Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
Sometimes you go to a film screening and you come to realize that it is happening under optimal conditions, that the particular combination of movie, audience, circumstances and environment make for an ideal, likely never-to-be-repeated event. Such is what happened last Saturday when I went to the Academy Museum to see Walter Hill’s 1984 “Streets of Fire” projected from a beautiful archival 70mm release print.
Taking place in the museum’s downstairs Ted Mann Theater (some folks prefer its sight lines to those of the larger David Geffen), the screening was sold out, and there was a buzzing and expectant energy in the room before the show started.
Told in neon-drenched tones with a graphic visual style, the film, which bills itself as “a rock & roll fable,” opens with a spectacular musical number that grabbed the audience and never let go from there. The story concerns a singer (Diane Lane) kidnapped by a local gang leader (Willem Dafoe) and her adventurer ex-boyfriend (Michael Paré), who reluctantly agrees to bring her back.
Diane Lane in the movie “Streets of Fire.”
(Academy Museum)
In a conversation after the movie with K.J. Relth-Miller, the museum’s director of film programs, Hill admitted that the last time he had watched it was “about a week before it came out.”
“It’s a curious movie,” said Hill, 83. “I wanted to make a music movie and I got interested in the idea of, could I mix the action genre and the music? My previous film [’48 Hrs.’] had been a very big hit and I knew that you got to do one that they probably would never have made otherwise. And so I didn’t want to blow the chance.”
Hill also admitted, “I can see mistakes that we made in it,” specifically a moment when Paré hits Lane to knock her out. “I promise you, I wouldn’t do it today,” he said.
An idea that came up through the conversation was how to subvert tried-and-true story conventions and genre tropes. Hill recalled something that director Sam Peckinpah once told him.
“I remember I had a conversation once on the other side of the fence with Peckinpah when I was writing ‘The Getaway,’ ” Hill said. “And I said, ‘Yeah, we could approach it that way, but it’s probably a cliché.’ And he looked at me and he said, ‘You know what a cliché is?’ — I knew I was in trouble — and he said, ‘Cliché is something that works.’ ”
‘Lords of Dogtown’ 20th anniversary
Heath Ledger, center, in the movie “Lords of Dogtown.”
(Columbia Pictures)
On Thursday Vidiots will have a 20th anniversary screening of “Lords of Dogtown” with director Catherine Hardwicke in person.
Set in the 1970s, the film tells the story of how a group of Venice kids — the so-called Z-Boys — reinvented the sport of skateboarding, injecting it with daredevil tricks and a rebellious attitude. The cast includes Emile Hirsch, Michael Angarano, John Robinson, Victor Rasuk and Heath Ledger.
Rachel Abramowitz wrote about the film’s production, including how some of the real-life figures portrayed in the movie participated in the shoot, sometimes even acting as the skating doubles for the actors playing them.
At one moment, Hardwicke was standing on the edge of a drained-out pool for the skaters to use and took a wrong step and fell in, knocking herself out and fracturing an orbital bone in her face.
A scene from “Lords of Dogtown,” which “possesses depth and is visually striking, capturing an idea of what life is like in a very fast lane,” wrote L.A. Times critic Kevin Thomas at the time.
(Columbia Pictures)
Yet even that never dimmed her enthusiasm. As Abramowitz noted, “With her laid-back assurance and distinct vision, Hardwicke has been able to corral a lot of difficult personalities — some who have not always gotten along, as the movie well documents. Almost all the original Z-Boys and scenesters have worked on the film in various capacities, and the actors seem to look up to her.”
At one point Hardwicke’s direction to a group of actors in a scene was simply, “Just keep hanging and loving life and thinking how bitchin’ we are.”
In his review of the film, Kevin Thomas called Hardwicke “an inspired choice, given the insight and compassion for troubled, reckless teens she revealed so memorably in ‘Thirteen.’ ”
He added, “The film never loses its heart, as the limelight and spiraling competition strain friendships and incite ugly behavior but reveal a youthful vulnerability that makes the three engaging and their sometimes obnoxious, self-defeating behavior understandable under the circumstances. As in ‘Thirteen,’ Hardwicke has been able to inspire unsparing portrayals from young actors. … ‘Lords of Dogtown’ is as beautifully structured as one of the Z-Boys’ graceful and intricate maneuvers. It is economic yet possesses depth and is visually striking, capturing an idea of what life is like in a very fast lane.”
James Baldwin and ‘The Devil Finds Work’
A series from UCLA Film and Television will celebrate author James Baldwin, photographed in 1985.
(Los Angeles Times)
James Baldwin’s book-length essay “The Devil Finds Work,” completed in 1975 and first published in 1976, mixes personal memoir with insightful film criticism to become a singular work. The UCLA Film and Television Archive is launching a series to celebrate the book and Baldwin.
The series opens with an evening of excerpts from relevant Baldwin-related projects, including Raoul Peck’s 2017 documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” along with Karen Thorsen’s 1989 doc “James Baldwin: The Price of a Ticket.”
Where this series should get really interesting is the decision to have most of the screenings include a reading from “The Devil Finds Work” by some pretty noteworthy names, including author Roxane Gay, podcasters Sam Sanders and Zach Safford and actors LisaGay Hamilton, Justice Smith, Nic Ashe, Marc Anthony Howard, Kendale Winbush and filmmaker Raven Jackson.
Among the films being screened are Jack Conway’s 1935 “A Tale of Two Cities,” John Huston’s 1942 “In This Our Life,” Julien Duvivier’s 1942 “Tales of Manhattan,” William Friedkin’s 1973 “The Exorcist,” and Norman Jewison’s 1967 “In the Heat of the Night.”
