Everybody Wants Some!! (USA, 2016)

Everybody Wants Some!! (USA, 2016)
Director: Richard Linklater.  Starring: Blake Jenner, Tyler Hoechlin, Ryan Guzman, Zoey Deutch...

Whereas Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993) [previously covered in this post] was the high school years, this one is Dazed and Confused Goes To College. A disappointing movie, but the director's love of pinball shines once again with this lineup of very classic machines in beautiful condition, including Black Knight (Williams, 1980), Gorgar (Williams, 1979), Lost World  (Bally, 1978), Space Invaders (Bally, 1980), Kiss (Bally, 1979), and Capt. Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy (Bally, 1976).

There are also a couple of classic video arcade games... Battlezone (Atari, 1980), which is a slight anachronism, since the movie takes place August 28 to September 1, 1980, but this machine was released in November of that year), and Space Invaders (Midway Manufacturing Co., 1978)...

La belle captive (France, 1983)

La belle captive (France, 1983)

Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet. Stars: Daniel Mesguich, Cyrielle Clair, Daniel Emilfork, Gabrielle Lazure, Arielle Dombasle...

80s-style music video style and I can't say that there's much substance. Anyway, the main character walks into a café and we spot a Genie  (Gottlieb, 1979) pinball machine...

Project X (USA, 1987)

Project X (USA, 1987)

Director: Jonathan Kaplan.  (Human) Stars: Matthew Broderick, Helen Hunt, William Sadler...

Most of the cast are chimpanzees, but alas none of them play pinball.

There is a short scene in a bar where we can spot some machines behind Broderick's buddies...

From left to right:
- Jungle Hunt (Taito, 1982) video game (but the front of the cabinet seems to be wrong)
- Contact  (Williams, 1978)
- Firepower  (Williams, 1980)
- Skylab (Williams, 1974)
- Asteroids (Atari, 1979) video game

La balance (France, 1982)

La balance (France, 1982).
Director: Bob Swaim. Stars: Nathalie Baye, Philippe Léotard, Richard Berry, Tchéky Karyo...

A gritty crime story in a rough Parisian neighbourhood. After one of the cop's major informants ("balance" in French) is murdered, they go after the crime boss who is responsible and stop at nothing. They put pressure on a streetwalker (Baye) and her boyfriend (Léotard) who used be her pimp and work for the boss, and try to get them to inform on the boss.

We can spot a Devil's Dare (Gottlieb, 1982) through the window as the cops give Baye a hard time...

Later in a café we can see a bit of a Barcrest "Amabassadeur" slot machine with the boss' henchman/psycho Tchéky Karyo about to get nasty...

In one scene, five cops drag Léotard into a noisy busy arcade and work on him a bit. The camera pans by a row of machines and punks... we can spot Devil's Dare (Gottlieb, 1982), Black Hole (Gottlieb, 1981) (European model with no infinity mirror lights in backbox)...

... Mars God of War (Gottlieb, 1981), Spectrum (Bally, 1982), Rocky (Gottlieb, 1982), Haunted House (Gottlieb, 1982)...

The camera pans along, passing a 1970s Kasco Clay Shooting rifle game...

Finally the camera finds where the gang of cops have Léotard cornered, where we can spot a bunch of video games including Namco/Midway's Galaxian (or its sequel, Galaga), King Kong, and Pac-Man, and he's got his back against an Armor Attack (Cinematronics, 1980)...

The scene closes with the camera zooming in on the CRT to show an explosion...

Here in this café, we can spot a Rock-Ola 463 jukebox (1976) on the left, and a glimpse of a Barcrest Ambassadeur slot machine...

Bonus connections:
At the police station, there are a few movie posters, one of which is for The Enforcer (1976) with Clint Eastwood, which has a brief pinballspotting (see this post).

Also in the streets outside of a movie theatre, there's a poster of The Hunter (1980), which also had some pinballspottings (see this post).

In Tchao Pantin (1983), another French film set in a gritty part of town around the same time period, we also saw a Barcrest Ambassadeur slot machine as well as a Devil's Dare pinball machine... see this post.

Tchao Pantin (France, 1983)

Tchao Pantin (France, 1983). Director: Claude Berri. Stars: Coluche, Richard Anconina, Agnès Soral, Philippe Léotard...

