i have interests other than ffxiv yes

galleria

speedpaint under cut

But there is one unsuccessful movie, one particular unsuccessful movie, that for the first five minutes rips harder than any movie ever has. For the first five minutes it is My Hole Made For Me, so much so that I could honestly have put it up as my dating profile back when I was still doing that. Do you fuck with this? I would say. Then we'll get along fine.

It collapses the instant we hit five minutes ten seconds, a weird muddle of tone and poor casting, but for that first scene, that brief and shining moment, I feel ALIVE.

Here. Sit down. Join me, won't you? This is the opening scene of Walter Hill's 1984 "rock and roll fable", Streets of Fire.

It has everything.

The Jim Steinman banger! The neon-grunge 50's AU aesthetic! A lissome Diane Lane animated by the power of synth guitars, whipping her hair around in a red satin catsuit! Willem Dafoe at his absolute malevolent hottest descending on the concert, escorted by his motorcycle gang like Hades borne forward by dark throngs, ready to abduct her straight to the underworld!

This texture and light!

The perfect framing of our heroine in this shot, where she seems like the most powerful thing in the entire universe!

This fucking -- all timer villain introduction!

And yet! And yet.

I cannot emphasize enough how hard this movie runs out of gas almost the instant we're finished here. There are a handful of bright points - the final song (Big Jim never fails), the genius costume designer who put Dafoe in leather suspenders later in the film - but for the most part, the magic is lost.

Transcript: "Ambiguous rubbish. It could mean anything. I can do it too: the sun grows dark, but lo! Here comes the dawn!"

He remembers those vanished years. As though looking through a dusty window pane, the past is something he could see, but not touch. And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.