Let’s not forget 1980’s cult classic “Times Square”.
Two runaway thirteen year-old girls from opposite sides of the tracks escape from a psychiatric treatment center and set up in the seedy demimonde of pre-Giuliani NYC. A DJ gives them an outlet to make music and start a subversive riot-grrl-style underground teen movement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YzK4X8OAgU&feature=related
The double-album “Times Square” soundtrack has got to be one for the ages. I wore out two copies. The musical lineup was a slice of history, rock-n-roll tour de force. All the cutting-edge artistes (New Wave, Punk,etc.) were well represented.
Now, I’m not one of the ones who are going to wax sentimental about bad old Times Square—having seen it for myself in all it’s ugliness—or speculate about the toned-down lesbian subtext in the movie, but I do know I got a blast out of it, and the still-young Tim Curry was hot as hell as the rebel DJ.
Vaguely I do remember that movie, but I never reaized it had Tim Curry in it.
The bad old days of NYC,I was there, fun to remember, but hopefully never to return.
I was working in a record store in the early 80’s and that damned Times Square album got played so many times it took years to forget—thanks for reminding me! :(
Opposite side of the tracks... Psychiatric center.... 80’s NYC... punk/new Wave....
The ingredients of a cinematic masterpiece!
>>> Let’s not forget 1980’s cult classic “Times Square”.
Times Square was a wonderful film and spectacular soundtrack. The opening credits with Robin Johnson walking though Times Square, and then playing guitar along with the theme by Roxy Music grabbed me more strongly then about any other film I can think of. Perfect meld of music and motion.
The producer made this movie primarily to push that double-album. He didn’t have much faith in the film itself and so a nice little gem slipped through his hands. That’s how Robin Gibb wound up singing the closing titles. Disco slipped into all the New Wave.
I believe this was Tim’s first movie filmed after Rocky Horror. The producers could only afford to have him for about three days of filming. Everything he did was packed into that brief span.
The Nikki/Pammy relationship was filmed more explicitly, but that was edited down for release so as not to discourage the album sales. The director now says these scenes are now “missing”.
>>> Billy Jack?!!!
Remember, there is only one true Billy Jack movie. The rest are counterfeits. Billy Jack first appeared in “The Born Losers”, a motorcycle gang movie where Billy Jack just back from Vietnam very reluctantly gets pulled into saving a young woman terrorized by the gang. The film was directed by Laughlin and written by the young lady who also portrayed the movie’s heroine. No pacifist, he just wants to be left alone.
When they decided to go back to the well and make it a series, the writer who invented the character was forced out. Laughlin’s wife took over and Billy Jack was re-imaged into a schizoid granola eating vigilante peacenik with a body count higher then Billy the Kid.
So “One Tin Soldier” doesn’t really count. Accept no Billy Jack substitutes.