The Boys Next Door (1985)

“Everything looks like MTV.” Cruising down a main strip in Los Angeles, the two teenage boys – Roy (Maxwell Caulfield, off the box office disappointment of Grease 2) and Bo (Charlie Sheen, pre-Platoon) – take the street scene all in with glee, yelling at the punks and catcalling the ladies. Director Penelope Spheeris, and her cinematographer Arthur Albert, capture the authenticity of the streets in The Boys Next Door (1985), and the night-time LA depicted is accentuated by a sickly green glow of the street lights and the pink-reddish glare of the neon signs. Out-of-towners who have recently graduated from high school, Roy and Bo, seem like a pair of regular guys: jeans and white t-shirts, drinking beers and chasing girls. Their interest in pranks and their snotty vibe have made them toxic to the rest of their high school. Roy, in particular, has some “stuff inside him”, he confides to Bo, and eventually that “stuff” comes out when he beats a petrol station attendant half-to-death. Recent graduates and bound for factory work, their impulsive jaunt to Los Angeles eventually becomes a nihilistic killing spree.

I’ve always been keen to see The Boys Next Door, a halfway point between Spheeris documentary The Decline Of Western Civilization and the comedy hit Wayne’s World, but not being a huge true crime fan (which I assumed it was; it’s not, a fictional story scripted by future X-Files writers Glen Morgan and James Wong), and knowing the darkness of this movie, I was reluctant to seek it out right away. I’m glad I watched it finally. Distributed by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, and humming with a soundtrack of LA punk and proto-heavy metal, which often scores the disturbing violence, The Boys Next Door is a descent into meaningless murder and crime, with great lead performances from Caulfield and Sheen (his presence echoes his father’s film, Badlands). Kept tight to a 90 minute running time, and a slow escalation that is intercut with two detectives following the series of crimes (Hank Garrett and Christopher McDonald), it’s an unsettling movie that also captures 1980s L.A. nightlife. With Spheeris’ interest in punk rock and music, there’s a compelling theme where the boys find the punks weird and off-putting, and even a police detective rails against the way that punk girls are dressed, all part of the media panic about that subculture as violent and disturbed, when the real violence here is being perpetuated by a couple of good-looking “ordinary” boys. Available on Tubi. Recommended.

Modern Girls (1986)

Often described as L.A.’s answer to After Hours, Modern Girls (1986) feels much more indebted to the success of Desperately Seeking Susan as both are fuelled by a non-stop new wave soundtrack and boho club fashions. Taking place over the course of one night (a personal favourite sub-genre of mine), Modern Girls follows a quartet of characters hopping across the LA nightlife of warehouse parties, bars and exclusive clubs.

Opening credits snapshot the trio of roommates during their workday: clock-watcher with attitude Daphne Zuniga, pet-store bombshell Virginia Madsen and make/up store dreamer Cynthia Gibb. Desperate for a fun night to get over being fired, Gibb’s character puts the story in motion, conscripting a straight-laced driving instructor (Clayton Ronner) as their chauffeur; he’s arrived at the girls’ apartment for a date with Madsen’s character, though she’s already forgotten about him and left. So they all head out to a trendy nightspot, and for the first thirty minutes, the film feels like a light, airy hang-out, content to soak up the nightlife, the outfits and the music.

Lightly comic in observation, particularly as Ronner’s character is slowly inducted into ‘The Scene’ as well as an eventual make-over. Then, as the night goes on and the characters move to the next location, the movie dials up the cartoonish antics a bit more with car chases, mistaken identity moments, a few dated gags, and a touch of danger courtesy of Madsen being continually cornered by creeps that she’s rescued from. There are fun performances, particularly from Zuniega and Gibb who have the most to do, and Ronner especially who also plays two roles, the intellectual sad-sack who becomes friendly with the female trio, and a Billy Idol type rocker named Bruno X that Gibb’s character is chasing after.

Scripted by Laurie Craig and Anita Rosenberg, and directed by Jerry Kramer (a music video director who also made… Moonwalker, erm), Modern Girls is ultimately a light post-high school teen comedy romance with an ultimate focus on female friendship. Less about the anxiety of not being able to get home like in After Hours. More about the exhaustion of an all-nighter but there’s still a bit of magic out there. Depeche Mode’s ‘But Not Tonight’ is its theme song, and features other tunes by Toni Basil, Icehouse and Jesus and the Mary Chain. Big fan of the crushed blue gloves that Zuneiga wears, and the pink cigarettes that Gibb smokes. Available to stream on Tubi (US). Recommended.

Dangerous Game (1993)

With Dangerous Game (1993), Abel Ferrara makes a movie about making movies, so you’re gonna get histrionic method acting shouting, people wearing sunglasses indoors smoking cigarettes like vampires, catholic themes about indulging vices and expunging guilt, and copious scenes of drinking and drug-taking while a Schoolly D track pumps away in the background. For Dangerous Game, Ferrara reunited with Harvey Keitel after Bad Lieutenant, and collaborated with pop star Madonna (and her Maverick company helped produce it for MGM). To Ferrara, making movies is boiled down to a director workshopping scenes with his actors; I remember reading somewhere that Ferrara was compelled to make this movie by the question of how an actor – such as Keitel in Lieutenant – can go to extremes for the camera and walk away from it.

