It's the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Release of "D.C. Cab"

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Two years ago (three?) I just happened to be passing by the Goodwill at Seven Corners, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a sale on their outdated media. They were selling off LPs, cassettes and videotapes at four for a dollar. Being a media Luddite, I bought a whole bunch of stuff, including a videotape (VHS, not Beta) of D.C. Cab.

It is now thirty years old, and the occasion is being marked appropriately, by which I mean the Washington City Paper and DCist are running a few articles about it.

D.C. Cab Week: Filming Locations Then and Now
http://dcist.com/2013/12/dc_cab_week_filming_locations_now_a.php#photo-18

D.C. Cab Is a Terrible Movie, but It’s Our Terrible Movie
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/film/2013/12/19/d-c-cab-is-a-terrible-movie-but-its-our-terrible-movie/

I’m not going to argue that D.C. Cab is a great movie, or even a good one. It wasn’t a hit when it was released in December 1983, and it would probably be a stretch to even call it a cult favorite, since whatever cult exists around it is probably limited to Mr. T completists and a cadre of local film obsessives. But apart from a few scenes at the start of Hal Ashby’s 1979 masterpiece Being There, it’s one of the few films that has looked beyond federal and moneyed Washington to the city that people call home, in all its ragged, trash-strewn early-'80s glory.

Still, by any rational measure, D.C. Cab is pretty terrible.

It's hard to argue with that. It's not something that I watched over and over again. Or twice, for that matter. Still, I feel I should email DCist with this URL, which has lots more locations:

International Movie Cars Database
http://www.imcdb.org/movie_85387-DC-Cab.html



That's Third Street where it crosses the Mall, and the camera is aimed north-northeast. I tell you, the Frances Perkins Building, HQ of the Department of Labor, is every bit the equal of the J. Edgar Hoover Building when it comes to brutalism. Well, it at least comes close.

For a much better movie with some DC scenes in it (but was filmed for the most part somewhere else, The Day the Earth Stood Still is about as good as they get. I watched it, for the umpteenth time, on channel 20.2 a week ago.

[JustAnotherGen]

1. And don't forget folks!

Bill Maher is in it! He gives a brillian over emoting performance!

And yes - god bless my father for taking my brother and me to see it twice!