Motorama

1991 road trip comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Ten-year-old Gus decides to run away from home. He does it in style though, first stealing a Mustang and fashioning some leg extenders so that he can drive the thing. He starts out on an Odyssey across the country, stopping at participating Motorama gas stations to collect cards for a game in which he'll win a buttload of money by spelling out M-O-T-O-R-A-M-A. Unfortunately, he can't find the R. He does find a lot of eccentric characters, however.

Drew Barrymore is on a lot of the poster/dvd covers for this movie, and she's in the movie for literally about ten seconds and gets no lines.

This is one of the stranger coming-of-age movies you'll ever see, not surprising since it was penned by screenwriting genius Joseph Minion who wrote both After Hours and Vampire's Kiss. It's a surreal episodic little adventure that you're not sure is a comedy until you start laughing. There's a great cast. Jordan Christopher Michael plays the kid, this really unlikable little runt who steals, curses, and litters. He reminds me a little too much of Macaulay Culkin's character in the Home Alone movies though. John Diehl plays a dopey gas station employee named Phil who's got this interesting way of trying to impress God. The beautiful Jack Nance is hilarious in his small role as a hotel manager. Only Nance can deliver the line "I forgot to tell you. . .if you catch any squirrels, give them to me" like he does. Garrett Morris and Michael J. Pollard are funny, and both Meat Loaf and Flea are in this movie. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Meat Loaf, Flea, and Eraserhead have been in another movie together. Best of all is seeing Sandy Baron--one of my favorite Seinfeld characters, Jack Klompus--who plays a really creepy guy. All kinds of odd little details--currency that is very clearly not American, a road map that is very clearly not accurate, arm wrestling, multiple occurrences of auxiliary characters thinking the protagonist is a grown man or even an elderly man, and a trip through a Purgatory called Essex which features a Klan lynching and a priest being killed. The coolest scene might be where Gus meets another character, a much older character, who has also been playing the game. This movie has a similar rhythm to After Hours and might jerk around a little too much for its own good, but fans of existential coming-of-age road movies might want to check out this little gem. 

The Love Bug

1968 car race comedy

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 18/20 [slept through most of the movie], Dylan: 14/20; Emma: 18/20; Abbey: 16/20)

Plot: Down-on-his-luck race car driver Jim Douglas is tricked into purchasing an anthropomorphized Volkswagon Beetle. He paints a racing stripe and a number on it and starts winning races. Shipoopi! The car dealer attempts to first buy the car back and later sabotage the titular bug, and Jim finds himself in a climactic two-day road race to hold onto his little round friend. And no, I'm not calling Buddy Hackett little or round.

Disney's the main problem with this one. With the Disney folk behind the wheel (pun intended) of this production, there's no chance we'd get to see a naked Michele Lee or Buddy Hackett which is really unfortunate. This is the movie that made me fall in love with the incorrigible Hackett as a kid. I like all the performances though. In fact, there was a time in my young life that I wanted to be Dean Jones more than I wanted to be Harrison Ford. David Tomlinson, with perhaps a better agent, could have been one of the greats. He's a great comic villain here though.
Joe Flynn, another Disney regular, is his usually bumbling fun self, and Benson Fong early in my life that [censored because of racial insensitivity]. And Hackett's character is so cool here, this sort of Zen mechanic with a great name--Tennessee Steinmetz--talking about how kelp aerates the liver or how he befriends claw machines or how one can unscrew the inscrutable. I almost wanted to come here and type up how this is the greatest car racing movie of all time, but my heart wouldn't have been in it. I will say with complete sincerity that has one of my favorite scores of all time although I'm saying that while only remembering the theme music and its variations. Watch this movie and you just can't stop whistling that thing. It does sound as dated as the scene with hippies ("We're all prisoners, chicky baby. We all locked in.") seems though. I was amazed even as a kid with how much of a character they made Herbie, and that's without any cheesy special effects to make him frown or laugh like he's in Pixar's Cars or something. It's done with camera angles and lighting, director Stevenson and his cinematographer taking advantage of the Volkswagon's unique curves and features to humanize the vehicle. It's genius. Herbie's attempted suicide--a scene which almost seems too ridiculous now that I type that--was a real downer. But no, this isn't a depressing movie about a suicidal punch buggy. This is a lighthearted family comedy, and the gags are unpredictable and funny, especially a scene featuring a bear which my family really enjoyed. Not Jennifer, of course. She was asleep. It's too bad for her because when we watch Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, she won't even understand what's going on.

This was the last live action feature that Walt Disney authorized, by the way. Well, unless his frozen head is somehow still running things.

