The Lost Boys (1987)

 "Read the TV guide, you don't need a TV!"

I know: where have I been all these years, ten years old in 1987 yet the first time I saw The Lost Boys was last night. At least I've seen it now,

As a story... the film is good. I wouldn't use a stronger word than "good": this is a fairly bog standard Hollywood blockbuster plot, but it's done well enough. And, given the youth of much of the cast, it's well performed. Dianne Wiest particularly excels as the sweet, overstressed Lucy, a character who feels very real, And Barnard Hughes is superb as Grandpa, Greek chorus and by far the coolest character in spite of all the very cool youth culture stuff.

And there's a lot of the latter. The main theme song is a banger in its own right: yes, Marilyn Manson's cover is better- his covers invariably are- but we don't talk about him nowadays. We get Echo and the Bunnymen covering People Are Strange. The vampires live in an abandoned underground hotel with a massive poster of Jim Morrison on the wall. All this stuff has a lot to do with why this film became such a cult classic, I feel.

And yet, I think, despite the rather satisfying resolution, the film is raised above its good-but-not-great script by its visuals. It has a very late '80s goth aesthetic. The vampires and the scenes surrounding them look great. And you can never go wrong with showing amusement rides at night to evoke a sense of the eerie.

A film with a merely decent script, then, but one elevated above that by visuals and coolness. And this is also a fascinating glimpse of vampires in pop culture in the '80s- a possible influence on both Anne Rice and Joss Whedon?

Crossroads (1986)

"You're just one more white boy ripping off our music."

I had to blog this film. For one thing, it has Ralph Macchio in it. For another, it's obviously about the fiftieth anniversary of Robert Johnson laying down those first tracks back in 1936; if you haven't heard any Robert Johnson then go and listen to "Come On in My Kitchen" right NOW!!!

It's a fairly standard light-hearted Hollywood film from 1986, really, but it's entertaining enough and has some interesting things to say about the Blues and it's expropriation by those with no links to its cultural origins in the formerly enslaved West African diaspora in the American South, a musical form with its roots in Bantu culture and unimaginable hardship. It's also an interesting snapshot of the American South some twenty years after the Civil Rights era. It also has some very '80s guitar widdling by Steve Vai.

We begin by evoking the Blues with the sound of a mouth organ, and Robert Johnson in monochrome. The film then shifts to colour and the picaresque adventures of the young, white, Blues-loving Eugene Martone and the cynical yet big-hearted old bluesman, Willie Brown. On the way some lessons are learned and it's all a bit Huckleberry Finn, although it's a nice touch that Willie, like Robert Johnson himself, has a hellhound on his trail and a debt to discharge to Satan. Cue a road trip down to Mississippi, some racism and police corruption and some partying while young Eugene gets himself a girl and old Willie gets to relive his youth.

It's a film that's not as well remembered as it should be; by no means a must-see but a nice little curiosity piece.