Wow, I just saw this!
Really cool movie, for most of it. Fun, 80's musical numbers, "cool dude"-type hero, a young Diane Lane (grrrrowl!), all directed and co-written by Walter Hill (The Warriors, 48 HRS).
Some scenes are really DOA, like every scene with Rick Moranis whining; but many are loads of fun, like every Pat Benatar-esque song w/Diane Lane on stage. And plenty of bizarre dialogue.
Willam (sp?) Defoe plays--guess what?--the bad guy leader of a gang of 50s-styled bikers. When he's hanging out at his HQ, a bar called "Torchy's", he runs around in this black leather apron/smock that makes him look like a gay butcher. His fight with the hero at the end is funny. First, they use picks, or hammers, I'm not sure, with some really bad stunt choreography, but the fist fight afterwards is pretty good.
Overall, the whole thing's kinda like Purple Rain. Cheesy, campy, but loads of popcorn-noshing fun.
When the movie came out, MTV had the "I Can Dream About You" number on heavy, heavy, heavy rotation. I don't think I ever saw the movie, but I must have seen that video a thousand times.
This thread title totally made me think of the old SMA skate video Wheels of Fire.
SMA? Skating Martial Arts? That might even top the gunfighting while getting it on trick on the Shoot Em Up thread in terms of difficulty.
Yes, I love this movie too. I saw it in the theatre originally and have rented or owned it several times over the years.
It is cheesy but in a good way.
Um... yeah... I, like, danced to the soundtrack at my high school dances. But I'm NOT old! I'm NOT! I'll never forget the first time I heard one of those artists (the Fixx) on a classic rock station.
Classic Rock? MY music is on the CLASSIC ROCK station? Dude...
Still, I love the music. The long power ballads were all written by Jim Steiman, who wrote Bat Out of Hell (and Bat Out of Hell II) for Meatloaf.
I like pretty much every song as well as the other, and that soundtrack has been in my in-dash CD player for my car rides from California to Texas to Maine, and, more recently, on my MP3 player from the US to Iraq to Korea.
I'll be singing along to "One Bad Stud" when it's on the Oldies Station, I tell you.
I love the song Tonight is What it means to be Young.
Jim Steinman is God!
This was one of Diane Lane's first movies..
Definitely an eye catcher..
and the song her character is singing at the start of the movie (nowhere fast) by Fire Inc. is not bad at all.
Michael Pare B**slapping the punk (Bill Paxton IIRC)with the switch blade in the beginning is a classic bad a** moment too.