The Last 20 Minutes of Streets of Fire

I had originally published this post on February 23, 2008 on a now-defunct sister blog. I found it in my archives, and felt it was too good not to have published somewhere on the internet. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Last night, Mr. Martini and I were flipping through the channels, trying to find something to watch when he stopped on one of our Encore movie channels. It was about 20 minutes from the end of a movie that I had never seen before.

The following is pretty much a transcript of everything that happened, and everything that was said in our living room, during the last 20 minutes of that movie. I think my head exploded at least 5 times from pure joy.

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On-screen were two gangs meeting under a bridge – one gang on motorcycles, the other more clean cut “good guy” looking. All were sporting 50′s ducktail hairstyles.

“What is this movie?” I asked.

“Streets of Fire. You’ve never seen it?”

“No.”

“You’re kidding! It’s an 80′s classic!”

On screen, Willem Dafoe was looking all young and badass, beating up Rick Moranis.

“Hey, it’s Rick Moranis! Was this movie before or after Ghostbusters?” I asked.

“After.”

Then Willem Dafoe got in a fistfight with Michael Pare.

“Is Willem Dafoe supposed to be a vampire?”

“What? No! This isn’t a vampire movie.”

“He’s just so pale compared to everyone else.”

Michael Pare managed to knock out Willem Dafoe, which proves this movie must have been very early in Willem’s career.

From there, we cut to a music hall, and watched a quartet sing I Can Dream About You.

“If this is supposed to be the 50s, why are they singing cheesy 80s music?”

“SpaceCase, this is a Rock and Roll Fable.”

“That takes place in the 50s?”

“It’s not the 50′s, it’s an alternate reality. It’s ‘timeless.’ It’s like one huge music video.”

“Oh my god, they’re moonwalking!”

“Are you telling me you never saw the video for this song? It’s basically just a recut of this scene from the movie.”

“If I did, I don’t remember it at all.”

“I can’t believe you grew up in the 80s and don’t remember this.”

“It’s like some weird vortex, because I seriously thought I had witnessed every single pop culture event from the 80s, and yet I have never seen this movie.”

Next, Rick Moranis and Michael Pare were backstage, talking. It appears that Rick Moranis’ character is supposed to be sort of cool and hip, but I can’t get past the image of geeky Ghostbusters Rick Moranis. Anyway, at this point, Rick basically told Michael that he can have Diane Lane if he wanted her. Michael turned down the offer. Diane was not consulted in this potential exchange of fortunes.

But wait! Next up, Diane Lane on stage, wearing a backless 80s disco dress. The music started, and Diane started singing…

I recognized the song style immediately. “Holy crap, is that a Meatloaf song?”

“I think Jim Steinman wrote it. She’s singing about dreaming about angels, so it must be Jim Steinman.”

“I can’t believe these two songs are in the same movie. This is insane!”

At the end of the movie, Amy Madigan drove up in a convertible and drove Michael Pare away.

The credits turned out to be as much fun as the movie it self – Ed Begley Jr., Mykelti Williamson, Bill Paxton…

“Lee Ving! Lee Ving was in this!” I shouted.

“Who?”

“He was in Clue! He was Mr. Boddy in Clue! I’ve never seen him do anything else, I figured it was just a fake name for that movie. How weird!”

Then the credits faded to black and we got to listen to some more of the music.

Mr. Martini shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you never saw this movie.”

“I know. I was the epitome of the 80s child. I wore neon. I wore banana clips. I played Pac-Man at the arcade, and knew every word to every song from Footloose. I wanted to grow up to be Molly Ringwald. But until today I never knew this movie existed.”

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That was just the last 20 minutes of this movie. Can you imagine how much my head would have exploded if I had seen the whole thing?

You can bet that I’m going to find out when it’s playing next and record it. Or order it from Netflix. I must see the rest of this movie. I feel obligated, to be a true child of the 80s.