Coluche was a famous stand-up comedian in France, and this was one of his few dramatic roles (for which he won a César award for best actor). Here he plays a sad, middle-aged, solitary gas-station attendant on the night shift, with a bottle for company. The atmosphere is dark and often rainy, in a working-class neighborhood in North Paris. He strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young small-time drug dealer (Anconina) who comes into his station one night.

The latter hangs out in cafés and bars, and in one of them, we can spot a couple of pinball machines, Devil’s Dare (Gottlieb, 1982) and Pink Panther (Gottlieb, 1981)...

In a later scene, we can spot a Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man Pinball (Bally, 1982)...

Bonus: Anconina playing a Barcrest “Ambassadeur 2000” slot machine...

Jackpot 2 (Finland, 1982)

Jackpot 2 (Finland, 1982). Director: Mika Kaurismäki. Stars: Jukka Mikkola, Martti Syrjä, Tiina Bergström.

This is a pretty crazy short film by Mika and Aki Kaurismäki. Not too sure what is going on... it seems sortof post-apocalyptic, but not really. Anyway, it follows a guy, his friend and his girlfriend playing lots of pinball and some pool and talking nonsense. Hey, what happened to “Jackpot 1”?

In a café, the friend plays a few seconds of Galaxy (Stern, 1980)...

 ...and then a few seconds of a Harlem Globetrotters On Tour (Bally, 1978)...

Aside from an old jukebox, there’s also a type of Finnish slot machine, called payazzo (or pajatso or jasso). This one appears to be a "50 pennin" model, which was manufactured by Raha-automaattiyhdistys (RAY) beginning in 1967. The player deposits coins and flicks them using a control. The coin bounces around and if it ends up in one of the winning slots, the column of coins drops out the payout chute. I believe these are also known in English as drop case machines...

The trio goes back to their apartment where they have a jukebox and apparently their favorite pinball machine:  Flip-Flop (Bally, 1974)...

Following an explosion, their machine stops working, so they go to an apparently abandoned arcade where they find a pair of Flip-Flop’s, just like the one in their living room!

They love the game so much, they play it on their pickup truck...

...and on the beach whilst one of them plays saxophone...

... and then a police helicopter shows up with some startling news...

Diva (France, 1981)

Diva (France, 1981). Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix. Stars: Wilhelmenia Fernandez, Frédéric Andréi, Richard Bohringer...

When I saw this ages ago, I never understood why this movie was big. Rewatching it recently, I still don’t understand it, nor how one can make a pristine bootleg recording of a concert with no microphone, nor how a young man working as a mailman even owns a Nagra taperecorder. The bootleg drives the “plot”.

Very stylish, very 80s, but at least back then there were arcades... the bootlegger dives into one, trying to shake the bad guys... we can spot a Space Mission (Williams, 1976)...

He bleeds on a Blackout (Williams, 1980)...

Then gets blood on a girl’s white shirt, who was playing a Buck Rogers  (Gottlieb, 1980) with her friend...

One of the bad guys passes by a Genie (Gottlieb, 1979)...

Part of pinball row... from left to right: Buck Rogers (Gottlieb, 1980) , Counterforce (Gottlieb, 1980), and Panthera (Gottlieb, 1980)...

The bad guy interrupts the guy playing Panthera (Gottlieb, 1980) to inquire (with knife in hand) as to the bleeding bootlegger’s whereabouts, and we can spot The Amazing Spider-Man (Gottlieb, 1980)...

We note that Gottlieb seems to still have a large market share in France, and that this arcade had a lot of the latest pinball tables.

It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (USA, 1988)

It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (USA, 1988). Director, producer, writer, cinematographer, editor, actor, etc. : Richard Linklater.

His first feature, filmed on Super 8, an experimental road movie of sorts, but on busses and trains. Starting in his home base of Austin, Texas, Linklater travels to visit a friend in another state, and takes a roundabout route home. One could almost consider it a documentary, as there’s no real plot. It’s frankly not very interesting, but it can be seen as an experiment in filming the mundane, which is the opposite of what most movies want to show.

