Times Square

Monday, May 17, 2010

Presented by the art collective Ridykeulous!

There’s a lot of excitement building around our May event at Queer/Art/Film, when the ever-subversive art collective Ridykeulous (aka Nicole Eisenman & A.L. Steiner) will present a rare film screening of the Dyke Cult Classic, TIMES SQUARE!

Though little seen when it came out in 1980, Alan Moyle’s punk-teen-misunderstood-youth girl flick TIMES SQUARE – the other “Runaways” — was meant to be the next Saturday Night Fever, and has one of the most remarkable rock n’ roll soundtracks ever, including tunes by the Patti Smith Group, The Pretenders, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, and dyke-rocker Suzi Quatro. Shot on location in and around a pre-Giuliani Times Square, the story of two teenage gals on the run — who start their own punk band and become accidentally famous (thanks to D.J. Tim Curry!) — is both a document of a New York that was, as well a still-fresh portrait of female adolescent angst in all its pain and glory.

RIDYKEULOUS on TIMES SQUARE:

Dear friends we’ve accepted and ignored,

Ridykeulous is pleased to present the ’80s classic Times Square, a film Nicky E and UnkAL starred in when they were just tweens. Instead of wasting away those precious years watching Jo swagger around the set of The Facts of Life, Nicky and Pam (Steiner’s name had to be changed due to her involvement in the kidnapping of Patty Hearst) were making inroads into the world of high fashion with their garbage bag mini-dresses and rocking out on top of a marquee in Times Square.

There has never been a better time to be a teenage runaway then right NOW! Pop culture is suddenly awash in all things lesbian and runaways with films like The Runaways*. Ridykeulous misses the old Times Square, but this film is perhaps one of the best documents of the beautiful pre-Applebee’s squalor.

Although the film’s break-out hit single “Your Daughter is One” shocked our parents at the time, our highest high was quickly followed by a crushing low: nothing was more disappointing then the producers cutting out our sex scene, perhaps the hottest sex scene ever recorded on film between two Jews. Allegedly “permanently lost”, the sex scene is believed to have been spotted in the dusty bowels of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. At this VERY MOMENT, a small but not unattractive cadre of private investigators in wifebeaters are working up a sweat and moaning inappropriately as they “comb the stacks” to retrieve it.

As the trailer for our film stated in a gravely patriarchal voice, “Pam and Nicky found themselves on the streets of New York…now the whole city is gonna share their exhilaration.” Need more be said about this film and the trajectory of our lives? We think not.

Love, Ridykeulous

* it should be noted that Ridykeulous finds accepting Dakota Fanning as a “R/runaway” a ginormous stretch, even for those amongst us with the most advanced invaginations

ABOUT RIDYKEULOUS:

Alive since ’05, Ridykeulous is the collaborative effort of Nicole Eisenman & A.L. Steiner to subvert, sabotage and overturn the language commonly used to define feminism and lesbian art. Our efforts usually involve curation, intervention, publication, performance and highly-regarded affects on happenstance.

• Country USA
• Rating R
• Year 1980
• Running Time 111 minutes
• Director Allan Moyle

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.