Cleavon Little | Cinema Parrot Disco

I’ve always loved disc jockeys in movies. There should be more movies featuring DJs! Well, there probably are – I’m sure I’ve missed some on this list.

I first thought about doing this list after watching the “meh” movie We Are Your Friends starring Zac Efron as an EDM DJ. But I never got around to doing it. Then I thought about it again after watching Clint Eastwood as a DJ with a stalker in Play Misty For Me. But I still didn’t do the list. Well, I noticed that today would’ve been Robin Williams’ birthday so I figured I’d finally post this list as he was so great as Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning, Vietnam. (R.I.P. Robin Williams) 😦

This list is a mix of real & fictional DJs. The order is, hmm… Roughly based on how “cool” I think the DJ character is (but don’t take the order too seriously). There are also a lot of movies I haven’t seen so I’ve listed a few at the end.

Here are My Top Ten DJs In Movies:

10. Adrienne Barbeau as Stevie Wayne in The Fog

9. Wolfman Jack as the DJ in American
Graffiti & The Midnight Hour

8. George Clinton & Martin Lawrence as DJs in House Party

7. Steven Wright as DJ K-Billy, host of Super Sounds Of The ’70s in Reservoir Dogs

6. Clint Eastwood as Dave Garver in Play Misty For Me

5. Cleavon Little as Super Soul in Vanishing Point

4. Robin Williams as Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning, Vietnam

3. Daft Punk as “Masked DJs” in TRON: Legacy

2. Lynne Thigpen as the DJ in The Warriors

1. Christian Slater as Hard Harry in Pump Up The Volume

Honorable Mentions:

– Howard Stern as himself in Private Parts
– Samuel L. Jackson as Mister Señor Love Daddy in Do The Right Thing
– Zac Efron as Cole in We Are Your Friends
– Skrillex as the DJ in Wreck-It Ralph (I had no idea he was in this until I started looking up movies I may have missed for this list. Cute! Here he is):

Movies Not On The List Because I Need To Re-Watch Them:

– The Truth About Cats & Dogs
– Trick Or Treat
– Airheads

Movies Not On The List Because I Haven’t Seen Them:

– Pontypool (really want to see this)
– Pirate Radio (aka The Boat That Rocked)
– Talk To Me
– Talk Radio
– FM

I’ll leave you with a clip from The Warriors. If you haven’t seen either this or Pump Up The Volume, I highly recommend them as they’re both absolute favorites of mine.

Vanishing Point (1971)

Directed by Richard C Sarafian

Starring:
Barry Newman
Cleavon Little
Dean Jagger

Running time: 98 minutes

Plot Synopsis:
Kowalski (Barry Newman) is a car delivery driver who makes a bet that he can get a white 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T 440 Magnum from Denver to San Francisco in less than 15 hours. (Yes, of course I had to look up what kind of car it was. I’m a girl.)

My Opinion:

This is one manly, groovy, cool, super fly 70s movie. It’s Easy Rider meets Smokey And The Bandit. It’s a total GUY movie. But I liked it because I’m a sucker for 70s films. They’re effing cool & we don’t get anything with that same sort of look & feel these days.

This was 1971 so it has that late 60s vibe as well (another era that’s way cooler than our current one, which is uncool & sucks). I was reading about this movie on Wikipedia to refresh my memory as I watched it over the summer & it says “The film is notable for its scenic film locations across the American Southwest and its social commentary on the post-Woodstock mood in the United States.” Had to use that quote as it really does sum up the feel of the movie. I’d love to have lived during that time. And everyone & everything was so ugly! I love that.

I’ll keep this short: If you’re old like me and if you love 70s movies (and especially if you’re a dude & you like cars), you’ll definitely like this movie so go & watch it right now. It’s very “American” and captures a time & place that’s really like no other.

The acting is dodgy (especially from Kowalski’s girlfriend), Kowalski’s backstory is actually very interesting but poorly explained in that 70s movie type of storytelling way (I filled in the blanks reading about it online afterwards), and it’s also very slow paced (again, in that total 70s way) considering that it’s about a guy driving really fast.

But it’s cool. There’s a super cool blind DJ named Super Soul (Cleavon Little – in the pic above) who hears about Kowalski’s mission & the cops who are on his tail so uses his radio broadcast to help him evade the police. There’s also a guy in the desert collecting snakes for his religious cult, two “just married” male hitchhikers who try to rob Kowalski, plus a biker who tries to help by giving him pills to keep him awake. Oh – And, of course, the biker’s girlfriend who rides around on a motorcycle fully nude. As you do. Then we get a “WTF?” ending they’d totally change if (when?) some unoriginal Hollywood idiots decide to remake this. (Oh shit – in just now looking for pictures to use in this review, I see this WAS remade in 1997. Except Viggo Mortensen’s Kowalski is trying to get home to his wife who has gone into labor. Puh-LEASE! Argh! I hate Hollywood!!!!)