Re-reduxing this one, because it is again the time of year for football games and field shows, and post-game parties, and (back in the day, anyway) rewatches of Highlander and The Lost Boys.
And because The Lost Boys showed up, all unbidden, in a separate project I was working on today, and immediately started pulling my mind down memory lane.
And a little bit because Highlander showed up last month in the first episode of Reactivities, A Kind of Magic.
And also because it's been five years, already, since the initial events that had me thinking about immortality in the first place.
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Considering whether Gen X views of life, death, and immortality were shaped by two mid-80s films: Highlander (1986) and The Lost Boys (1987)
Yes yes yes, I said Stewart Copeland at about 9:12 and realized soon after that I completely meant Douglas Coupland, who wrote Generation X: Tales For an Accelerated Culture in 1991
https://www.coupland.com/books/generation-x-tales-for-an-accelerated-culture
And my point there is that in 1987 the Lost Boys was certainly depicting Gen X characters with Gen X actors, but nobody called them Gen X at the time.
Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview_with_the_Vampire
Its sequel, The Vampire Lestat, was 1985
The Mystery of Dracula’s Castle - a scooby doo mystery in all but name, with inspiration from Christopher Lee’s Dracula over and over.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068985/
The Hunger
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085701/
The Lost Boys - straight to the tagline
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093437/taglines
Highlander
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091203/
Cocoon
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088933/
Siskel and Ebert - Lost Boys starts at 9:44 -
https://siskelebert.org/?p=2948
Highlander is the first one here, about 1:30 - they both disliked it rather a lot
https://siskelebert.org/?p=1496
First chapter of The Golden Bough - Frazer calls the King a “murderer” rather than a “killer” so I’ll randomly note that A) in the 1536 battler in Highlander, the Macleods are fighting the Frasers and B) “Matador” is literally “killer” in Spanish
The Spirit of Christmas, which spawned South Park, references Highlander’s repeated line “There Can Be Only One”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122264/
When talking about Reactives and the Awakening, probably worth looking at this previous entry on my blog
https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/01/reactiveness.html
Unrelated but it’s a photo series called Lost Boys - millennials back at home after college or high school or whatever they decided they could do.
https://www.businessinsider.com/liz-calvi-lost-boys-photo-project-2014-9#calvi-started-with-her-good-group-of-guy-friends-but-eventually-branched-out-to-look-for-more-subjects-in-town-nolan-pictured-here-is-currently-studying-graphics-in-college-and-he-lives-with-his-parents-for-the-summer-2
Here’s the archive she set up
https://seulementdanslereve.tumblr.com/archive
And her home page
https://www.lizcalvi.com/commissions
“Vampire of the Mists” (1991) was a few years later, so probably influenced by Anne Rice and The Lost Boys and everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_of_the_Mists
Wikipedia sayeth that Peter Pan first appeared in a novel in 1902, while the play first appeared in 1904. He’s very much of the Nomad archetype.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan
Completely unrelated, except insofar as Aiken Drum (the character) is much like Peter Pan and has other Nomad / Reactive archetype indicators
https://manycolored.fandom.com/wiki/Many-Colored_Wiki
Pogonip club house
http://deepbluemoon.com/misc/pogonip/
Other locations - the interiors were on a set at Warner Brothers
https://www.visitcalifornia.com/attraction/lost-boys-santa-cruz-tour
Gregory Widen, screenwriter for Highlander. Born in 1958, he’s a late Boomer. He also wrote Backdraft.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0927074/
Russel Mulcahy - his director credits here include the music videos - which included Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles, which unfortunately I can't find, so here are some others.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0611683
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uxc9eFcZyM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyv905Q2omU
Max has mission style outdoor lamps - not too common at the time. (Although it was becoming popular again)
https://casetext.com/case/l-jg-stickley-inc-v-canal-dover-furn
Grandpas house is here (interiors were a set at Warner Bros.) - a very 1900s house
http://www.mobileranger.com/santacruz/pogonip-the-cowell-family-polo-and-a-poltergeist/
CSUN Queen show, 1989 - there will be another episode one day about why this matters….but I didn’t even have a chance to get into, here, how I and Angela and 150 of our closest friends did a field show with two songs from Highlander, plus Bohemian Rhapsody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjkHl0paHbM