Hands on a Hard Body: The Documentary

1997 documentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Twenty-four contestants participate in an endurance competition to win a brand new truck.

What I liked about this one is that a marketing gimmick turned reality television episode managed to transform into something a little more profound. The motivations of these various characters was fascinating, and psychologically, it was just interesting to follow the different states of mind of these contestants. There was a giggling fanatic who kept having these mini laughing religious experiences, a woman with no teeth supported by her husband with no teeth who claimed he could stay up without sleep for 101 straight hours and had a 20-ton air conditioning unit that could bring the temperature of his home to 12 below zero, a young woman who just wants to use the victory as a ticket out of town, and a former winner of the competition who had an almost zen-like approach. His description of this as a competition to see "who can maintain their sanity the longest" is accurate and makes for a fascinating contest, and there were some moments of real tension and suspense as the contestants started dropping. It's also one of those glimpses of something that could only happen in small-town America.

A couple bits of trivia from imdb.com: 1) Robert Altman planned to make a film based on this contest. That could have been terrific. 2) During the 2005 contest, one of the contestants stole a shotgun from a nearby K-Mart and killed himself during one of the breaks. Yikes. That person really stunk at the contest!

Drive

2011 driving movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A Driver with No Name is a stuntman by day and a getaway driver by night. Mystery surrounds him. He works at a garage, purchases groceries, and doesn't talk a lot. That is until he befriends his cute neighbor and her young son. Well, actually he still doesn't talk a lot even then. When the patriarch of that little family gets out of jail, our protagonist is sucked into some criminal activity that forces him into a sticky situation. Oh, snap! Shit's about to get real!

With a slightly different feel, this movie would have been a major disappointment for me. Other than some of that terrible modern electronic music we're hearing in every other movie these days and a few quick shots of exploding heads or stomped-on heads that seemed to appear on the screen for nothing but cheap shock value, I really dug the style of this one. Gosling hits the quiet,-too-quiet existential anti-hero perfectly, and like most movies featuring this type of characters, what isn't explained about his character manages to be just as interesting as what is happening on the screen. Ron Perlman and the always-hilarious Albert Brooks are both sufficiently nasty here. The latter, only minimally funny here actually, was especially good, his nastiness rivaling his work in Finding Nemo. While watching this, I couldn't figure out if I was actually liking it very much, but now I kind of want to watch it again to see if it's much closer to being a neo-noir masterpiece than I'm thinking it is. I really like what this director, the Danish Nicholas Winding Refn (What kind of dopey name is that?), does with violence. It's visceral, tough on both of the senses you use to enjoy movies, appallingly beautiful, exciting, disgusting, and usually so quick that it's almost shocking. It's movie violence but somehow manages to transcend normal tough guy fist-pumping movie violence and retain an artsiness that I like. It's hard to explain, but he did the same thing in the equally-engaging Bronson.

I think fans of The Help would probably really like this one.

Taxi Driver

1976 movie

Rating: 20/20

Plot: Travis Bickle gets a new job driving a taxi, makes a few buddies, starts a hobby collecting guns, gets involved with politics, gets a pretty girlfriend, and decides to experiment with his hair.

I may have given bonus points for this for being indirectly responsible for nearly getting Ronald Reagan assassinated. Just think about how powerful that is for a moment. Yeah, I know that The Cat in the Hat could probably drive a person to kill, too, but that's different.

Some questions for my readers who have seen this:

1) Is Travis Bickle a hero?
2) Isn't Travis Bickle dead at the end of this movie? Is that meant to be ambiguous or am I missing something? If he's not dead, is it a happy ending?
3) Is this a war movie?

Here's the most disturbing thing, for me at least: Travis Bickle is relatable. Think about that, too. He's a lonely figure in one of the most crowded cities in the world. He's trapped in this insomniac pessimist fever dream. He can't understand why his date isn't happy about being taken to a pornographic movie theater. It's almost like this story was ripped right out of every man's diary.

I love how that Bernard Herrman sax-heavy score and the filthy backdrop of New York City's prettiest bits almost sexualize the parts of a taxi cab at one point in this movie. I was aroused, and I don't even really find cars all that attractive. I think it might be the color yellow. Then again, Cybill Shepherd's hair didn't do much for me at all. Oddly, Albert Brooks' hair did.

Another question: Did Jodie Foster have good parents?

Harvey Keitel and Peter Boyle's characters should have gotten spin-offs or prequels.

Love Gene Palma as "Street Drummer" enough here to check out every other film he's ever been in. That's only two movies, one a documentary about pornography and one a John Ritter movie. He should have also gotten a spin-off.

