🎬 #115 Late Night Movies On TV.

I’ve talked about this in the past but there is a lost joy in the age of streaming and non-linear viewing, where you don’t really stumble upon a film. Growing up, I’d put the TV on late at night, like 11pm or so and just see a movie starting, I might have even missed the title so I had no idea what it was or what it was about. And you couldn’t look it up online at the time. These days there’s little mystery left. We know everything going in / we choose based on research or the little summary provided by streamers - even reading this newsletter is a kind of research before you choose something to watch, so I guess it’s ironic that I'll explain why I like the films that follow. But both these films are ones I caught late at night on Channel 4 or BBC2. And it was so cool discovering something, almost like you found something you shouldn’t - something that seemed intended, just for you.

Happy choosing, happy viewing

Bry

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FILM ONE: SUBURBIA [SubUrbia]

1996 Dir Richard Linklater
2hrs 1 min

Seeing this late at night, unidentified, probably as a 13/14 year old - I thought wow that’s me and my friend’s lives. Hanging out together on the streets at night, entertaining ourselves and dreaming of what we’d one day become. This is Linklater’s 4th feature and he’s really honing his Linklater-ness. He’s captured that hang out feeling again that he nailed in Dazed and Confused. That space that teenage plans occupy, how everything seems super important when it comes to socialising.

The film takes place over the course of a day, and it seems like it’s one like any other until their old high school classmate [who’s become a successful musician] returns to their neighbourhood. As a teenager - the atmosphere of it really stayed with me. The seemingly endless days of being that age in summer. Even though I grew up in a small town in Ireland, the feel of it felt like our own little world. The themes were universal, the characters you could relate to in some sense. The costume design felt like the kind of clothes you wanted to wear at that age.

It was all like us. It was also the film where I feel in love with Giovanni Ribisi. Linklater is the master of this kind of cinema, the story that feel effortless, that feels like reality in the best kind of way. The ultimate hang out movie.

TL;DR: Richard Linklater’s film puts us right into the world of a group of teenagers trying to entertain themselves.

*Available for a small rental fee on Amazon, Apple, Google and YouTube in the US and the UK.

Fact: Based on the play of the same name, written by Eric Bogosian. You might not recognise the name but you’ll recognise the face.

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FILM TWO: KIDS

1995 Dir Larry Clark
1hr 31 mins

Again, the perfect film to come across late at night when you’re a teenager. And whatever shit you were up to at the time, suddenly paled in comparison to the stuff these kids were up to. I think it took me a few times to actually watch the entire film because I kept coming to it at different points over many months of it being broadcast. Then I’d have to talk to friends, asking them about it and between us we’d figure out what the title was or look in the newspaper to check the TV listings. Then I’d check the listings again and try to plan to watch the whole thing.

It’s a shock to the system seeing this film - while like our little teenage world - this was the ultra hardcore version. Kids in NYC, getting into fights, raping younger teenage girls - it’s brutal. Made all the more so by the ticking clock structure where Chloë Sevigny’s character Jennie has to track down the 17 year old Telly - to warn him that he has HIV. The reason she knows this is that he’s the only guy she’s slept with and she's just tested positive for the disease. Meanwhile, Telly is on a rampage to try and sleep with as many virgin’s as possible, as he weaves his way through random friend’s apartments, parties and fights.

The screenplay was written by Harmony Korine who would go on to explore youth apathy and brutality in many of his other films as a director. The film also gave a lot of younger actor’s a huge launch pad because of how good and controversial the movie was. A very young Rosario Dawson appears alongside Chloe in their first ever film roles. The film feels like it was made by and for young people. Especially at the time - it feels real, which makes the horror of the situation all the more potent.

TL;DR: Larry Clark’s film shows us the not so innocent side of kids lost on the streets of New York.

*Available right here

Fact: Korine wrote the script when he was 19. He was dating Chloe at the time they were in pre-production, which led to her being cast.