Out of the Blue [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray]

Overview

Out of the Blue captures the turbulence of youth culture of the early '80s by presenting a three-person nuclear family that is about to implode. In a prologue, Don Barnes (Dennis Hopper), a school bus driver, is drunkenly distracted one day behind the wheel, resulting in a horrible accident. He comes home from a stint in prison to find his wife, Kathy (Sharon Farrell), hooked on drugs and his now-teenaged daughter, Cindy (Linda Manz), sullen and remote. Don's old buddies are a fun-loving bunch who work only to afford to get high and party, and he seems to be falling back into his old ways instead of getting straight and pulling his family out of their funk. The story focuses on Cindy's alienation from both her parents and most of her classmates. She's influenced by the energy and anger of punk music and considers her parents pathetic relics of the '60s counterculture. Hopper reportedly took over direction of the film after co-producer/co-writer Leonard Yakir departed the production. It was Hopper's first job behind the camera since The Last Movie, his legendary flop follow-up to Easy Rider.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/26/2022
UPC:	0760137105077
Original Release:	1981
Source:	Severin
Language:	English
Time:	1:36:00
Format:	Blu-ray
Sales rank:	11,724

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Dennis Hopper	Don Barnes
Sharon Farrell	Kathy Barnes
Don Gordon	Charlie
Linda Manz	Cindy Barnes
Raymond Burr	Brean
Line Renaud	Actor
Pierre Mondy	Actor
Richard Sammel	Actor
Simon Boyle	Actor
Mickaël Pinelli	Actor
John Anderson	Actor
Christy Lee	Actor
Michelle Little	Actor
Melanie Moore	Actor
Carl Nelson	Actor
Peter North	Actor
Wayne Summers	Actor
Howard Taylor	Actor
Eric Allen	Paul
David Crowley	Anderson
Tom Lavin	Composer

Technical Credits

Brenda Nielson

Leonard Yakir

Gary Jules Jouvenat

Mark Peploe

Dennis Hopper	Director
Thierry Binisti	Director
Brenda Nielson	Screenwriter
Leonard Yakir	Screenwriter,Producer
Gary Jules Jouvenat	Screenwriter,Producer
Paul Lewis	Executive Producer
Mark Peploe	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Taking its title from a lyric in Neil Young's ode to punk rock, "Hey Hey, My My," Out of the Blue, which uses Young's song on its soundtrack, offers a bleak and unsparing portrait of teenage life in the early '80s. Granted, the deck is stacked pretty high against Cindy Barnes, with Dad just returning from a prison sentence after he drunkenly crashed his school bus, and Mom a full-time junkie. Linda Manz is the scowling kid, a leather-jacketed update of James Dean's Jim from Rebel Without a Cause, a film her co-star and director Dennis Hopper played a small role in. Brilliant in supporting roles in Days of Heaven and The Wanderers, Manz seized her best chance yet at stardom and made this film her coming-out party. Unfortunately, she never got another role that used her talents so well. But the film did give Hopper his first opportunity in ten years to direct, and he acquitted himself nicely. Even if Out of the Blue was too much of a mood piece to connect with a large audience, it has lasting value as a time-capsule look at an era and at two careers.

All Movie Guide - Tom Wiener