I love the linearity of Bickle's story. Every scene is a step in the direction this character is going. And every single scene, arguably, is important.

Here's a question for discussion: If you could invite any six movie characters to have dinner with you, which six would you invite? For me, it would be Travis Bickle, Mary Poppins, and four others. I haven't finished my list yet.

Cars 2

2011 sequel

Rating: 12/20 (Jen: 14/20; Dylan: 10/20; Emma: 4/20; Abbey: 10/20)

Plot: Lightning McQueen takes a challenge and travels to Europe to race against some cool European cars. While there, his friend becomes an embarrassing distraction, and the tow truck somehow winds up in the middle of this dangerous spy adventure.

The first Cars movie isn't one of Pixar's best, but it at least had some heart. The end gets to me, and the movie's worth seeing to watch the main character grow, to enjoy Paul Newman's performance as a crotchety old race car, and to appreciate the nostalgic little message. This movie has none of those things. It's one comic gag or cartoon slapstick scene after another, and most of the comedy doesn't work, at least for somebody like me who was more annoyed than amused with the character of Mater in the first movie. See, this one's got Mater as the star of the show, and it just doesn't work. It's like making C3PO the main character in a Star Wars movie. I wouldn't even agree that the character works in small doses, but an entire movie of Mater? I didn't ask for that, Pixar! I don't believe he says "Get 'R Done" in this one, something that dropped the first one at least a full point, but he does "Shoo-oot" enough to make me want to gouge my ears out. I kind of enjoyed some of the spy stuff with some action sequences and realistic animation that reminded me a lot of The Incredibles. The background and scenery animation is really great, and I liked a couple visual references to other Pixar movies. I'm also still amazed at Pixar's ability to inject so much personality into these car characters with very subtle facial expressions. But the story was too frenetic and unfocused, the spy stuff ran out of steam, and the comedy never worked for me at all. The movie's as shiny as a bucket of newly-minted quarters, but it just lacks that heart that I've come to expect from a Pixar movie. This is the first from the studio that I really have no desire to see again.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: 2 Fast 2 Furious

2003 disappointing sequel

Rating: 9/20

Plot: The disgraced former cop from the first movie--you know, the guy with the hair--cuts a deal and agrees to work with an old buddy to help catch a bigtime drug dealer.

That's right! Got to watch these mo-fos back-to-back in the lobby where a Urine Couch used to be. I figured it would be more of the same, but this one bored me to tears. I think it's because the characters move around too much. Boring Paul Walker and his boring face get a sidekick, Tyrese, a guy who seems dynamic only because he gets to work with Paul Walker for the entire movie. Nothing in this derivative plot grabbed me, and I don't think I liked a single character. This really seemed hastily thrown together, an obvious effort to get this to theaters before fans of the first movie forgot there was a first movie. I'm just taking a guess that typical The Fast and the Furious fans are the type of people who forget things. You get some cool cars and a few more-of-the-same action sequences with the cool cars, but this one was so boring that it actually made me want to do motel work. And, folks, that's saying something. Biggest problem: No Vin Diesel. And there's a sentence that I never figured I would type. I wonder if watching a television edit of this affected my level of enjoyment. Regardless, I don't have any interest at all in seeing any of the other ten or so sequels. Then again, Vin Diesel is in three of them.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: The Fast and the Furious

2001 car movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: An undercover prettyboy cop gets himself involved with some illegal street racers with snazzy cars in order to discover who's been hijacking semis. They're also known loiterers!

So, c'mon. Does this kind of street racing really go on? You'd think you'd want a less conspicuous car if you're going to be involved in this sort of thing. This is actually the second time I've watched this movie, and I liked it about the same both times--a little more than I thought I would but not quite enough to understand why there's about twenty more of them. The ultra-modern car race scenes are full of flash, quick zooms, nifty computer-generated shots of the innards of these cars, and good looking people looking all intense. The story's intriguing regardless of how unoriginal it really is or how paperthin and uninteresting the protagonist might be, and things don't really fall apart until the end when too many characters compete for camera time and the stunts completely take over. I did like the bit of moral dilemma that the cop has even though Paul Walker or whatever his name is plays the part like he decided he acting was just about "playing things cool" and making sure your hairs are all in the right place. He's got to have about the most boring face that I've ever seen, too. Believe it or not, I did like Vin Diesel. He's no "Macho Man" Randy Savage or anything, but he's the exact right guy for this role. And he's got a head shape that is difficult to argue with. And at least he's not Chad Lindberg who apparently is channeling Bobcat Goldthwait to play Extraneous Character #4--Jesse. For me, this one fails when it shifts gears (ahh, see what I did there?) and focuses on the romance between the cop and Vin Diesel's sister. This is a movie that just should have stayed in Guy Mode. For sports car enthusiasts or fans of bright blurring colors, this has a lot to offer. No, it's not the most realistic movie that I've ever seen, and you have to sit through some lulls, but I've definitely seen worse action movies. I don't understand cars at all and didn't have any idea what this crew of mechanics and street racers were talking about a lot of the time, so I'm likely not part of the demographic they had in mind when filming this thing.

