This Friday, We Are Your Friends opens in theaters, quietly continuing a cinematic tradition that isn’t widely discussed. Movies about DJs are common in the world, and yet few regard the films to feature these masters of the mic, or the platter, to be their own subgenre. It’s time we turned that around, dear friends. The DJ, whether a talk radio personality or a master selector of songs, is something of a hero, a subtle expert in capturing your attention with simple words or a choice song selection.
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The world of streaming has a few (although only a few) notable DJ selections currently lurking in its back corners, and the people behind Now Streaming have delved deeply to dig them up. Disappointing: Classics like American Graffiti, FM, and Good Morning, Vietnam are sadly not currently available. Nor are more recent notables like Talk to Me and Pirate Radio. But there are at least a few worth seeing, and we have listed them below. You don’t have to leave the house to go to a rave. Now you can let the ecstasy come to you with these great movies about DJs.
Talk Radio (HBO Go)
Universal
In 1984, a real-life left-wing radio DJ named Alan Berg was murdered by listeners. Berg was outspoken about his politics on the air, that this roused the rancor of a local white supremacist group in Denver, CO who tracked him to his house and shot him. In 1988, political troublemaker and enfent terrible Oliver Stone made a movie that was directly inspired by this event, but greatly fictionalized.
Eric Bogosian plays the DJ this time around, as a complex, depressed, and perhaps not-at-all nice fellow who steals, badgers, and goads in the worst possible way. He receives a bomb threat, and he is sobered up just long enough to be outraged.
Ultra-political talk radio was rising in the cultural ranks in the late 1980s, and by the ’90s, it had given way to personalities like Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh. Talk Radio may have been inspired by a past event, but it was also very canny in the way it predicted the blank verse future of on-air political discourse and the rising cult of radio personality.
The Warriors (Amazon Prime)
Paramount
Walter Hill’s The Warriors is one of the finest mainstream exploitation movies of the 1970s, and many of you may already have the film committed to heart. For those of you unfamiliar with The Warriors, this will be your chance to see it. The flick tells the tale of a teen gang from Coney Island who are falsely accused of murdering a high-profile gang leader. They spend the film trekking from the middle of New York back home, with all of New York’s most dangerous gangs on their tail.
Here’s what you may no know about The Warriors: It’s based on an ancient tale of warriors trapped behind enemy lines. Hill’s film version captures the ancient Greek ambiance by supplying the movie with its very own Greek chorus in the form of radio DJ (Lynne Thigpen) who dictates the action, and who is only seen in extreme closeup.
The DJ has a godlike quality, given their ability to communicate and dictate orders from afar. The DJ in The Warriors is a fully realized and idealized representation of that godliness. The DJ issued an evil fate to the Warriors, and would also be the one to hold their absolution.
Human Traffic (Netflix)
Fruit Salad Films
Human Traffic, a British indie film from 1999, is woefully underseen, rarely talked about, and wholly underrated. Why haven’t more people seen it? Perhaps it got lost in the shuffle around Trainspotting. Whatever the reason, you now have a chance to instantly revisit it, thanks to the gods of streamery.
Human Traffic is a colorful, silly, funny, breakneck-paced, and unendingly energetic flick about a few bumbling twentysomethings in Cardiff as they explore the local club scene. While not strictly about DJs, the ideas of spinning, the philosophy of club music, and the DJ ethos hangs heavily over the entire movie. Pete Tong, a real life DJ and subject of the film It’s All Gone Pete Tong, has a cameo, as does famed house music DJ and producer Carl Cox. This is a film that knows its shit.
This is a fun film about youthful dissafection, and is often noted for how realistic it is, despite a lot of bonkers visuals. If you’re into DJing and club music, this one is a must-see.
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
