Cult movies are born, not made on purpose, and the strenuous effort shows in W.D. I wish I could share his enthusiasm for a film that tries harder than most. Any time it comes on I’m like, ‘I guess I’m watching “Buckaroo Banzai” now.’” What’s playing on cable right now? So I end up watching bits and pieces of movies all the time.
#Watch regular show the movie movie#
I know nobody watches cable anymore, but I still have all the movie channels and one of the things I do at the end of the night is just turn on the Xfinity box. “It’s one of my favorite films, it’s like ‘The Maltese Falcon’ for me. “I keep talking about ‘Buckaroo Banzai,’” Hinkle sheepishly admits. “Well, sometimes in these movies you have to be wearing a sexy cheerleader outfit for no particular reason,” he laughs.
It’s one of those movies that’s empowering even though one of the leads is inexplicably wearing a sexy cheerleader outfit the entire time. “It’s not just an apocalyptic zombie movie, it’s interestingly kind of a progressive feminist film,” Hinkle enthuses, noting the scene-stealing turn from Warhol Factory regular and Roger Corman favorite Mary Woronov as a subversive think-tank scientist in sunglasses. I rewatched “Night of the Comet” the other day for probably the first time in decades, finding myself pleasantly taken aback by how this cheapie exploitation picture about an astronomical anomaly that dehydrates most of the population into the walking dead takes time to showcase two can-do, strikingly competent heroines - young women who are constantly being underestimated by the macho men in their orbit. ‘Night of the Comet’ is not a very well-known movie, and it kind of exists in your imagination, because it’s not on cable all the time.” You forget about how good they are at doing what they’re doing. Some of these films, because they hit on that nostalgia factor, they become an object in your mind. Somehow Hollywood and these filmmakers were just focused on being enjoyable, no matter how completely off the wall they were. He continues, “It’s a crazy cusp of a year. It’s just stupidly fun movie after ridiculously fun movie after artistically fun movie. “This year of movies is just impossibly entertaining. “A year that gave us ‘Buckaroo Banzai,’ ‘Repo Man’ and ‘Streets of Fire,’ let alone all the other movies on this program,” he smiles. Luckily for Hinkle, there was a wonderfully weird and exciting array of films at the local cineplexes. I guess probably because I was 12 going on 13.” It’s the age when you start trying on personalities, exploring art while taking it (and yourself) incredibly seriously. When I think about movies that were formative for me or are special to me, it seems like a lot of them come from 1984. “I’m not too shy to say it is my 50th birthday this year and this is my gift to myself.
#Watch regular show the movie series#
The series is an indulgence, admits the Brattle’s creative director Ned Hinkle. For the next two weeks, the Brattle Theatre’s “ Let’s Hear it for 1984!” retrospective takes us back to the year Ronald Reagan got re-elected, offering a dozen unexpected blockbusters (or semi-blockbusters, and some curiosities) including “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Gremlins,” “ Purple Rain,” David Lynch’s attempt at “Dune,” “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” and the original “A Nightmare on Elm Street” - a far more elegant scare picture than you might remember, before Freddy Krueger became a Catskills comedian who skewers teens and quips like Don Rickles with finger-knives. There’s an intensity to such nostalgia, a yearning for an age when you were just starting to explore music and movies, and the world made way more sense. Left to right, stills from the films "Old Enough," "Stranger Than Paradise" and "Paris, Texas." (Courtesy Brattle Theatre)Įvery generation is always complaining about how popular culture has been going steadily downhill since they were 13 years old.