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Can you dig it? The Warriors come out to play-i-aaay at the New Bev, 7/19-7/20
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Can you count, suckaaahs?
Playing at the New Beverly from Sunday, 7/19, to Monday, 7/20, is a double feature from one of America's pop culture cineastes, Walter Hill. Hill's credits include the Eddie Murphy film career launching 48 Hrs. (1982), the ill-fated, maligned, and misunderstood "Rock 'n' Roll Fable" Streets of Fire (1984), the Charles Bronson-James Coburn bare knuckles punch in the face that is Hard Times (1975), the soldiers vs. southern culture on the skids showdown swig that is Southern Comfort (1981), and the I'm-too-sexy-for-this-face revenge fable Johnny Handsome (1989), starring Mickey Rourke way back when, well, he was handsome. With such an impressive resume it's no wonder that during the '70s and '80s, Hill was ranked among Hollywood's Young Turks, alongside such names as Scorsese, De Palma, and Coppola.
But to many, Hill's one film whose iconography has carved itself into the fabric of pop culture (a video game, action figures, gratuitously quoted by Shaq, etc.) is, of course, The Warriors (1979). Which is why it's mind-boggling that Hill would follow the path of his better known fellow fabulists (Spielberg, Lucas, Ridley Scott, Cameron) and tinker with what ain't broke as he does in the "Ultimate Director's Cut" DVD of the movie, which came out two years ago. Hill's raison d'être for this version of the movie, which includes scenes that transition into comic book panels complete with comic book bubbles (I'm not making this up!!) that, more than anything, pop up like sore thumbs, is, get this: The Warriors is a comic book come to life, and should not be taken as reality.
Really?
You mean, the army of gang members running around in baseball uniforms and KISS make up (The freakin' cool "Furies"), or "The Boppers" whose colors include purple lamé to accentuate that Cab Calloway look, or the gang dressed up as mimes (or as my friend likes to refer to them, "The Marcel Marceaus"), or the one they call "The Punks" in roller skates and overalls (that's how they roll!), or even impossibly poetic gang names like "Swan," "Ajax," and "Rembrandt" wasn't enough to convince an audience that what they were watching was a comic book fantasy set in contemporary Bronx? Well, to be fair, it wasn't. Imagination-impaired thugs from both coasts spoiled the film's original 1979 premiere, inciting riots that resulted in vandalism and three killings. But that was a whole 30 years ago, and what may have seemed as real and provoking then seems visionary and fantastic now. The story, you see, is loosely based on Greek epic (see Xenophon's "Anabasis"), complete with Lynne Thigpen's luscious DJ lips serving as Greek chorus, a conceit Hill lifted wholesale from the existential road movie he didn't direct, Vanishing Point (1971). He directed another one, The Driver (1978). Three decades apparently hasn't been enough for Hill to realize what fans of The Warriors have known all along--that, um,. . .the movie plays like a comic book--and one can only imagine he thought audiences might riot in their homes upon viewing the DVD version of the original film.
Come on, Walt--you had us at "Suckaaahs."
This is your chance to see the unabashed, non-comic book, comic book original on the big screen. Don't rent it or you'll end up with the fraidy-cat version.
The Warriors will screen with Hill's western family round-up, The Long Riders (1980) featuring the Carradines as the Youngers, the Keachs as the James, the Quaids as the Millers, the Guests as the Fords, and so on.
The Warriors on Sun: 7:30 and Mon: 7:30; The Long Riders on Sun: 5:30 and Mon: 9:25. "Warriors cast members in person on July 19th!" Well, okay.
Watch the trailer, which inexplicably has always featured music by Tangerine Dream for the soundtrack to William Friedkin's Sorcerer (1977)!!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P6MqHccBSI
For more info: http://newbevcinema.com/calendar.cfm
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