A Couple A Coppola: The Outsiders / Rumble Fish
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
Saturday night at the drive-in was a double feature from one of most well-respected directors of the 20th century, Francis Ford Coppola.
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
Saturday night at the drive-in was a double feature from one of most well-respected directors of the 20th century, Francis Ford Coppola.
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| Show banner designed by Andrew Kern |
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| Show poster designed by Sarah Derr |
Francis Ford Coppola has directed over twenty films in his career, with the first released in 1963 and the most recent coming out in May of this year. Although I would not call either of them my favorite mobster movie, I enjoyed The Godfather and The Godfather: Part 2, but none of his other films have ever really had much of an impact on me one way or the other, so I pulled onto the lot excited for the opportunity to see if I could get on board with what all the hype is about when it comes to this legendary director.
The Mahoning Book Club met prior to showtime to discuss the S.E. Hinton 1967 novel The Outsiders. I usually read at least some of the book prior to our meeting, but I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I didn't even start it. I spent most of our meeting smiling and nodding and hoping that no one would ask me anything. Thankfully, Kate carried a lot of the discussion, so I was able to fade into the background.
The first movie of the night was the 1983 coming of age film, The Outsiders. Until tonight, I had never watched West Side Story, Grease, or The Outsiders before, and the three of them have kind of melted together in my mind as a single movie that I didn't have all that much interest in ever watching. My perception prior to tonight was that they all were about greasy motorheads in leather jackets who spend their nights in gang rumbles when they're not too busy singing, crying, and/or screaming about their soap opera love affairs. This picture in my mind is about as far from my film interests as you can possibly get.
If I'm being completely honest, both West Side Story and Grease still exist in this bubble in my mind, and although I'm sure my perception is less than fair, I'm still not interested in seeing either one of them. The only reason I gave The Outsiders a chance is because it was on the Mahoning calendar, and my wife and two of our friends wanted to see it.
I'm not going to pretend that I loved The Outsiders, but I thought it was a very good movie and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. It's got an all-star cast and all of the performances were incredible. I probably would have enjoyed it more if there wasn't a race at the Mahoning Valley Speedway that drowned out a good portion of the dialogue, but it wasn't so bad that I couldn't follow the plot. This movie is going to be a one-and-done for me.
The second film of the night was the 1983 drama Rumble Fish. I had never heard of this movie before and had no idea what it was even about, but Virgil mentioned that it was one of his favorite movies of all time and he booked The Outsiders solely to give him an excuse to screen Rumble Fish as the second half of a double feature.
The second film of the night was the 1983 drama Rumble Fish. I had never heard of this movie before and had no idea what it was even about, but Virgil mentioned that it was one of his favorite movies of all time and he booked The Outsiders solely to give him an excuse to screen Rumble Fish as the second half of a double feature.
What I learned is that Virgil and I have very different opinions on what a good movie is. Rumble Fish just came across to me as a pretentious artsy fartsy mess. It was filmed in black and white, and the cinematography reminded me a little bit of Sin City, but with a far less interesting story. It stars Matt Dillon as "Rusty James", whose full name you will hear spoken about 83 times in the first ten minutes of the film. He wants to be a bad ass gang leader, but people don't like him. They do like his older brother, "The Motorcycle Boy" (played by Mickey Rourke), though I can't imagine why because all he ever seems to do is show up places and look off into the sky with a bored expression on his face. The character has all the charisma and screen presence of a wet mop.
Anyway, to make a very long story short, Rusty James spends the entire film throwing a pity party until his brother breaks all of the animals out of a pet store and gets shot by the police, after which Rusty James takes his dead brother's motorcycle and follows the river out to the California coast. The end.
Movies like this are catnip to film students and critics, but they sometimes aren't all that impressive to a paying audience. It bombed at the box office back in 1983 grossing $2.5 million on a $10 million dollar budget, and it bombed on the Mahoning lot, with dozens of cars leaving during intermission before it even began, and dozens more checking out before the film had reached the halfway point. We stayed until it was over, but neither my wife or our friend Mike liked it any more than I did. If I had to pick the least enjoyable movie that I've ever watched at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater, it would have to be Rumble Fish.
And that's a wrap on A Couple A Coppola. I wish that I had something more positive to say, but I guess that I just don't really dig Francis Ford Coppola all that much. Plenty of people do. He's widely regarded as one of the greatest directors of all time, but his work is just not something that connects with me.
