4k digital film restoration movie#

It is beyond charming, and vitally essential, to see deep, honest emotion undercutting the performative toxic masculinity of these characters, who are pushed to play the Tough Guy by the world they exist in yet crave - and receive - true connection from their male peers. When your names truly are Sodapop and Ponyboy, ya gotta stick togetherРІР‚В¦Р”Р„ subtle unspokenness that all the cast deliver fuels the power of this film. His bluster about his face being a mess because РІР‚Сљsome guysРІР‚Сњ (not his dad, defo not his dad) beat him up does not jibe with the terrifyingly haunted look in his eyes. Perhaps more incisively, itРІР‚в„ўs in how, say, domestic violence is accepted as a norm among these kids, if also something that is Not To Be Discussed: Johnny talks around his reasons for not wanting to go home, but we know exactly what is going on with him. This shows itself, too, in small moments that capture teen society, like when LaneРІР‚в„ўs ( Serenity, Justice League) Cherry - who is from the wealthy side of town and whose boyfriend is one of the Socs - tells Ponyboy, her social opposite whom she has befriended, quite to the contrary of expected norms, РІР‚СљIf I see you at school and I donРІР‚в„ўt say hi, donРІР‚в„ўt take it personal.РІР‚Сњ Ouch, but accurate. Hinton was a teen herself when she wrote the book, and the movieРІР‚в„ўs utter lack of any adult perspective still feels fresh and necessary today itРІР‚в„ўs unusual even as 80s and 90s teen movies ended up developing, which tend to offer at least brief asides of adult disapproval of These Kids Today.

4k digital film restoration movie#

Like how HintonРІР‚в„ўs novel is pretty much credited with starting the literary genre we now call РІР‚Сљyoung adultРІР‚Сњ the way that is reflected in the movie is important to cinema, too. And despite two genuinely heartfelt central performances, the most intriguing aspects of the film, as with the cast, are the bits around the outside edges. TheyРІР‚в„ўre a couple of poor kids from the wrong part of Tulsa, Oklahoma in the mid 1960s, and things go from bad to worse for them when they get caught in the middle of a fatal stabbing between their gang, the Greasers, and the Socs, the rich kidsРІР‚в„ў posse from the other side of town. No, this is solidly the story of teen Ponyboy Curtis (Howell: Woodlawn, The Amazing Spider-Man) and his friend Johnny Cade (Macchio). How strange and random it can be, who rises to megastardom, and who does not. And thereРІР‚в„ўs a cameo by early Boomer Tom Waits!) ItРІР‚в„ўs a bit of a shock, in fact, to see that the bigger these guys would go on to become, the smaller their roles are here: Cruise, Estevez, and Lowe are mostly just hovering in the background in a handful of scenes, for instance. (Also Patrick Swayze is here, but he was a Boomer. Because this is the proto Brat Pack movie, peopled by an absolutely iconic 80s cast, a veritable whoРІР‚в„ўs who of Xer screen luminaries: Tom Cruise. I may be a bad GenXer in my heretofore Outsiders avoidance, but there is solid generational pleasure to be had catching up with it now. *whew* Keeping up with the different flavors of a movie can be exhausting.Р”Р„nyway. It was an era when boys were greasy and armedРІР‚В¦

Which is the version of the movie I finally saw, just now in 2021, in its brand-new 4K restoration.

So all that means that I have zilch invested in what came before CoppolaРІР‚в„ўs 2005 directorРІР‚в„ўs cut, cleverly called РІР‚СљThe Complete Novel,РІР‚Сњ for which he restored 22 minutes of what had been snipped away, by studio demand, from the original theatrical version.

Maybe because I was more into sci-fi and fantasy then, which this is most definitely not, and because even that early on I was aware - and annoyed - that movies always seemed to be mostly about boys. Somehow, I had managed not to see the original 1983 cinema adaptation directed by Francis Ford Coppola, even though that landed right at the beginning of my obsession with movies, when I was a young teenager. HintonРІР‚в„ўs classic 1967 novel The Outsiders.