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #5: Drive Angry

2011 3D mayhem!

Rating: 6/20

Plot: John Milton (oh, geez) is angry as he drives in search of some devil worshippers who killed his daughter and are about to sacrifice his granddaughter. Oh, and he escaped from Hell. That might be a spoiler. Sorry about that. Milton meets a waitress, kills her fiance with an air conditioner, and takes her along on the trip. Meanwhile, a mysterious man known as The Accountant pursues Milton while he pursues the devil worshippers. Cue "Yakety Sax"!

There's a muffin reference in this one.

This movie assaulted me--throwing slow-motion bullets, coins, flying cars, baseball bats, severed fingers, pieces of glass, blood, and whatever else its makers could find into my living room. Because you see, just having all hell breaking lose is fine, but it's really nothing compared to having all hell break lose in 3D! I mean, did I enjoy watching William Fichtner of Prison Break walking toward me? Sure, but when I imagine what I missed by not seeing him walk toward me in 3D, it makes me. . .well, angry. And then it makes me want to drive. Angry. By the way, should I penalize this movie for having a grammar error in the title? It should be Drive Angrily. This is the type of movie that doesn't care about that though, the type that if you tried to correct its grammar would get all in your grill and say, "What are you? A fucking English teacher or something?" It's also the type of movie that would probably pick fights with other movies. "You think you're bad ass or something, Real Steel? Watch me throw a car over the side of this bridge! Woooooooooo!" I swear to God that I'm not making this up, but Drive Angry actually threw a punch at me while I was watching. Luckily, I had just bent down to grab an ink pen that I had dropped, and the punch didn't connect. It would have hurt, too, because Drive Angry's fist was all on fire and made of iron. My whole face would have probably exploded! Just the soundtrack of this movie could probably kick your ass. "Raise a Little Hell," a classic played during an opening scene where Nicolas Cage's character shoots a guy's hand off (right into your lap thanks to 3D technology) while things explode and "Fuck the Pain Away," another aggressive song that's played minutes before a scene where a guy punches a naked woman. I need to buy the soundtrack because it would be perfect for times when I need to drive angrily. Or as William Fichtner describes Nicolas Cage: "Angry with attitude." Fichtner's easily the best thing about this movie, by the way. His character doesn't make a lot of sense, but he's kind of cool, and Fichtner understands that he's playing a comic character. The guy who plays the leader of the Satan worshippers (Billy Burke, apparently taking a break from those teenage vampire movies) is really awful. He's got an unidentifiable accent and looks like he's auditioning for a David Copperfield biopic or something. And our hero, Nicolas Cage? Well, this isn't his best performance, and I'm surprised his skull wasn't on fire in this movie. For the most part, he looks exactly like he does on the poster up there--angry. I did like his aggressive-kiss-coffee-drink move though, and there's a great scene in a hotel room where he simultaneously smokes a cigar, drinks whiskey from the bottle, has sexual intercourse, and kills a bunch of Satan worshippers who are attacking him with garden utensils. In case I wasn't clear--that's all happening at the same time. I imagine it's pretty close to Nicolas Cage's honeymoon actually.

My favorite Cage line: "It's still in there. The bullet. I can feel it."

Back to the 3D thing. The ways the makers of Drive Angry try to take advantage of the technology is laughable. The CGI in this movie is some of the worst I have ever seen, and I wonder if it wouldn't look as bad in a theater with the 3D glasses. It wouldn't have come close to saving this movie though. But the next time I have an opportunity to see a Nicolas Cage movie in 3D, I'm watching it with aviator goggles.

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #2: Gone in 60 Seconds

2000 car movie remake

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Master car thief Memphis Raines is pulled out of retirement after his little brother Cleveland Raines gets into a little trouble. He's got three days to get a crew together and steal fifty luxury automobiles to save his brother's life. Oh, snap!