Points of interest
‘Powwow Highway’
“Powwow Highway,” starring Gary Farmer, will be screened Friday by the Philosophical Research Society.
(Janus Films)
The Philosophical Research Society will host a screening on Friday of Jonathan Wacks’ 1989 road comedy “Powwow Highway,” which won a prize at that year’s Sundance Film Festival and has since been entered into the National Film Registry.
Produced by George Harrison’s production company Handmade Films and the directing debut of Wacks, best known at the time as a co-producer on “Repo Man,” the film was noteworthy for its depiction of Native American life. With a cast that also includes Wes Studi and Graham Greene, “Highway” stars Gary Farmer, later seen in “Dead Man” and the recent series “Reservation Dogs,” as Philbert Bono, who sets out on a journey to help his estranged sister and renew his sense of self.
In a review at the time, Sheila Benson called the film “a little zinger of a comedy with a rare backbone of intelligence.”
Austin Powers triple-bill
“Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” with Heather Graham and Mike Myers, will be one of three Powers movies to be shown as part of the Academy Museum’s “Summer of Camp” series.
(New Line Cinema)
As part of its “Summer of Camp” series, the Academy Museum will present on Sunday a triple feature of all three Austin Powers spy spoofs, 1997’s “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery,” 1999’s “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” and 2002’s “Austin Powers in Goldmember.” Jay Roach, director of all three pictures, will be there in person.
I don’t why, but the idea of watching all three of these movies together just makes me laugh all on its own. An unlikely cultural phenomenon that spawned catchphrases and Halloween costumes, the films are about a British secret agent (Mike Myers) in the Swinging 1960s who is reawakened from cryogenic sleep in the modern day to face off against against his archenemy, Dr. Evil (also Myers). The films feature a cavalcade of guest stars, including Elizabeth Hurley, Michael York, Robert Wagner, Heather Graham, Michael Caine and Beyoncé in her film debut.
In his review of “The Spy Who Shagged Me,” Kenneth Turan wrote, “As these films and his earlier ‘Wayne’s World’ demonstrate, Myers has a singular talent for skit humor. Seeing him play both the sniggering snaggletoothed Austin, ‘the man who put the grr in swinger,’ and the fussy, pinky-waving Dr. Evil is to see a gifted performer who knows his strengths and is not afraid of playing to them. You can get away with an awful lot of gross, juvenile humor if you’ve got that to fall back on.”
‘Oh, Hi!’
Logan Lerman and Molly Gordon in the newly released “Oh, Hi!,” which Gordon describes as a “rom-com gone wrong.”
(Sony Pictures Classics)
Writer-director Sophie Brooks’ “Oh, Hi!” premiered earlier this year at Sundance and hits theaters this week. Described by its co-star Molly Gordon as a “rom-com gone wrong,” the film is about a young couple (Gordon and Logan Lerman) who spend a romantic weekend together until he admits he doesn’t consider what they have going to be a committed relationship. He says this while handcuffed to a bed, and she decides to leave him there until he changes his mind.
In her review, Amy Nicholson wrote, “Pointedly and inevitably, our leads regress into Mars-Venus caricatures — he’s the jerk, she’s the psycho — as Brooks vents her frustration that gender tropes haven’t evolved. And not for lack of trying. For months, Isaac has whipped up homemade scallop dinners, while Iris patiently played it cool. The film’s core question is: How have men and women worked so hard to overcome toxic archetypes and still wound up stuck here?”
I wrote a profile of Gordon, who shares a story credit on the film and is also a producer. Now perhaps best known for her supporting role on the series “The Bear,” Gordon has also appeared in films such as “Shiva Baby,” “Booksmart” and “Theater Camp,” the latter which she co-directed and co-wrote.
“Oh, Hi!” is her first leading role in a film and it was an opportunity she had to create for herself.
“I don’t think I’ve gotten to really show this emotion or this darkness or gotten to be this crazy,” Gordon said. “It would’ve been cool if it came with someone else giving me that opportunity, but it just didn’t really feel like that was going to happen. So hopefully this shows people that I can do other things. But if not, I will keep trying to make my own things.”
In other news
TIFF on the horizon
Keanu Reeves, left, Seth Rogen and Aziz Ansari in the movie “Good Fortune,” having its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
(Eddy Chen / Lionsgate)
The Toronto International Film Festival, which runs Sept. 4-14, made a few program announcements this week which brought the fall festival picture into clearer view. (Festivals in both Venice and New York made clarifying announcements this week as well.)
Among the notable premieres at TIFF will be Aziz Ansari’s feature directing debut “Good Fortune,” along with films such as Jonatan Etzler’s “Bad Apples,” starring Saoirse Ronan; David Michôd’s “Christy,” starring Sydney Sweeney; James Vanderbilt’s “Nuremberg,” starring Russell Crowe; Nic Pizzolatto’s “Easy’s Waltz,” starring Vince Vaughn; and Alice Winocour’s “Couture,” starring Angelina Jolie.
Other Toronto titles that will also be popping up at other festivals include Gus Van Sant’s “Dead Man’s Wire,” Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” Mona Fastvold’s “The Testament of Ann Lee,” Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine” and Edward Berger’s “Ballad of a Small Player.”
Free screening of ‘Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation’
An image of Jack Kerouac as seen in the documentary “Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation,” which will be screened Tuesday at the Culver Theater in Culver City.
(Universal Documentaries)
On Tuesday we will have another free screening event with the documentary “Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation.” A look at the enduring influence of Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel “On the Road,” which became a foundational work of late 20th-century counterculture, the film includes Josh Brolin, Natalie Merchant, W. Kamau Bell and Michael Imperioli all reflecting on its personal and cultural impact.
Director Ebs Burnough will be there for a Q&A after the screening.
