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Wednesday, January 2
Monday, January
7
Tuesday, January 8
Admission: Free, $10 minimum
Showtime: 8pm and 10:30pm
Every era gets its James Dean. Mickey Rourke was the 1980s James
Dean. Swagger, attitude, and a pompadour that would make Morrissey
jealous. He was an awesome actor. And I'm sure he still is. But
bad casting
in
bad
films
can really screw your career. If Tarantino could resurrect Travolta,
surely someone could do something for Mickey Rourke.
Wednesday, January 2
Diner (1982) 8pm
Barry Levinson's Baltimore buddy movie that introduced the world to Kevin Bacon,
Steven Guttenberg, Ellen Barkin, Paul Reiser, Daniel Stern, AND MICKEY ROURKE.
Rourke plays "Boogie", a lady's man and hairdresser. His movie theater
scene is a cimema classic. And his final line, "If you don't have dreams,
you've got nightmares."
Pope
of Greenwich Village (1984) 10:30pm
I used to do a really good imitation of Eric Roberts saying to Mickey Rourke,
"Chawlie!!! They took my thumb Chawlie!!!" Rourke plays the streetwise wiseguy
to Eric Roberts' naive hustler. Several scenes were shot at the dearly departed
Little Italy bar, Mare Chiaro.
Monday, January 7
Rumble
Fish (1983) 8pm
Rourke plays Motorcycle Boy (no other name credited), the legendary brother
to Matt Dillon's character. Dennis Hopper, Laurence Fishburn, and Nicolas Cage
all make appearances. Compared to The Outsiders, Coppola's treatment
of S.E. Hinton's midwestern melodrama is much darker and more intimate.
Barfly (1987) 10:30pm
Rourke's last great starring role. He plays Henry Chinaski, a drunk, a writer,
a stand-in for Charles Bukowski, who wrote the screenplay. Faye Dunaway plays
his often abused some times girlfriend, mutual enabler. "Another round,
for me and my frieennnnds!"
Tuesday, January 8
Year
of the Dragon (1985) 8pm
Why isn't this film more well known? A screenplay by Oliver Stone. Directed
by The Deer Hunter's Michael Cimino. Is it because they shot the scenes
for New York's Chinatown on sets built in North Carolina and Vancouver? Was
it the protests by the Chinese community about their portrayal? Does anybody
love this film as much as a midwestern kid did thinking THIS was New York City's
violent, sexy Chinatown? Apparently, it fooled native-New Yorker Stanley Kubrick
too.
Nine
1/2 Weeks (1985) 10:30pm
Even though he did Barfly AFTER Nine 1/2 Weeks, this marks
the beginning of Rourke's descent. Adrian Lyne's "erotic" classic was a huge
hit
and made
Kim Basinger a star. It also seems to have led to nadirs like Wild Orchid and
Harley Davidson and The Marlboro Man.
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