There's only one reason to watch this movie--a scene where Nicolas Cage's character, right before the start of the big car-stealin' action, pops in "Low Rider" ("All my friends know the lowrider. The lowrider is a little higher. The low rider drives a little slower. Low rider is a real goer.") because they've got fifty cars to steal in one night, damn it, and that's the only way Nicolas Cage can get juiced up for this crap. His character goes into this little trance; wiggles and then sticks his fingers up like he's either meditating or flashing gang signs or, as only Nicolas Cage can, simultaneously meditating and flashing gang signs; jerks around a bit; and then says, "Ok, let's ride." That scene is awesome! Trust me. My description of this doesn't do it justice. Take your pants off and Youtube it.

There are multiple reasons to stay away from this movie though. The overuse of the term boosting. Boosting cars, going boosting, hey--I'm boosting in here, boosting this, boosting that, Angelina Jolie's boosting, Robert Duvall knows boosting, boosting boosting, I'm a booster he's a booster wouldn't you like to be a booster too, everybody was kung-fu boosting, check it--I'm boosting, can you keep it quiet because I'm boosting, fifty car boosting--that's absurd, boosting legends, all we are saying is give boosting a chance. It was irritating. I imagined all the actors standing around, going over their lines and arguing about who gets to say boosting. "Why does Robert Duvall get to say 'boosting' twice?" "Hey, Dominic. What do you think about my character saying 'boosting' right here?" All of these characters, including Memphis Raines, are boring. Angelina Jolie brings nothing to the table. Robert Duvall is quickly becoming a movie pet peeve of mine as he just stands around and looks dopey in every movie he's in. Here, he plays a pointless character, the unflappable old-timer veteran booster type, and does his usual stellar job of standing around and looking dopey. And the producers of this really missed an opportunity by not naming his character Booster Cogburn. Giovanni Ribisi, the guy who plays Tallahassee Raines, rubs me the wrong way, too. With an action movie or heist-type movie you need one of two things: 1) Good action or 2) Good heisting. I'd prefer the meticulous planning and creative scheming over the big dumb action scenes any day. Gone in 60 Seconds actually doesn't have either one though. You get a lot of scenes with people turning keys or sneaking around or drawing lines through car names on a list (I wonder, by the way, how these people can be so high-tech and then use chalk and a blackboard for their big fifty car list) and have to wait for the very end of the movie to get a good action scene. It's a car chase with Memphis and some cops. It's so-so but nothing to pump your fist about. The best thing about this Nicolas Cage movie is that it's out of the way. Gone in 60 Seconds? I wish this movie would have been done in 60 seconds. Wakka wakka wakka!

"Keep it real. Think slow. We'll get through this." Thanks, Nicolas Cage. Those are definitely words to live by.

Cars

2006 cartoon

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 17/20; Emma: 13/20; Abbey: 20/20; Sophie: ?/20)

Plot: It all comes down to a final race between three cars with the winner, including a cocky rookie race car named Lightning McQueen, getting the Piston Cup. That's apparently a big deal. On the way, he gets stuck in a dumpy little forgotten town called Radiator Springs where he's forced to repave a road that he destroyed. Can he complete the task in enough time to get to California and the Piston Cup championship? Will his selfish feelings change as he gets to know the locals in Radiator Springs?

For me, it can be summed up in three simple words. More accurately, two words and a part of a word. Two and a half words. The words? "Get 'r done." A lot of the animation, especially the stuff at the tracks, is beautifully done, and I like Lightning as a good dynamic character voiced by Owen Wilson. It's my least favorite Pixar movie, and I wish the Pixar geniuses would tackle an Incredibles 2 instead of following up this or the monster movie.

Now, to be the opposite of randy since not enough people have participated in the poll to help me figure out the appropriate level of randiness, I'll force my children to type something about Cars.

Abbey: Cars the movie is the best movie ever because it has lots of action. I love how Lightning is a race car. When Lightning was in the truck, I liked all of the toys he had. At the end I liked how Lightning saved a racing car. I thought it was really nice when they found Lightning in Radiator Springs. They were all taking pictures.

Emma: A lot of movies are somewhat amazing and the other ones are kinda boring. But there is also a middle. Cars, in my opinion, is one of those in the middle. I like some of the parts like the whole idea of the movie but it was predictable... in some parts. cows are awesome. MOoO

Moo indeed.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

1974 Peckinpah joint

Rating: 16/20

Plot: When the daughter of some wealthy plantation owner winds up pregnant, he demands the daddy's head. Part-time piano player and full-time loser Bennie finds out about the bounty for Alfredo Garcia's head, and visits one of his old flames. She informs him that Alfredo has already died, and the two , who decide they're in love, travel to his grave to retrieve the head and collect the bounty. Things don't go smoothly, however.

