Times Square

source: Times Square

This film beautifully captures the grittiness, longing and soulful danger that comes with leaving home and shaking off the dreamland of childhood in order to discover truth & the real world. Like rock-n-roll itself, this film is a raw, bittersweet and unrelenting tribute to the spirit of being young, brave and, most of all, hungry to live by one's own rules. Trini Alvarado gives a perfect performance and Robin Johnson is an absolute revelation. "Times Square" is a dynamite depiction of gritty New York City circa 1980 and the undeniable power of Rocker-Girl angst. If you already love this film, I would also recommend checking out "Pump Up The Volume," another impressive piece by director Allan Moyle.

**SPOILERS** Movie about two punk rockers Nicky & Pamala, Robin Johnson & Tirni Alverado, who set the city of New York on fire with their Punk Rock music and flying TV's! It was the girls way of expressing themselves, in their total disgust with modern society, in a way that had people's heads turn! Especially when an 19 inch TV dropped from a high rise building was about to land on top of them! This all started when the two troubled girls met in the New York Neurological Hospital and realized that it was not them but the adults who put them there should have been committed. Nicky was a homeless person who didn't know in which direction to go with her life but the well off and far fortunate, in having a home and family, Pamala's hang-us even exceeded hers. Her old man the city's Environmental Commissioner David Pearl,David Coffield,now wants to turn Times Square, what turned out to be her and her friend Nicky's happy stomping grounds, from the gritty and anything goes swinging district that it is into a Disneyland on the Hudson gaga-land with no personality at all! It's not until popular radio disk jockey Johnny LaGuadia, Tim Curry, started giving the on the run from the law, and men in white suits, girls free publicity on his all night radio show that their, Nicky and Pamala's music as well as Punk Rock ideas about life, really started to take off! To the point where entire New York City's, and it's surrounding, population of disenfranchised and ignored young people revolted against the establishment with both Nicky & Pamala leading the way. The road to the top of the heap, in the Punk Rock world, was not without is hard knocks for the two girls who had to suffer through a number of heartbreaking incidents that almost had them beak up and join the crowd, the entrenched establishment, that they so desperately tried to escape from. It was late in the film when both Nicky and Pamala went on their own, with the behind the scenes help of Johnny LaGuadia, as the popular "Sleaze Sisters" to express their feelings about life hope and the future of America's youth as well as their relationship with each other. It's then that the whole Times Square District exploded, in a pre-announced concert that they gave there, that even Pamala's stuffed shirt dad David finally saw the light and joined in along with them! Sing along and snap your fingers type of movie that despite its many inconsistencies you just can't dislike or turn off no matter how ridicules it gets! Even though the film was the non actor Brooklyn born Robin Johnson's debut she did as good a job playing the punk rock and incorrigible Nicky Marotta as any establish and polished actress could have possibly hoped to do. The scenes with both Nicky and Pamala even though corny were touching in that they seemed to come straight from the heart not the script. Among all the other good things to say about the film "Times Square" what stuck out more then anything else, beside Nicky and Pamala, was it's memorable and catchy soundtrack that packed some twenty, count em' twenty, songs in the less then two hours in length motion picture!

The film is very cool. Robin Johnson is GREAT as Nikki. The soundtrack is one of my favorite movie soundtracks of all time. This was the first VHS movie I ever bought. Fans of punk music and punk movies will LOVE this film.

This movie was so important to me as a teenager. It was very empowering. I have visited New York City several times now due to my interest that was kindled by this movie. I started looking for it on DVD literally 2 weeks before it was released and was thrilled to find it available. A reunion of some sort would be well received I am sure. They are making me submit at least ten lines so I am filling those up with more accolades for the movie, I love this movie yeah yeah yeah. The soundtrack is amazing...I have it on cassette and have recreated most of it from Napster. Hello Robin and Trini where ever you are..thank you.

Read some of the reviews in here,and I keep wonderin if we're all talking bout the same movie. Cause this is absolutely garbage. Poorly edited,poorly directed,poorly performed,decent soundtrack,but it can't save the movie. The story is all over the place,but the gist of it is: Two girls running away.One from the law, the other from her preacher politician dad.Who seem to be intended on proving that there's something wrong with his daughter. They runaway together and hole up in different abandoned buildings.Without any real plan There was supposedly some lesbian love in the picture,but it got dropped.. The one running from the law is clearly really mental ill.Though they don't really dare touch into the subject,too deeply. The biggest problem is that the scenes are so poorly put together,and acted.You don't really understand what's going on,or what drives the character.All of a Sudden they have a band and fans. A radio dj. who've been tracking them.And that has received leathers,from the politician's daughter, they all of a sudden turn on,even though he done nothing but helping them. There are a lot of scenes that don't make sense.Like the two of them going around dropping TV-sets from rooftops,you never get why,or what point they are trying to make I got the impression the director was trying for something that never quite got made.I can see some parallels to a later 80s movie that was called certain fury(Every other 80s movie, had the name fury in it) Which has much of the same storyline,but in a more raw realistic way.I can also see some similarities to the fab,stains,with diane lane And I can definitely see Pump up the volume in it.Maybe that was the movie he was trying to make. All in all this was a terrible movie

