Wow, I remember going to watch this with friends back when it came out. I was 13 at the time. We thought it was awesome. I hope you enjoy it @triggercut 
This was on sale at Best Buy a few months ago before they stopped selling movies. I almost got it, but it was $30 and I never pay full price for blu rays. Maybe I should have made an exception!
Iām jealous Trig gets to watch this for the first time! I wish I could erase my memory of this, and Predator, and watch it for the first time all over again.
Sure, why not if youāve got nothing else to do. Itās not terrible.
Though a more interesting question is: should you watch Streets of Fire ā¦ or watch The Warriors again?
I feel like Patrick was kinda pushing it in this one, as the video itself acknowledges. For example, calling āTonight Is What It Means to be Youngā the best song ever written for a movie is completely unsupportable when it wasnāt even the best song written for a movie in 1984: thereās the Purple Rain soundtrack and the Footloose soundtrack, and āGhostbustersā for that matter. (Oh, and Google says the This is Spinal Tap soundtrack ā¦) Thereās also plenty of better Jim Steinman songs, many of which are referenced in the video, including āHolding Out for a Hero,ā which Steinman wrote for the aforementioned 1984 Footloose soundtrack.
Still, itās probably hard to make a living making videos entitled, āThis Forgotten 40 Year Old Movie Is Somewhat More Interesting Than You Might Think.ā
Yeah, this. The attempted reframing of Streets of Fire as some hidden masterpiece is purely a clickbait move a bunch of folks jumped on around the same time.
Iād never heard of this movie until it showed up on Netflix a year or two ago, which is crazy considering my history and interests- I love me some camp and schlock, Walter Hill movies, Dafoe, Paxton, etc. My gal saw it and wanted to watch it, and was astonished I had no clue what it was. So we watched it.
It sure was interesting. And, it turns out, another in that bunch of '80s movies that were supposed to launch a franchise/hero, but fizzled after the first (Banzai, Remo Williams, etc). Which in this case, was understandable- the lead was terrible. Everyone else is great for what the movie is. Biggest WTF- Willem Dafoe as the villain, very gay-coded (he and his gang look like they walked right out of a Tom of Finland illustration), kidnap the hot dame? But itās a terrible mess in a cool way. Iād watch it again.
Is now a good time to mention that thereās a sequel?
https://www.bulletproofaction.com/2017/08/29/double-take-road-to-hell/
What in the ever loving hell did I just watch? Green screen, porn level actresses, porn level singing, pure insanity. Brought to you by $341.23 and Albert Fucking Pyun??!!
Iāve seen a lot of shit on the internet over the last 30 years but god damn if that isnāt up there in my āshit I canāt believe is realā
Iāve seen the trailer for this, but never the actual movie. Iām pretty sure it would make me sad because of how Clare Kramerās career wound up after Buffy.
I have watched Pyunās Mean Guns which was dreadful.
I think that tone is kind of the theme of the video. Do you see standup comedians perform and say āI think he might be exaggerating for effect?ā
Regardless: Patrick isnāt just pulling faces here.
(I should say: I donāt much care for Jim Steinman at all. Maybe his two songs in Streets of Fire change my mind.)
Doesnāt Amy Madigan just keep telling everyone that sheās a soldier?
a) You canāt watch the way Streets of Fire constructs its scenes and declare it ājust terribleā. That is blatantly incorrect.
b) Thereās a movie podcast called Overhated I occasionally listen to. The conceit is that you have someone defend a movie that was critically and/or commercially unsuccessful. At the end they go through the movies released the same month, and they have to pick. Better or worse?
If you put a gun to my head and force me to choose between a random Marvel movie and Streets of Fire, 99% of the time, Itās Streets of Fire.
OK, watched this last weekend. I have some thoughts.
First, I donāt think this is really a hidden āmasterpieceā. A flawed and fascinating movie? For sure, and absolutely one Iām glad I watched.
The opening of the movie is, indeed, just breathtaking. Itās fantastic. In some ways, the difference between that opening and what comes after reminded me a bit of 28 Weeks Later a bit.
And so yeah, that transition through the end of the first act and into the second act isnāt the movieās strong point. Thereās some good stuff in there I think, but I also think this is a little bit baked into the Walter Hill experience ā itās a problem in a lot of his movies. In his best stuff (48 Hours, The Warriors, The Long Riders) he gets around that usually by either leaning on some good set-piece action/violence, or the strength of his stars (Eddie and Nolte) to carry things. In Streets of Fire, he probably could lean a little bit harder into the world heās built andā¦Iāll get to that.