On the surface, you've got a grimy, slow-paced action story that looks like a product of its time. But this work's got some dimensions, layers of grime that make this the type of movie that's got a soul. It's the soul of a sinner or a drunkard or a guy who rubs his junk on vegetables at the supermarket, but it's still a soul. The locations match the grimy plot. Pekinpah paints Mexico to be a truly magical place here, all dilapidated buildings, homely people, dust, and wrecked cars. The Mexican landscape and the faded colors of the dumps and dives these characters inhabit give this the feel of a raunchy dream. At one point in the movie, there's a family that is chasing the protagonist. They're driving this wonderfully battered blue car, something that looked like somebody had taken a sledge hammer to it. It made me laugh out loud. And although the pervading mood is one of despair or hopelessness, there is some off-the-wall humor in this movie. The protagonist is a great character, an A-grade anti-hero. If I had to be a loser, I'd choose to be this guy, a guy who doesn't care how badly his tie clashes with his shirt, sleeps with his sunglasses on, shoots pistols in the air while driving his convertible, takes exaggerated swigs from his bottle of vodka while he drives, and says really cool things like "You two guys are definitely on my shit list" and "You're looking at me with your goddamn fuckin' eyes." I haven't seen a lot of movies with Warren Oates, but I have to imagine this was the defining role of his career. He's got a way in this movie of simultaneously slurping in everything around him while looking utterly defeated the entire time. It's one of those performances you'll remember, simple but very effective. This is far from perfect (I can't figure out why Kristofferson's scene was in this), but it's a great movie about the price you have to pay to obsess, chase your dreams, and have things your way and the type of cult classic I imagine could be in some people's personal top tens. Other people? Not so much.

A Larst recommendation.

The Junkman

1982 car crash porn

Rating: 12/20

Plot: What better way to summarize the plot than to just steal the chapter titles? So, here it goes: Opening credits, the set up, riverbed chase, assassin plan, James Dean Festival, lady with a gun, who shot the sheriff, plane attack point, point blank shooting, wrapped around a tree, crashing front ends, smashing traffic, big wreck, crashing pig man, shooting from plane, flying through James Dean, over the cliff, plane crashing, flipping car, flying over plane, blowing up a house, gun shots in collection, blowing up cars, chasing Corvette, on top of cars, church lady, Goodyear Blimp landing, roof top fight, bombs away, end credits.

And with that, you literally get a chapter that almost sets everything up, a stunt scene while the main character finishes filming his movie, and then 45+ relentless minutes of car crashes. This movie boasts (both on the cover and in an introduction by the widow of the star/writer/director H.B. Halicki) that it's in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most car crashes. Plot? You don't need a stinkin' plot! It's the pointlessly repetitious twisting of metal, an orgy of crashes, boisterous and nearly pornographic, the sort of thing that forces you to say, "Dude!" with an emphasis on the first vowel sound. Duuuuuuuuude! It's jaw-droppingly stupid. In the late Halicki's defense, he's really good at that sort of thing. The first half of this film is really a lot of fun, and the crashes and stunts are shot well. Then, the movie dive-bombs like a plane being flown by a man trying to drop hand grenades on racing vehicles as Halicki probably said, "Whoops! We forgot to put a story in here!" and re-sets-up everything. And the movie can't find its momentum again, the perfect example of a film that shoots its proverbial wad far too early, a cinematic premature ejaculator. By the time the main character is leaping from the Goodyear Blimp, you're just wishing he was back in that car again, slamming into mailboxes that for whatever reason stick to the hood of his car, saying cool things to himself, showing off his sideburns, and occasionally leaping over flying planes in slow-mo. My favorite quote: A policeman says, "My unit is on fire!" which sounds painful enough. There's also a great scene where the cars chase each other through a James Dean Festival, and as the cars are departing, a guy hurls a rock at one of them. My favorite character though is the "eccentric pig farmer" in ill-fitting cut-off shorts. Every moment he's on the screen is movie magic. He's played by Ronald Halicki, prospective Torgo Award winner. Hmm. I wonder if he's related to the director.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

1965 sexploitation masterpiece

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Three mean go-go dancers, while out in the desert driving their hot rods really fast, kill! kill! a guy and kidnap his girlfriend. At a gas station, they hear about a crippled old man who lives with his two sons and who has a large amount of money hidden somewhere on his expansive desert property. They decide to go find it.

