The beat is in the street, I guess

Brian and I had quite different childhoods. In our youths, we were influenced by many, many different things. For example, I had never seen the movie Beat Street (circa 1984) before. He had watched it several times. So, when Beat Street landed on our movie channel last night, we, of course, had to watch it. He was awash in nostalgia for a movie he hadn't seen in so many years. I was fascinated by the movie itself, primarily the clothing. It was gloriously 80s, with big hair, big outfits, and big amazingness. The story: a group of young New York city kids trying to make it big. One is an aspiring club DJ (the main plot); one is a graffiti "artist," who paints subway trains (secondary plot). They all have their issues, their mountains to climb, and their lives to get in order.
In all honesty, we only watched the last hour of the film, but I saw enough to know what the main conflict was and all that. But really, my attention was drawn to the outfits. They were awesome. But the graffiti artist character was intriguing to me because: he painted appliances onto the walls of a crappy apartment so his girlfriend and her baby would feel comfortable enough to move in with him; and he got all indignant because his dad wouldn't ever come with him to see his "art," because wouldn't that just mean standing on a subway platform all day? At any rate, this guy is in a graffiti war with another painter who goes by the name of Spit. Really, the entire plot line is gold.
But there was all kinds of early-80s hip hop and rap, and the acting wasn't good, and the whole thing was super cheesy. But Brian remembered a whole lot of it, and this is one of the few times I enjoyed his commentary on a movie we're watching. I'll never sit and watch it again, but just that hour has left an impression, for good or for bad I'm not sure.