MetaChat - My Latest Obsession.

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11 April 2006

My Latest Obsession. →[More:]Last night after a few beers at the local bar and a nice Italian dinner on Thompson St. me and pips stopped at Virgin Megastore on 14th to look for dvd's. I managed to get a copy of American Graffiti and one of the (hard to find) cinematic adaptation of Richard Price's first novel The Wanderers and the directors cut of The Warriors. Recently, I've also re-watched Heaven Help Us, Taxi Driver and Dog Day Afternoon.

My cinematic fixation seems to be the underside of New York in the 70's or slices of life in the pre-Beatle sixties. I'm not sure of the origins of this fascination, but I know it's there. We all have them I guess, inchoate cultural longings. What're yours?

post by: jonmc at: 08:34 | 37 comments

Cinematic fixations? 1936-49, inclusive.

posted by Miko 11 April | 08:43

Zombies, caper pictures, B and forgotten noir and insane, pointless attempts to subdue the jungle a la Fitzcarraldo and The Mosquito Coast.

posted by Divine_Wino 11 April | 08:53

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Wino...come out to playy-aayy...

posted by jonmc 11 April | 08:59

(Also, I've just been told that our famous office vending machine has been permanently removed. These cutbacks are getting to be murder.)

posted by jonmc 11 April | 09:00

Why oh why can I not have a cushy upper management job where I can sit around all day farting through my Herman Miller chair and thinking of brilliant ways to save money like
removing a vending machine? Man, I got bad ruling class envy.

posted by Divine_Wino 11 April | 09:03

what of the cheesehorns, man, what of the cheesehorns??

posted by jonmc 11 April | 09:04

Herman Miller chairs now have a fart converter that liquefies farts and injects the resulting ink into cartridges that fit the Parker and Montblanc pens upper management use to sign off on cost-cutting directives.

Unfortunately, without cheesehorns and other snacks, the converters sit idle for most of the day.

posted by Hugh Janus 11 April | 09:10

Barefoot In The Park and The Panic In Needle Park make nice 60s-70s New York bookends.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three has some great 70s New York footage, including a car chase through Astor Place.

posted by Armitage Shanks 11 April | 09:21

Check out Somebody Up There Likes Me for an even earlier Lower East Side.

posted by Hugh Janus 11 April | 09:23

I love the taking of pelham one two three, there need to be more cop movies with Walter Matthau as the template.

posted by Divine_Wino 11 April | 09:33

There also need to be more movies with bat weilding gangs on rollerskates. This is the cinematic rosetta stone, trust me.

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posted by jonmc 11 April | 09:38

Tough but clownish, swishy yet grubby. They love french kissing each other in the bathroom at 42nd and then cracking some skulls outside of the Sizzler. The future of America, right there.

posted by Divine_Wino 11 April | 09:41

perhaps. but these guys can take 'em:

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and there's always the Lizzies:

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posted by jonmc 11 April | 09:44

Isn't there talk of a remake?

The dudes that sport overalls are pretty scary, too.

posted by rainbaby 11 April | 09:45

Also Ace Frehley in the middle there needs to tuck in that jersey, they're supposed to be the Yankees not the fucking Pittsburgh Pirates. Steinbrenner's gonna fine him.

In Re: The Lizzies, homegirl on the left is super-duper cute. Ay yo loveboat! Not you shipwreck!

posted by Divine_Wino 11 April | 09:46

remaking The Warriors would be like covering Purple Haze: ill-advised.

you're telling me Wino. I always crushed on the Lizzies and all the tough chicks in 70's flicks. Hollywood created a generation of 'dyke tykes' if you ask me. It's a conspiracy.

posted by jonmc 11 April | 09:48

if memory serves, the baseball-clowns weren't tough at all. The Warriors handed them their asses pretty quickly.

posted by Hellbient 11 April | 09:53

Well, the Fordham Baldies and the Ducky Boys coulda taken 'em all on.

*struts down Burke Avenue singing 'Walk Like A Man'*

posted by jonmc 11 April | 09:55

I think The Dagger Debs from Switchblade Sisters would clean the Lizzies up
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posted by Hellbient 11 April | 09:58

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For the Wino, a worried Richard Widmark from my favorite forgotten noir.

posted by PinkStainlessTail 11 April | 10:01

Oh yeah? This broad could take 'em all on...

posted by jonmc 11 April | 10:01

cute, she really looks like Joan Jett,
but you forgot about Tura
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posted by Hellbient 11 April | 10:17

Oddly Jon my cinematic tastes have all been 70's NY lately. Rosemary's Baby, Cruising and Dog Day Afternoon this past weekend.

posted by arse_hat 11 April | 10:54

Oddly some vestiges of the grimy NYC of the 70's have been returning. I see more panhandlers, more people drinking 40's on the street and subway, and grafitti in train cars.

*stands on sidewalk with rifle chanting 'Attica!'*

posted by jonmc 11 April | 10:57

There's a page on IMDb for the Warriors remake, but it hasn't been updated in awhile. Here's an interview with director Tony Scott saying the remake is set in LA with real gangs -- no Baseball Furies!

posted by me3dia 11 April | 10:58

LA??

This Tony Scott character is an obvious communist.

posted by jonmc 11 April | 11:00

"the remake is set in LA with real gangs" yeah that should go smoothly Tony.

posted by arse_hat 11 April | 11:02

Jon, I think the appeal of 70 NYC movies for me is that they are smaller, human scale, gritty and driven by actors and directors. I am tired of CGI and big movies and "business transaction" movies like Failure to Launch that seem to have nothing to do with acting or directing.

posted by arse_hat 11 April | 11:07

Agreed, arse. and even so, they still manage to often be action packed and suspenful, proving that you don't need a gazillion dollar effects and stunts budget to make a thrilling ride.

posted by jonmc 11 April | 11:09

I saw an ad for a new "The Warriors" video game the other day.

posted by weretable and the undead chairs 11 April | 11:20

I saw this at the store last night.

posted by jonmc 11 April | 11:22

I've been telling them to make a video game about grafitti for years, FUCKING YEARS.

posted by Divine_Wino 11 April | 11:33

yes, wino, but the derelicts on the corner of 8th & D were the wrong 'them' to be telling. We tried to let you know.

posted by jonmc 11 April | 11:35

The video game industry told me to tell the dude with three fingers who had a sign that said "Donate to the United Negro Pizza fund" and I took them at their word. Dammit.

posted by Divine_Wino 11 April | 11:38

Sorry you had to find outr this way, man. Now, the dude with the sign saying 'I'm Bob Hope's kid brother, No Hope?' He was the go-to guy.

posted by jonmc 11 April | 12:07

Getting Up isn't particularly good (and neither is Jet Grind Radio, though it's still better than the Marc Ecko game). Now, if someone mixed the graf-themed game with one of those massively-multiplayer-online deals, maybe we'd have something.

posted by box 11 April | 12:27

massively-multiplayer-online deals

I remember when the Matrix MMPORG came out. There we had a computer simulation of a movie simulation about a computer simulation of everyday life. All very post-neo-whatever or something.

posted by jonmc 11 April | 12:41

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