Russ Meyer was the "King of the Nudies," but this one has no nudity at all, unless you consider glimpses of naked backs to be "nudity". However, almost every single shot in the film is bursting with sexual fervor. There's enough oppressive udder activity in this, mounds not only threatening the strength of their wardrobes but threatening to break out of the television screen and smother the dog. There's also not anything overtly violent. Sure, characters kill! kill! and there's a Hamlet-esque denouement, but the more horrifying parts of the violence in this is psychological or suggested violence. Is the story, acting, and dialogue a little junky? Absolutely. The dialogue, at times, seems like it's being read phonetically by two of the three pussycats, and the characters' motivations at times don't make much sense. But this is some really artistic trash! I love the cinematography. This is the type of movie where you could pause the movie almost randomly and find yourself something poster-worthy. Really iconic imagery. The weird acting fits, and I actually did like Stuart Lancaster as the old man. Great stuff.

Apparently, there's a remake of this one in development. Why? How can Tura Satana be replaced?

Duel

1971 television movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A guy with a red car is terrorized by a truck driver in a scary-looking truck.

Steven Spielberg's first feature-length film (released in theaters about a decade later after being shown on television) is a pretty dang good psychological thriller with some deft camera work, a haunting score, and a building sense of realistic tension. The truck, since Spielberg wisely never shows much of the human behind the wheel, becomes the antagonist, and like all good thrillers, it (unexpectedly) is a great, menacing one. As weird as it sounds, the truck's performance is very good, and I'm sure that the truck could have gone on to have a very good career in acting if not for the typecasting and the addiction to heroin. There's a point in the movie where the whole big rig vs. Dennis Weaver conflict becomes a bit too silly, but the movie's just the right length and never drives into overly-precious territory. I wish I would have had Convoy ready to pop in as part of a double feature after this one. Or Maximum Overdrive!

Crash

1996 David Cronenberg joint

Rating: 5/20

Plot: A few horny people hump each other amidst the greasy shadows and carnage of various car crashes.

Scars and cars, gnarled metal and steaming nipples, strangely dispassionate sex fiends and general stickiness! Step right up! See the bearded woman! See Joey Scales, the Fish Boy and his waving flippers! See James Dean's ghost dry humping a muffler! See Holly Hunter swallow a twisted sword! Step right up to the Cronenberg freak tent! Yes, we have yet another David Cronenberg movie that I just don't understand. What's his intention here? Is it to make me feel like taking a bath? Is it to finally convince me that James Spader, at least in my mind, has become more of a pet peeve than an actual person? Who can identify with the really flat characters in Crash? I don't know, but I don't want to be within spitting (or ejaculating) distance of them. This movie is thoroughly unpleasant.

Night on Earth

1991 Jim Jarmusch movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Five synchronous episodes in five taxi cabs in five cities. An aspiring mechanic drives a casting agent home from the L.A. airport. A German cab driver in New York tries to get Yo-Yo from Manhattan to Brooklyn. An African in Paris transports a blind woman to a pier. A verbose, loud-mouthed Italian drives a man who isn't a bishop to a place the man who isn't a bishop would probably rather not go. And in Helsinki, one tortured soul picks up three others to give them a ride across town after a night of drinking.

Another movie I didn't like very much the first time I saw it. After the first segment (the one with Winona Ryder), I figured I still wouldn't like it, but Night on Earth just gets better and better. Trudge through segment one, and you'll be rewarded. These are typically Jarmuschian character studies, as well as studies of time and place, but in short story form. The style might be a little different than Down by Law or Strangers in Paradise, but that love he's got for the characters he creates is still there. It's also got that quiet poignancy that sort of sneaks up on you. The attention to details, or the patience Jarmusch has in drawing focus to certain details, is still there, as are the deadpan humor and terrific irony. The dialogue's presentation is unique in that it allows the audience to see both sides of the conversation as if from the front of the cab and therefore makes extraneous camera movements or multiple views completely unnecessary. Exterior shots--mostly, it seems, of the seedier parts of the represented cities--are well shot, and the midnight drunken circus music of Tom Waits (bias alert!) perfectly compliments the wee hours of the freaky ghost town settings. It's easy to pick a least favorite of the five segments (and honestly, I don't exactly hate Ryder's story), but picking a favorite among the other four is difficult stuff. I can imagine Roberto Benigni would get on most people's nerves, but I love that guy. The last story (the Finnish one) has the guy who I'm going to start referring to as my favorite actor as soon as I bother learning his name, the guy in Kaurismaki's Ariel, Shadows in Paradise, and Leningrad Cowboys movies.

Ok, I'm not that lazy. Matti Pellonpaa is his name. I am too lazy to figure out how to put dots above the a's in his name though.

Question for Cory: Which Jim Jarmusch movies have you seen?

