This week’s question was inspired by this tweet:
kids today are missing out of the pre-streaming era, where your childhood was at least partially defined by some semi-obscure movie your family just happened to own on tape and you watched several dozen times
— Kris P. Bacon (@KrisWolfheart) January 19, 2023
(Screengrab here for the inevitable day that Twitter disappears.)
Modified slightly to give it a bit more leeway:
What film from the prestreaming era were you obsessed with that would be considered obscure now?
Bonus points if you can dig up a 40-year-old VHS cover.
My answer is what I quote-tweeted in response to @KrisWolfheart:
Me, except we didn’t own the VHS tape, I just borrowed it from the library over and over again, and it was #Spacehunter Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. https://t.co/Zcn13WcbbE pic.twitter.com/eCAY6OgDWX
— MaryAnn Johanson (she/her) (@maryannjohanson) January 23, 2023
(Screengrab here for the inevitable day that Twitter disappears.)
I must watch Spacehunter again! I haven’t seen it since I moved away from that library in 1988.
Your turn…
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Does Starman count? I don’t know if it’s exactly obscure, but it isn’t as present in the current pop culture landscape as some other stuff. I had a HUGE crush on Karen Allen because of that movie. :-)
Also, always, The Flight of Dragons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJFcQiixYFg&ab_channel=GWOtakuTZ
I loved the short-lived but absolutely wonderful Starman TV series so much that I published a fanzine devoted to it. 😀
A movie I also haven’t seen since circa 1988, Nate and Hayes, with Tommy Lee Jones, and while it didn’t have Miles of Keefe, it did have Michael O’Keefe. AKA Savage Island outside the US, which I only learned today.
I also haven’t seen it since 1988 or earlier, but I remember it being pretty fun.
1984’s Dreamscape, I think recorded off a TV broadcast. Dennis Quaid before Innerspace killed off his cocky kid persona, and a pre-Spielberg Kate Capshaw. It’s certainly not brilliant, but it has a sense of fun.
Ooo, I love 80s Dennis Quaid.
1994’s made-for-TV The Cisco Kid, starring Jimmy Smits and Cheech Marin, which we taped off the on-air broadcast and rewatched dozens of times.
Less obscurely (but it seems still somewhat unknown to people my age), we had 1990’s Dick Tracy on VHS, and my sister and I adored it. To the point where in high school I did a definitely unauthorized stage adaptation of it.
It still surprises me how many pop culture things I take for granted that younger people don’t seem to know. I’ve encountered kids and young adults who’ve never heard a song by the Beatles, don’t know who Sting is, and can’t tell Billy Joel apart from Neil Diamond. Of course it’s my fault for thinking those artists and their work are universal and everlasting (and I’m sure I’m shamefully ignorant of many pop-cultural landmarks in other traditions that millions of other people take for granted themselves). Still, as younger generations increasingly say “Huh? What’s that?” to things I grew up with, I’m feeling the passage of time more keenly. :-)
(On a more serious note, this also reminds me that community memory is more fragile than we think; we need to identify what’s important for us to remember, and fight for it.)
Also, speak of the devil:
https://gizmodo.com/dick-tracy-warren-beatty-special-zooms-in-interview-1850100901