Scripted by regular Ferrara collaborator Nicholas St. John and heavily improvised during its shooting, Keitel plays a stand-in for Ferrara, a New York director named Eddie Israel, who is working in L.A. with his stars, Sarah Jennings (Madonna), a TV star branching out to a gritty movie, and Francis Burns (James Russo), an actor friend of Eddie’s who has a lower star profile. They’re making a relationship drama called Mother Of Mirrors that hinges on a classic Ferrara theme of sin versus piety; a marriage in turmoil when the wife rescinds their sex-and-drugs lifestyle causing the husband to react with violence and assault. Mother of Mirrors, man, what a title – as it’s a hall of mirrors here! We watch the “actors” perform scenes that see-saw on a tension of things going too far, violently or abusively, while other scenes step outside the movie-within-a-movie to include the machinery and crew around the acting. We shift from actual rehearsal footage shot on video to scenes shot on film. As a viewer, I just took it all in but there is clear confusion and tension between if a scene is “real” (like, is this actual rehearsal footage shot on video) and improvised (Keitel-in-character directing Madonna and calling her a “commercial piece of shit”). Actors go to extremes for the director, and then are seen later hanging out at a bar, knocking back booze and hanging out with guest star Richard Belzer. All the while Eddie’s family is back in New York, his son and his wife, played by Abel’s then-wife Nancy Ferrara.

The casting of Ferrara’s wife can’t help but offer meta-textual readings (apparently Keitel’s idea) as Eddie explores his own failings through his work, a fact that the film eventually takes him to task for: being a hypocrite, asking for truth and commitment from his actors, while not confessing his own infidelities to his wife. As a fan of Ferrara, this adds a fascinating layer and points towards later work like The Blackout and New Rose Hotel, the ways in which all of their third acts dissolve into wandering, searching introspection (or confusingly meandering depending on your perspective). While I’ve always found Russo to be a bit one-note in his intensity, Madonna is more compelling as the soap opera actor giving herself over to this production to be tested and put through the wringer; apparently, she did not like the experience of filming, clashing with both Keitel and Ferrara, and didn’t promote the film afterwards. She’s really good though, one of her best dramatic performances. However, the focus is most on Keitel’s character, and he gives a great performance, that tempers the extremes of his previous work with Ferrara by the way he reflects the director (aping the hair, the jacket) but is shot through with his own idiosyncratic tough-guy persona.

There’s a video out there of Ferrara and cinematographer Ken Kelsch talking about Dangerous Game at a retrospective screening, providing an insight into how chaotic its making was. Love hearing Ferrara rap about making movies to an audience: “L.A… I mean we got our asses kicked there, no mistake!” Recommended.

Heartbreakers (1984)

With its Tangerine Dream synth-wave score and gliding Michael Ballhaus cinematography, Heartbreakers (1984) exudes considerable neon-noir energy. Yet the movie has nothing to do with the crime or thriller genre. Instead, all that neon and energy is just the palpable aesthetic for a drama about male friendships. The film’s title card frames the two men – Blue (Peter Coyote), a struggling artist, and Eli (Nick Mancuso), a wealthy businessman – observing a room filled with lycra-clad women during a work-out session, setting up a movie about the dating scene and two lotharios on the make. However, Heartbreakers has more on its mind than being an Eighties sex comedy and surprises you by certain scenes and their off-kilter directions. There’s a European-influence to the film’s tone, a messy hang-out about careers, money, family, sex, relationships and ultimately, the combustible love between these two men. A view of Los Angeles taking in its superficial and bohemian terrains: art gallery deals, gym work-outs, late night burgers, and early morning diners. Blue is wanting for success as an artist, spurred by a break-up with his long-suffering girlfriend, Cyd (Kathryn Harrold). Stuck in the family textile business, Eli finds pleasures in one night stands but is longing for a relationship. There’s the buxom model, Candy (Carol Wayne) for Blue’s fetish paintings, the French gallery employee, Lillane (Carole Laure) and the successful artist, King (Max Gail) that Cyd becomes involved with. I was fully into the style of Heartbreakers, which reminded me of After Hours but not a nightmare, or Miracle Mile without the apocalypse, or even the movies of Alan Rudolph such as Choose Me but less addled and woozy. Directed and written by Bobby Roth, and based in part on his own experiences in a male friendship, and the different sides of his personality. Great performances from the cast, particularly co-leads Coyote and Mancuso who get a chance to shine in different ways; Coyote as excitable and loose, Mancuso as suave yet wounded. I’m probably rating it higher in my estimation because it ticks a lot of aesthetic boxes, but I can imagine returning to this film as a way to spend time in this world and with these characters. Watched the Fun City Editions Blu-ray, which has a great remastered transfer of a film that was previously difficult to find a copy of. Recommended.

The Hidden (1987)

Somewhere between The Thing and The Terminator lies… The Hidden (1987). I have a strong memory of the VHS in my local video store being adorned with a “Recommended” sticker, which always jumped out at me, particularly for movies that I’d never heard of or felt had received a cinema release, and getting that extra seal of approval from a video clerk. Only years later thanks to late night television would I finally understand why. Ordinary citizens have started cutting loose, prefiguring Grand Theft Auto gameplay by going wild robbing banks, stealing luxury cars, shotgunning bystanders and facing off cops in high speed pursuits. While frustrated tough guy detective Michael Nouri is trying to put the pieces together, a strange fresh-faced FBI agent with a new wave hairdo is here to lend a hand. Kyle McLachlan is one of those actors who, when they have the right role, become transcendent, and before he was Dale Cooper on Twin Peaks, he got to play a weirdo fed who may be from another world, and is absolutely perfect, appealingly off-kilter and sweetly naive. This New Line production is a moderately budgeted sci-fi action thriller gem as Nouri and McLachlan go buddy cop over an alien life force who likes to rock out to Earth music and leave death and destruction in their boombox-carrying wake. Great parade of supporting players including Claudia Christian, Ed O’Ross, Chris Mulkey, Clu Glauger, and even Danny Trejo in a one minute scene as a prisoner. Directed by Jack Sholder (A Nightmare On Elm Street 2) and written by Jim Kouf (National Treasure, Rush Hour). Available to rent on iTunes. Recommended.