I'm so glad i'm not the only one who thought this was a great film. I saw this movie in 1980 several times. I was a Freshmen in high school and into the punk scene. This movie was such a big influence in my life. I ran away from home after seeing it. Since I grew up in Orange County California and was only fifteen, Times Square was a little too far so I ran away to Hollywood. I have to admit it was kinda fun and I was lucky in that I didn't end up a statistic. I bought the sound track before I ran away and recorded it on tape and used to sit on Hollywood Blvd. and blast it on my ghetto blaster. I haven't seen the movie in years, actually I hadn't even thought about it until I was rating music on my yahoo radio station and Patti Smiths "Pissin in a river" came on. I did a search and found this. After reading all the reviews and comments I really want to see it again. I think I'm gonna buy the DVD. I've looked for it in video rental stores in the past and have never found it. Has anyone ever rented it? My Yahoo ID is yougotjamesnolan if you ever want to listen to my station, I think you'll like it if you like the Times Square sound track. Let me know what you think!

Nothing within the musical scenario of "Times Square" rings true. The minutiae of the narrative (slim as it is) never matches up with the film's look, nor the soundtrack selections, nor the age-old theme about struggling talents hoping to break through. Two teenage girls (Trini Alvarado and Robin Johnson, both likable), patients in a New York City hospital, escape their confines and move into an abandoned warehouse; after attracting media coverage via a prominent disc-jockey (Tim Curry), the kids become cult celebrities. Johnson, who resembles a young Joan Jett, comes on like a little punk rocker-in-the-making, so it's surprising (and rather disconcerting) when her moment in the spotlight finally arrives and she's transformed into a New Wave caricature--a "Rocky Horror" patron. The filmmakers are clueless as to the hot musical trends, and probably couldn't separate punk from pop or rock from New Wave if they were forced to. It's a lazy, disjointed fairy tale, a film so shallow that it never resembles what the story is meant to be about: young outcasts finding their voices and their freedom through music. For director Allan Moyle, it's all about putting on a show. Perhaps he'd seen too many Judy Garland pictures? *1/2 from ****

As Maltin said, the film is "scored for the deaf," which isn't a bad thing - it at least displays some good songs from the era. The bizarre script is made convincing through excellent performances from Alverado and Johnson. Tim Curry, who only spent a few days working on the film, turns in a good performance too, despite his hokey accent (Just what sort of accent is that supposed to be? Still, it beats the mind-numbingly-fake one he used in "Congo."). The film may be short on focused plot, but wry, cynical dialogue abounds, mostly uttered by Curry. The main problem with this film is the editing. It's obvious watching this movie the first time that something is missing. In trying to make a double-album-soundtrack, they sacrificed character development by jamming in as much music as possible. By doing so, they made the already-unbelievable script even more thin, making it unable to compete with the screen-time that the musical sequences received. Which leaves a reckless coming-of-age story to play out like a two-hour music-video. Sad in one way, the film could have been so much better, but it did give the movie a cult-like quality which set it firmly in a specific place and time. What's left often seems unreal and senseless, but Alvarado and Johnson are just so convincing with the little bit that they were given that one isn't always inclined to notice (which leads me to wonder why neither actress went on to bigger and better things). Much speculation has been given to the lesbian-theme-aspect of the film. While the finished film only hints at it, scenes were supposedly played-out more in the original drafts of the script, although much of that was never filmed. Johnson is so butch it's hard to believe she's not a biker in real-life. Alvarado, who's initially shy and insecure, winds up shedding her wallflower image to idolize and embrace the ideals of her new friend. When Alvarado's focus shifts towards Curry, a jealous and drunken Johnson lashes out as if she'd just been cheated on. And just to annoy fans of the film, scenes from the trailor showed a scene (that was ultimately cut out) where Johnson and Alvarado splashed around and played in the river. Wouldn't it have been scandalous at that time to have two young girls in their early teens portrayed in a gay relationship? (Then again, many didn't realize the gay-themes that were so blatant in "A Nightmare On Elm Street 2" when it was first released five years later.) It's been rumored that other lesbian-themed footage was shot and subsequently cut out, but since the film was such a forgotten flop, we may never know how much. I'm willing to bet this could have been an epic four-hour movie. When the DVD was being compiled, Achor Bay Entertainment did a search for missing footage, but they were unsuccessful at locating any. We're left only to imagine what the film could have been if they had toned down the music and stuck to the original vision. Perhaps one day. ..

I was one of the (very few) persons who actually caught this up a theatre back in 1980. The plot has a rich girl (Trini Alvarado) running away from a hospital with lesbian punk Nicky (Robin Johnson). They hang out in a curiously unmenacing Times Square (back in 1980 Times Square was VERY dangerous and unsafe). They become fast friends and become famous outlaws (or something). Top billed Tim Curry pops up as a DJ now and then. I was 18 when this came out so I was part of the target audience. I saw it with a friend of mine the same age. It was TERRIBLE! The plot was stupid and irresponsible (it makes running away from home look like a great thing), had a soundtrack that was the equivalent of someone hitting you on the head with a hammer, lousy acting (especially by Johnson) and was basically dull when not dumb. It was pretty obvious that this was a studio's attempt to sanitize punk rock and they threw in a lesbian angle to get the guys to come in (most of that material wasn't shot or was cut out completely). It bombed badly at the box office and was quickly forgotten. I heard this has a cult following among lesbians and it has been shown at gay and lesbian film festivals but really--it's pretty terrible. There are much better punk rock and lesbian films out there. A 1 all the way.