Post by klep on Dec 21, 2020 10:14:42 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/21: The Warriors
NIGHT WEEK!
CW: Sexism, sexual assault, homophobia
There's a concept deeply ingrained in our psyches that life at night time is just different from life during the day. It's a wilder, stranger time than the day - people who are active between sundown and sunup are somehow fundamentally separate from daytime society, unable to truly be a part of it.
This is the world we see in Walter Hill's 1979 film The Warriors. Set overnight in New York City, Hill's world is populated with gangs in every neighborhood in the city - each with their own turf and their own gimmick. The Baseball Furies wear harlequin makeup, Yankee pinstripes, and carry baseball bats. The Punks wear denim overalls and get around on roller skates. The Turnbull A.C.s are shaved bald and dress like bikers. And so on and so on.
We see all these gangs in the opening sequence because the most powerful gang - the Grammercy Riffs - have called a summit. Their leader Cyrus (Roger Hill) wants the gangs to take over the city, seeing as how together they outnumber the cops some three to one. With his charisma and the raucous response to his cry "Can you dig it?!" you believe he can pull it off too. And then he's assassinated by the leader of the Rogues Luther (David Patrick Kelly), who pins it on The Warriors - believing one of them saw him do it. Chaos breaks out, and now the Warriors have to make their way across 30 miles of hostile territory back to their turf at Coney Island.
The film serves as an extended chase sequence, with commentary occasionally provided by the mouth of Lynne Thigpen as a D.J. who uses her sets to send coded messages to the gangs. The way that the Riffs and the rest of the gangs interact and communicate gives you the sense of a larger, more defined world - a precursor of the excitement we got watching John Wick and realizing there were whole systems and power structures at play. But the film appropriately stays closely focused on the Warriors themselves. They're no saints - they may not even be good people - but they aren't to blame for the events which have them being hunted, and it's easy to empathize with their desperation and exhaustion as they keep wandering into traps and barely escaping.
Unfortunately, for as exciting and well-crafted as it is, The Warriors does have some terrible sexual politics. There is of course the rampant homophobia, with the f-word thrown around repeatedly as a pejorative, and there are lots of threats of sexual violence. The most significant female character - Deborah Van Valkenburgh's Mercy - is repeatedly called a whore and since she's never given much motivation to stick with the Warriors on their run, it's hard to come up with any justification for how the film treats her. It's tempting to fall back on the idea of the Warriors just being gang members and not upstanding citizens, but Michael Beck's Swan - the group's leader - is treated by the film as a good, honorable person and he treats Mercy the worst of all. The sequence with the all-female Lizzies involves them luring unsuspecting male warriors back to their lair to seduce and then kill them, which feels a little gross considering how the rest of the film deals with women. They're also the only female gang members we see.
It isn't all bad though. The film is admirably multi-racial, and its gangs don't lean on gross ethnic stereotypes the way lazier films would (there is no "kung fu" gang, for instance). While a handful of the gangs we glimpse are comprised entirely of one race, that seems a function of the heavily segregated neighborhoods they represent (e.g., Spanish Harlem's Hurricanes or Chinatown's Savage Huns) and the vast majority of the gangs - including the most prominent ones - are integrated. It's something that helps make the film feel like it's really set in New York even beyond the location shooting.
While not well-received by critics upon release the film was still popular, and it's unsurprising that The Warriors has grown into a cult favorite in the years since. It's colorful world-building, easily identifiable characters, and pulpy comic book aesthetic (the comic panel interstitials added for the 2005 release were something Hill had wanted all along) make it exactly the kind of movie that a group of friends is going to discover and make their favorite thing to quote at each other. Indeed, the cadence of the word "Warriors" in Luther's famous line can often be heard reverberating through the stadium at Golden State Warriors home games. It's the rare film that has so permeated the culture that most people know parts of it without ever having actually seen it. Society may shun the night life, but we sure do enjoy watching it.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/28: Suspiria (2018)
REMAKE/REBOOT WEEK!
For Remake/Reboot week we'll be watching Luca Guadagnino's 2018 remake of the Dario Argento classic Suspiria. Moving the action to a 70's West Berlin, Guadagnino uses the ideas of the original to tell a story of generational guilt over fascism. Be sure to join us next week for our discussion of Suspiria, available on Prime Video and for rent in the usual places.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 12/22: Wolfwalkers
The current podcast pairing concludes with Wolfwalkers, the latest tale from Tomm Moore, the creator of the acclaimed Song of the Sea and The Secret of Kells. Join us Wednesday for our discussion of Wolfwalkers, available on Apple TV+.
