{"id":23590,"date":"2016-12-31T08:17:59","date_gmt":"2016-12-31T13:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=23590"},"modified":"2017-02-13T05:08:23","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T10:08:23","slug":"times-square-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/31\/times-square-1980\/","title":{"rendered":"Times Square (1980)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>If anything, at least, \u201cTimes Square\u201d is a remarkable time capsule of the titular New York block. In 1980 before Giuliani sold the city to the highest bidder to turn it in to Disney World, Times Square was a rough area with porn theaters and dark corners every which way. Director Moyle is able to film New York brilliantly, with a lot of great wide shots and dolly shots of the corners of New York and the setting for the film. In the film we meet Pamela, the mentally ill daughter of a local politician who is hell bent on cleaning up Times Square for the mayor. When she\u2019s locked up in the hospital for mental evaluation, she meets street girl and musician Nicky, a rebellious and raucous punk rocker who is carried away by police after trashing a vehicle.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After escaping the hospital and going on the run, the pair survives the hard streets of New York on their own terms and builds a massive cult following with their music after garnering the attention of local late night DJ Johnny LaGuardia, as played by Tim Curry. All the while, Pamela\u2019s dad, aided by the police, is anxiously looking for her to bring her back home. \u201cTimes Square\u201d is goofy absurd fun, at least with rousing, occasionally rocky, performances by Trini Alvarado and Robin Johnson respectively. If you can appreciate the film as something more of a rock fairytale, with an admirable love for the music, \u201cTimes Square\u201d is a solid musical drama with a strong friendship base. Alan Moyle\u2019s \u201cTimes Square\u201d is almost a noteworthy testament to the punk rock lifestyle, mainly because while it does embrace its themes and music.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just very dodgy and chicken hearted in other narrative themes. Allegedly the studio behind \u201cTimes Square\u201d wanted to make their musical drama appeal to a broader audience, so they made the director tone down what was a crucial lesbian relationship between our main characters Pamela and Nicky. Had \u201cTimes Square\u201d approached that main plot head on, I think the film overall would have gone from more of a stern drama about liberation and less a tonally confused mess. A lot of \u201cTimes Square\u201d doesn\u2019t seem to know what it\u2019s doing, as it seems anxious to appeal to a teen audience, but isn\u2019t shy about the R rating with a doling out of hard language here and there. Had the movie embraced the lesbian overtones, \u201cTimes Square\u201d may have worked as a better movie. Not to mention a lot of moments would have made so much more sense, including Nicky\u2019s emotional outburst when LaGuardia and Pamela begin to get cozy with one another.<\/p>\n

If you look hard enough, though, you can still catch a lot of the lesbian subtext, from Nicky going emotional over losing Pamela, Nicky and Pamela re-uniting at her school, and of course the big concert scene in Times Square, where Pamela lovingly watches Nicky perform to a legion of female fans. \u201cTimes Square\u201d isn\u2019t a genre defining drama, but it\u2019s an experience worth having, if only for the excellent peeks at 1980 New York, and the rocky but raw performances by both stars. You also have to love the incredible punk rock soundtrack from folks like the Talking Heads, Ramones, Patti Smith, XTC, The Cure, Lou Reed and Gary Numan. \u201cTimes Square\u201d is surely not a great movie, but it\u2019s a top tier punk rock tribute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If anything, at least, \u201cTimes Square\u201d is a remarkable time capsule of the titular New York block. In 1980 before Giuliani sold the city to the highest bidder to turn it in to Disney World, Times Square was a rough area with porn theaters and dark corners every which way. Director Moyle is able to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1572],"tags":[302,700,766,1493,874,1033,1498],"class_list":["post-23590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-rockandrollny","tag-drama","tag-musical","tag-performance","tag-rock-and-roll","tag-romance","tag-teen","tag-tim-curry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23592,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23590\/revisions\/23592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}