I think one of the BIGGEST weaknesses in this movie is the music. And I have already said that I kinda do not like, nor understand the fascination with, Jim Steinman. In Streets of Fire, he has two songs ā the opening and closing tracks. There are some other great songs in the soundtrack (The Fixx and a super young Maria McKeeās contributions stand the test of time.)
But the main score is by Ry Cooder, a longtime Walter Hill collaborator. And I wanna be clear: Ry Cooderās soundtrack to The Long Riders is one of my favorite movie scores ever. Itās rustic and authentically folky and just cool as shit and fits the tone and period of the film perfectly.
But Ry Cooderās score for Streets of Fire is an absolute disaster. Itās just not his wheelhouse. He tries, for sure! But itās clear that neither Hill, nor Cooder, really knows quite what the music of this world sounds like. Cooderās main idea seems to be to add some distortion pedal to his too-tradtionalist slide guitar figures throughout. It think itās one of the reasons why Cody (Michael Pare) seems so out of place and so much older than Ellen or Raven: you go from this forward-looking, thrilling, youth in rebellion opening song to a music score that is, well, mediocre Dad rock.
Andā¦god help me for saying this, butā¦Jim Steinman knows. Yeah. Longtime Jim Steinman doubter thinks Streets of Fire becomes an all-timer if Steinman does the whole score.
What this movie wants is a sound that calls back the classic rock and roll of the 1950s, but then updates it through a 1960s song structure (with the bridges and middle 8s often missing in 50ās songs) on through 70s melodramatic excess, and 1980s punchy new wave. Which Steinman could do.
But also: David Bowie. Shit, Young Americans could be the Streets of Fire soundtrack. But Iām also gathering that Bowie was pretty busy at that point, trying to get his follow-up to Letās Dance onto the charts.
And I think what this movieās score really could use is a healthy dose of rockinā NYC new wave. Problem: by 1984, New York City was an absolute music desert outside of rap. 1979 Blondie wouldāve been perfect. 1983 Blondie was a band in collapse and fearing that its heart and soul and main songwriter was about to succumb to a deadly disease.
Soā¦not Bowie. Not Blondie. Need that streetwise rock with a window to sounding sort of futuristic vaguely. Well. In 1982 and 83, Mott the Hoople frontman Ian Hunter was working with legendary guitarslinger Mick Ronson (once Bowieās main foil in Bowieās glam era) and singer/songwriter/actress Ellen Foley. And youāve heard Ellen Foley sing, even if you didnāt realize it ā thatās her doing the duet with Meat Loaf on āParadise by the Dashboard Lightsāā¦which, another Jim Steinman connection. These three were working together on some unrealized musical projects (record deal fell through) that wouldāve leaned into Hunter and Ronsonās desire to fuse 50s rock, 70s glam and 80s new wave together. (And though these sessions were unproductive, a coupe of the songs turned up on Ian Hunterās solo album All of the Good Ones Are Taken, with Jim Steinman given a vague credit for songwriting polish. And listening to All of the Good Ones Are Taken todayā¦yeah, thatās what Streets of Fire needed. (And Iām absolutely not saying you keep Hunterās take-it-or-leave it Bob Dylan as an Englishman vocals; Iām talking about the songs/arrangements for tracks like āThat Girl is Rock n Rollā, āDeath n Glory Boysā, āSomethinās Goinā Onā, etc. Get the same Bonnie Tyler soundalikes used in the movie if you gotta.)
Failing all that, I think back to one of the best marriages of song to action in a movie in the last 20 years ā a moment in a non-musical where the movie stops and becomes a musical for about 90 seconds, and it totally works and it is breathtaking. Iām talking of course about the āOne Thing Leads To Anotherā sequence in House of the Devil. We already got a Fixx song in the Streets of Fire soundtrack. Give them the score if they want it!
A thing I really love about Streets is how out of time it is. It doesnāt belong anywhere specific, only vaguely adjacent to or near, and the attempted musical fusion is a superb attempt to capture this. But the movie feels like it never fully commits to it, and I think the scoring is part of it. Given the actual song choices for the movie (which I think work well, from the 80s post-new-wave pop āI can Dream About Youā to the Blasters to a great Sorcerer cover to surf rock).
Bowie and Blondie would have been fantastic pairings. I think not getting the music and score right in totality is the movieās biggest failing. I can live with Pare as lead if the rest of it is more unified in purpose. It just, frustratingly, doesnāt get there. Itās not far off, but itās far enough off.
But I do love the movie, warts and all.