The Cannonball Run

1981 comedy

Rating: 4/20 (Jen: 2/20, although she didn't pay attention enough to catch the intricate genius of The Cannonball Run)

Plot: Based on a real event, The Cannonball Run tells the story of some highway scofflaws and degenerates trying to win an illegal cross-country automobile race. Showing this movie in theaters should have probably been illegal, too.

Criminally unfunny. From the blooper clips shown during the closing credits of this piece of crap, it looks like the cast is having a good time. That's good because I can't imagine the audience having a good time at all. A lot of supposedly talented people are involved, but other than the genius of Burt Reynolds' mustache and Farrah Fawcett's assets, there's not much to appreciate. I like to think of this movie as a recipe: You add the comic stylings of Burt Reynolds and Dom Deluise, sprinkle in a little Farrah Fawcett and a couple other babes, pour in the timeless comedic talents of Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., add a pinch of Jackie Chan in a hatchback, throw in some mindless explosions and silly slapstick, top with the endlessly hilarious Terry Bradshaw and the stuttering Mel Tillis, and let simmer for what seems to be five days and you end up with. . .well, I don't know. Something you'd rather eat than watch, I guess. There's not a laugh to be had here. The bits don't work, but in The Cannonball Run, they're given a chance to work again and again which, of course, just makes you sick to your stomach. I might be wrong here, but I think some of the people associated with this movie might have used pseudonyms to escape what would have to be the inevitable end of their careers. David Shamroy Hamburger? Frank Bueno? Snuff Garnett? Come on! Those aren't real people!

Some Shane trivia: I first saw this movie at the Indiana Theater in Terre Haute, Indiana, making this the second worst movie I ever saw at that theater. All I remembered about the experience were the dozens of bats flapping over our heads though. Actually, now that I think about it, it may have been the sequel that I saw at the Indiana. That brings up a question, by the way. How could anybody have thought a sequel to this was a good idea?

Speed Racer

2008 bomb

Rating: 9/20 (Emma gave it a 0 and Abbey gave it a 1 although neither made it through the entire movie. Dylan's old school and couldn't rate a movie he wasn't able to finish.)

Plot: Speed Racer (apparently his real name) comes from a racing family. His dad John Goodman Racer is a brilliant mechanic/inventor. His brother Rex Racer is a brilliant driver. His mother Mrs. Racer makes one hell of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Speed's dreamt of racing from a very young age, but the death of his brother and pressure from big racing corporations nearly ruins it all for him. In order to bring down one corrupt racing organization, he must compete in a dangerous psychedelic multi-continental race and a psychedelic Grand Prix against enemies Snake Guy and Old Gray-Haired Guy.

There were plans to see this in a theater with my brother, but they fell through because my brother, while ice fishing, fell through. It wouldn't have been the worst movie we ever saw in a theater since we also saw Creepshow II, Ernest Goes to Camp, The Disorderlies (featuring rappers The Fat Boys), Overboard, Ernest Goes to Jail, Toys, and Ernest Meets the Fat Boys on the big screen just the way they were meant to be seen. However, It's probably a good thing we didn't make it because we more than likely would have been surrounded by furiously masturbating Japanese men. I can't imagine a movie like this would have any audience other than furiously masturbating Japanese men. I like the colors a lot, and the action scenes, as expected from the Wafflaski Brothers, were things that I hadn't seen before. There was a scene where everybody was kung-fu fighting, and those cats were fast as lightning. The car racing scenes were also sort of like kung-fu fights in a way. And there was a humorous monkey, in my opinion the best kind of monkey you can have in a movie. But like the Wankerowskis' other movies, there's a lot of mumbo and even more jumbo, and it makes the other stuff a lot less fun and a lot more difficult to sit through. This is, however, twice as good as the third movie in the Wabooskies' Matrix trilogy. I also liked the colors. Oh, I already said that. Seems that the seizures Speed Racer induced have affected my brains.

Trafic

1971 French comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Mr. Hulot is traveling to Amsterdam with a couple associates to show off a funky recreational vehicle at a gigantic car show. Unfortunately for him, trafic [sic] jams, accidents, the po-po, and general silliness get in his way. How do you say "Oh, snap!" in French?

Tati's last film isn't his best film, but it definitely has its share of zany, entertaining moments. So much of the movie lags, and whereas those lags generally build up to something great in Playtime, they often go nowhere at all here. At time, this moves as quickly as the trafic [sic] jams Hulot finds himself in. The final shot is great, and there are lots of other slowly-unfolding bits of brilliance. One complaint would be that there's just too much talking in this. As expected, not a lot to laugh out loud at, but there's still enough sweetly entertaining here to make it well worth seeing. On par with Mon Oncle if not as brilliant as Playtime or M. Hulot's Holiday.