Thursday Matinee: 'Times Square' (1980)

posted Thursday Oct 13th, 2016

It's getting darker earlier so that means it's time to roll out the VoT tradition of digging up incredibly awesome movies buried in the depths of YouTube, and this week we have the femme-punk classic from 1980, Times Square for your viewing pleasure. Centered around two teenage girls, this film has the perfect soundtrack (Pretenders, Suzi Quatro, Ramones, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Roxy Music, etc) and heaps of angsty attitude, as well as some seriously offensive material when taken in today's hyper-sensitive context, so get yourself ready. As time goes on, it's still such a shame that Nikki (Robin Johnson) had her career cut so short, due to management complications, she was prevented from participating in any other film productions, which is a real travesty considering how great her role is here.

But what this incredible film boils down to is two teenage punk rockers running away from home and living off their own devices, barely scraping by while living off the mean streets of 1970s NYC, filmed in all it's gritty glory. Once again, you may be familiar with this film from seeing the soundtrack in used record stores, it's a common LP chock full of hits, but the film itself is much harder to come by. And not only does this movie contribute TWO Fake Punk hits to the cannon, namely the stone-cold classic we've got right here, entitled "Damn Dog" which shouldn't be missed by any fans of female-fronted punk, and or Fake Punk from the original wave.

So without further adieu, pop this feature into full-screen mode and dive into the nether-world of late 1970s New York City, when everything was dangerous and untamed by corporate plasticity, it's a true cinematic gem of the era and rare one to see on TV or in re-runs, dig in!


STREAM the full movie HERE (while you still can!)