of Fire:
As far as I can tell they’re unrelated but what a coincidence. (This is not a recommendation, I just literally discovered this movie exists five minutes ago.)
Heck yeah. It’s not a good film per film, but it’s a very . . . satisfying? movie. It is what it is, a bombastic, stylistic mess with a bunch of clunk (though that mainly comes from Rick Moranis and Bill Paxton, everyone else is at least chewing the scenery competently) but it also has some fantastic scenes. It’s like Purple Rain with music only half as good but everything else 4x.
Funny enough, I ran the plot as an adventure for Cyberpunk 2020 - and as expected, no one knew the movie, and my players REALLY liked the storyline.
The plot is wonderfully transferable, be it modern day stuff, urban horror, dieselpunk, scifi or cyberpunk. Fantasy requires a bit more tweaking, though.
As for the movie: I liked it. First of all, the Soundtrack is by bloody Jim Steinman, that alone makes it worth the time investment. The scenario is two-and-a-half steps away from our perceived reality, which gives it a certain detached, dream-like charme. Yeah, it’s an oversized music video, and you know what: I liked those, back in the days where MTV was music television and not the sordid mess it turned into later on.
It also features a lot of hot people back when they were REALLY hot (young Willem Dafoe can abduct my horny ass anytime he wants, and Diane Lane definitely caused a few sweaty moments for me back then). And Rick Moranis as slimy corpo is definitely worth seeing, if only for the sheer curiosity factor.
Don’t delay, watch it today! It’s gloriously cheesy, one of those “good” bad movies.
It’s like when you saw Rutger Hauer on the cast of a B-movie: the plot may suck, the budget may be low, but you just know you’re gonna have an enjoyable 90+ minutes.
Eh I wouldn’t call it an MTV video though. I don’t want to get into why just yet. I can kind of see the criticism, but I think that it ignores. . . well we can talk about it after you watch Streets of Fire.
(which you should, it’s a pretty flawed but none the less interesting movie with some good music and great sets and such. It also has some very underrated and interesting aspects).
Interestingly Michael Pare has been very self aware looking back on this movie. Something to the effect of “I wasn’t ready to be a lead in a movie like this” and he thinks he hurt the movie. He’s not awful or anything. But, well, you’ll see.
I have been slowly forming a table top RPG campaign set in what is a sort of exurb-small town of the film’s Richmond for like a decade+.
I didn’t really like it at first. Its action was too small considering the insane Rock Opera setting and bombastic everything else. But I like it more now and have Tonight it what it means to be Young and Nowhere Fast on my primary playlist.
It’s this thing massive in Japan? Or at least used to be?