At least there’s a pinballspotting... in a stop in Missoula, Montana, he plays a FirePower (Williams, 1980)  [Pretty sure... the cabinet artwork is definitely that, but the backbox seems to jut out strangely. Anyway, good enough...]

Game over.

Ghostbusters (USA, 1984)

Ghostbusters (USA, 1984). Director: Ivan Reitman. Stars: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis...

Others have mentioned this one before, but I had spotted this one before I knew that and there’s been a dearth in new pinballspottings for me lately.

I saw this movie when it was originally released, and it was great fun. Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis were on fire in the late 70s, early 80s, writing some crazy comedies. Although Bill probably ad-libbed one of my favorite lines with: “...dogs and cats living together...”.

Anyway, in a corner of the Ghostbusters headquarters we can spot a Star Gazer (Stern, 1980), as well as two arcade games: Missile Command (Atari, 1980) (probably) on the left and a Star Castle (Cinematronics, 1980)...

Jean-Luc Godard (80s, 90s)

I was never a fan of later-era Godard (80s, 90s), but there are a few pinballspottings...

Passion  (France, 1982). 
Director: Jean-Luc Godard. Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Hanna Schygulla, Michel Piccoli...

A hugely popular machine, one I definitely remember playing back in the day... Kiss  (Bally, 1979)...

Prénom: Carmen (France, 1983)
Director: Jean-Luc Godard. Starring: Maruschka Detmers, Jacques Bonnaffé, Myriem Roussel...

Not enough visible to identify this one... but we hear the guy playing it behind Maruschka...

Hélas Pour Moi (France, 1993)
Director: Jean-Luc Godard. Starring: Gérard Depardieu, Laurence Masliah, Bernard Verley...

There’s an Eight Ball Deluxe (Limited Edition)  (Bally, 1982). We hear some of the machine’s voice sounds: “Quit talking and start chalking!”...

The Verdict (USA, 1982)

The Verdict (USA, 1982). Director: Sidney Lumet. Starring: Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason...

A friend tipped me off to this one... I hadn’t seen it in decades. Certainly well worth re-watching. The film opens to the sounds of pinball, and Newman’s character is playing a Disco Fever (Williams, 1978) in his favorite drinking establishment...

In a later scene, he does so well that he wins a free game, but alas, cannot play it because he realizes he’s late for an important case meeting with the judge...

Disco Fever was one of the only two machines that had “banana” flippers, i.e. curved (The other was Williams’ 1979 ‘Time Warp’). But I seem to remember playing a hockey-themed machine in the mid-80s with them. Perhaps the operator changed them.

Bonus
Another movie that Paul Newman was in was the terrible WUSA (USA, 1970), directed by Stuart Rosenberg and also starring Joanne Woodward and Anthony Perkins...

Joanne is in a bar and we catch a glimpse of a couple of sailors playing a Lucky Strike (Williams, 1965)...

Replay.

New York Independent Film

No Wave Cinema? New Cinema? Underground film-making from the Lower East Side? Films made during that time in the late 70s, early 80s where certain areas of NYC were dirt cheap to live in, and painters were musicians and musicians were actors or filmmakers, etc. you could do anything, why not? Shoot a film on a shoestring budget with your friends.
Sorry for the bad quality of the screencaps.

Permanent Vacation (USA, 1980)
Director: Jim Jarmusch. Starring: Chris Parker, Leila Gastil, John Lurie, Sara Driver...

If I recall, this was just a pretty static shot of a bar, which I don’t think was involved in the plot or anything. There’s a Supersonic (Bally, 1979) in a corner...

Subway Riders (USA, 1981)
Director: Amos Poe. Starring: Robbie Coltrane, Cookie Mueller, John Lurie, Susan Tyrrell...

One of the characters walks into a bar and starts playing a game of Stellar Wars (Williams, 1979)...

The camera pans over to show a Sharpshooter  (Game Plan, 1979) next to it...

Smithereens (USA, 1982)
Director: Susan Seidelman. Starring: Susan Berman, Brad Rijn, Richard Hell...

Richard Hell plays an “American Freedom” machine but it does not appear to exist! It is not Bally’s “Freedom” released in 1976. It could have been camouflaged to avoid licensing fees, but it could also be an unknown conversion kit... i.e. new artwork that can be put in place on a old machine...