Saturday, May 21, 2005

Netflix 39: Streets of Fire

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On my way back from LA, something caught my eye on VH1 Classics. It was video for "Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young" by Fire, Inc. It was a full energy power ballad, obviously written by the great Jim Steinman, and featuring hot chicks, cool cars, explosions and Micheal Pare. It was from the film "Streets Of Fire". When I got home, I wondered why I never saw this movie. I looked it up on the internet. I saw it was directed by Walter Hill. Why the fuck haven't I seen this movie?

The movie starts off with a bang. In another time, another place, the eternally beautiful Diane Lane plays Ellen Aim, a badass rocker chick playing a benefit show in her rundown, wrong-side-of-the-tracks hometown. Suddenly, the Bombers, a biker gang lead by the always evil Willem Dafoe busts in, stops the show, and kidnaps Ellen. Now, it's up Tom Cody, Ellen's estranged ex-boyfriend, to put together a ragtag gang and travel across town to save her.

Why don't they make action movies like this anymore? The 1980's action flicks brought us so many badasses. Tom Cody. Remo Williams. John Maclaine. Snake Plissken. John Rambo. Dutch Schaeffer. Ashley Williams. If I could make a movie right now, it would have to be a throwback action flick. With large explosions, great actors slumming it to play the bad guy, and a kick ass hero that will go down in geek history as the guy we all wish we were.