Tonight, we’ll be talking a set of films that almost form a genre of their own.
These films were often, though not always, “respected” by critics and the general public at large, but all bore that dark, almost despairing claustrophobia and realistic feel of what I and others were living every day out on the streets locally, far from the dayglo nonsense of the 60’s reruns or the sunnier Hollywood based fare of the day.
The streets were crowded, filthy, filled with the detritus of the post-hippie era – the junkies, the odd artsy types, the gangs, the whores. The days where you were damn glad to see Curtis Sliwa’s Guardian Angels on a subway…if you were crazy enough to use them at all. Everything covered in graffiti, buildings collapsing into tenements, crack houses, illicit hookup spots for rough trade cruising types. Garbage in the streets, and decay in every sense of the word.
These are films that wallow in what in later years would be referred to as urban blight, but not so much “celebrating” as providing a window into all the palpable danger and decline of an impoverished post-blackout Manhattan in the days after the Watts and Newark riots, not long past Ford telling the mayor and city to go screw ourselves when asking for Federal relief.
These were the days of Studio 54, CBGBs and the original Saturday Night Live – but filled with menace. Hard drug use was rampant. Muggings were so commonplace as to be a shrug of the shoulders. Nobody in their right mind stepped into Central Park after sunset. Washington Square was known for decades as Needle Park. And the East Village? Forget about Alphabet City, the Bronx or Brooklyn.
This was a special breed of film, that focused on crooked, flawed cops working outside a busted system…but not with the heroic vibe of Reaganite action heroes. These guys paid for painting outside the lines. The denouments were never triumphant, all victories were pyrrhic. Vigilante justice and community action were about as fantastic as these films got, and as close to actual comeuppance as anyone got.
This is the story, in a way, of our childhood and early youth to young adulthood, as told in some very memorable films.
So join us as we go dumpster diving in the back alleys of most dangerous of neighborhoods, only here on Weird Scenes!
Week 111 (11/30/23): Take a Bite of the Rotten Apple - NYC cop/crime films of the 70s
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Take a Bite of the Rotten Apple - NYC cop/crime films of the 70s
Week 110 (11/16/23): Cary Grant
Week 109 (11/2/23): Crimenaux ala Francais - Crime The French Way
Week 108 (10/19/23): Hide in Plain Sight: the Life and Career of Rock Hudson
Week 107 (10/5/23): Still a Bit of a Lad: The Bumpy Career of Hugh Grant
Week 106 (9/21/23): Who’s Afraid of Liz and Dick? The Tempestuous Career of Richard Burton
Week 105 (9/7/23): Ride the rollercoaster - the life and career of Jennifer Lopez
Week 104 (8/24/23): Hail to the Queen: the rise, fall and resurrection of America’s Sweetheart Sandra Bullock
Weird Scenes Week 103 (8/10/23): Sex Italian Style: The Life and Films of Sophia Loren
Weird Scenes Week 102 (7/27/23): A Man of Unusual Talent: The Life and Career of Tony Perkins
Weird Scenes Week 101 (7/13/23): Brian DePalma
Weird Scenes Week 100 (6/29/23): Jamie Lee Curtis
Weird Scenes Week 99 (6/15/23): Richard Benjamin, Class(y) Clown
Weird Scenes Week 98 (6/1/23): High Voltage and Wired: The Life and Career of John Belushi
Weird Scenes Week 97 (5/18/23): In The Court of Chaos: Up (and Down) with Wesley Snipes
Weird Scenes Week 96 (5/4/23): Sometimes You’ve Just Got To Let One Go: The Atypical Career of Whoopi Goldberg
Weird Scenes Week 95 (4/20/23): From Horse Laughs to Hollywood to Fat Suit Hell: The Rapid Rise and Precipitous Fall of Eddie Murphy
Weird Scenes Week 94 (4/6/23): Class and Style: The Unusual Career of Jacqueline Bissett
Weird Scenes Week 93 (3/23/23): Come Fly With The Chairman of the Bored - The Films of Frank Sinatra
Weird Scenes Week 92 (3/9/23): George Segal
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