NIGHT WEEK!
CW: Sexism, sexual assault, homophobia
There's a concept deeply ingrained in our psyches that life at night time is just different from life during the day. It's a wilder, stranger time than the day - people who are active between sundown and sunup are somehow fundamentally separate from daytime society, unable to truly be a part of it.
This is the world we see in Walter Hill's 1979 film The Warriors. Set overnight in New York City, Hill's world is populated with gangs in every neighborhood in the city - each with their own turf and their own gimmick. The Baseball Furies wear harlequin makeup, Yankee pinstripes, and carry baseball bats. The Punks wear denim overalls and get around on roller skates. The Turnbull A.C.s are shaved bald and dress like bikers. And so on and so on.
We see all these gangs in the opening sequence because the most powerful gang - the Grammercy Riffs - have called a summit. Their leader Cyrus (Roger Hill) wants the gangs to take over the city, seeing as how together they outnumber the cops some three to one. With his charisma and the raucous response to his cry "Can you dig it?!" you believe he can pull it off too. And then he's assassinated by the leader of the Rogues Luther (David Patrick Kelly), who pins it on The Warriors - believing one of them saw him do it. Chaos breaks out, and now the Warriors have to make their way across 30 miles of hostile territory back to their turf at Coney Island.
The film serves as an extended chase sequence, with commentary occasionally provided by the mouth of Lynne Thigpen as a D.J. who uses her sets to send coded messages to the gangs. The way that the Riffs and the rest of the gangs interact and communicate gives you the sense of a larger, more defined world - a precursor of the excitement we got watching John Wick and realizing there were whole systems and power structures at play. But the film appropriately stays closely focused on the Warriors themselves. They're no saints - they may not even be good people - but they aren't to blame for the events which have them being hunted, and it's easy to empathize with their desperation and exhaustion as they keep wandering into traps and barely escaping.
Unfortunately, for as exciting and well-crafted as it is, The Warriors does have some terrible sexual politics. There is of course the rampant homophobia, with the f-word thrown around repeatedly as a pejorative, and there are lots of threats of sexual violence. The most significant female character - Deborah Van Valkenburgh's Mercy - is repeatedly called a whore and since she's never given much motivation to stick with the Warriors on their run, it's hard to come up with any justification for how the film treats her. It's tempting to fall back on the idea of the Warriors just being gang members and not upstanding citizens, but Michael Beck's Swan - the group's leader - is treated by the film as a good, honorable person and he treats Mercy the worst of all. The sequence with the all-female Lizzies involves them luring unsuspecting male warriors back to their lair to seduce and then kill them, which feels a little gross considering how the rest of the film deals with women. They're also the only female gang members we see.
It isn't all bad though. The film is admirably multi-racial, and its gangs don't lean on gross ethnic stereotypes the way lazier films would (there is no "kung fu" gang, for instance). While a handful of the gangs we glimpse are comprised entirely of one race, that seems a function of the heavily segregated neighborhoods they represent (e.g., Spanish Harlem's Hurricanes or Chinatown's Savage Huns) and the vast majority of the gangs - including the most prominent ones - are integrated. It's something that helps make the film feel like it's really set in New York even beyond the location shooting.
While not well-received by critics upon release the film was still popular, and it's unsurprising that The Warriors has grown into a cult favorite in the years since. It's colorful world-building, easily identifiable characters, and pulpy comic book aesthetic (the comic panel interstitials added for the 2005 release were something Hill had wanted all along) make it exactly the kind of movie that a group of friends is going to discover and make their favorite thing to quote at each other. Indeed, the cadence of the word "Warriors" in Luther's famous line can often be heard reverberating through the stadium at Golden State Warriors home games. It's the rare film that has so permeated the culture that most people know parts of it without ever having actually seen it. Society may shun the night life, but we sure do enjoy watching it.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/28: Suspiria (2018)
REMAKE/REBOOT WEEK!
For Remake/Reboot week we'll be watching Luca Guadagnino's 2018 remake of the Dario Argento classic Suspiria. Moving the action to a 70's West Berlin, Guadagnino uses the ideas of the original to tell a story of generational guilt over fascism. Be sure to join us next week for our discussion of Suspiria, available on Prime Video and for rent in the usual places.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 12/22: Wolfwalkers
The current podcast pairing concludes with Wolfwalkers, the latest tale from Tomm Moore, the creator of the acclaimed Song of the Sea and The Secret of Kells. Join us Wednesday for our discussion of Wolfwalkers, available on Apple TV+.