Over the Top

1987 arm-wrestling epic

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Estranged truckdriving father Lincoln Hawk tries to reconnect with his son after his ex-wife's death. His father-in-law is against the idea, and his son doesn't like the idea either. Hawk wins his son over after impressing him with his arm-wrestling prowess.

Pow! I saw this movie in the dilapidated movie theater in Brazil, Indiana, as a middle school student, and I thought it was pretty stupid back then, and I was a pretty stupid kid in 1987, the type of kid who still thought the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi made perfect sense. It's your standard father/son road trip movie sprinkled with the arm-wrestling scenes, scenes that seem to be there only so Stallone can show off his guns. Then, the truck crashes into a mansion, and you realize what a stupid story you're watching and, at least at the age of thirty-nine, start to doubt your decision-making abilities. I've been a busy guy the last few months, and I just haven't had the time to watch as many movies as I'd like. So I get a little free time and watch Over the Top? This movie reminds me of just how bad I always was at arm-wrestling. This movie came out and made a very tiny splash, but it was enough of one to get kids to start arm-wrestling each other. We'd all try the little wrist twist thing that Stallone uses in this, but I'm not sure it ever did anything. Neither did putting our baseball caps on backwards. I'm really glad that was explained in this movie, by the way, or I would have lost sleep. I had little twigs for arms, and even girls would beat me although I had trouble focusing because the physical contact with a female made me giddy. I'm surprised Stallone's character didn't have the same issues because most of his opponents are real lookers. A handful of them are interesting characters who aren't given a chance to shine and add a little personality to this drab movie. One of the main issues is that arm-wrestling isn't really all that interesting, even in a Hollywood motion picture where you have some white-knucklin' edge-of-yo'-seat back-and-forth action. It's a lot of slow-motion grunting and despair. The biggest issue with the movie is the kid. He's played terribly by David Mendenhall, an actual kid, and although the acting is as terrible as you'd normally expect from a kid, the main problem actually has more to do with the writing. Basically, the kid comes across like a real asshole. He flees across traffic on a highway in an effort to escape, says, "I hate you!" a few too many times, and grows to like Lincoln Hawk a little too quickly. But Mendenhall doesn't help matters. I mean, if you can't look effectively disgusted after Sylvester Stallone says, "Would you like to use my shoulder for a pillow?" then you're just not an actor. This movie doesn't know how to develop a story or its characters and instead leans on a bunch of montages. I thought one song during an early montage was the worst thing I'd ever heard in my life, but then I heard another song that might have been worse. It was like Eddie Money and Frank Stallone, the latter who I bet is related to the star of this movie, were having some kind of competition to see who could make my ears bleed most. So many montages though. I think one montage even contained its own montage.

Smokey and the Bandit

1977 truck movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen fells asleep a little before Burt Reynolds' first appearance.)

Plot: The titular outlaw drives a Pontiac Trans Am as a blocker for truck-driving pal Snowman as they attempt to illegally haul a load of Coors 1,800 miles in 28 hours in order to win a bet. On the way back, Bandit picks up a hitchhiker who has just fled from her wedding, an act which will later inspire Garry Marshall to make The Runaway Bride. The father of the groom, a tough sheriff named Buford T. Justice, chases relentlessly. Because the Bandit is played by Burt Reynolds, there's time to stop for sex.

On the surface, this is a chunk of 1970's sleazeballery, your typical counter-culture truck drivin' action/comedy flick. But this is the Shakespeare of truck drivin' films, less a movie really than a transcendent experience, a film that comes from some place you could never understand. Watching Smokey and the Bandit isn't like watching another movie. Well, at the very least, it shouldn't be like watching another movie. If you watch Smokey and the Bandit correctly, you really have to leave your body and watch yourself watching the movie, and I'm convinced that only the most virtuous viewers can make that happen. I watched this movie back in the late-70's, probably because my step-dad was a truck driver. I'd been to church, but watching Smokey and the Bandit is what really convinced me there was a God. How else could one explain Burt Reynolds' mustache? The speed of these vehicles? The human capacity for coming up with the idea that drives the plot of this movie--a bet to illegally transport Coors across state lines in time for Big Enos and Little Enos's party? Burt Reynolds is a force. There's no way his laugh, his crotch, his smile can possibly be organic. There are a limited number of possible effects that the Bandit character can have on individual audience members. Woman will at the very least want to smell Burt Reynolds, and in more extreme but also more likely cases, they will will want to have a sexual encounter with Burt Reynolds. And men? They will either shit in their pants or, in more extreme but not all that likely cases, want to have a sexual encounter with Burt Reynolds' hat. And almost everybody watching Burt Reynolds in this movie will want to get in his motor vehicle and drive it as fast as he can, just praying that somebody starts chasing him. But as amazing as Burt Reynolds is in this movie, it's really Jackie Gleason that is the heart and soul of this movie. Gleason, mostly improvising, has dialogue that John Keats wishes he would have been alive to write. No, I'll take that back. John Keats wishes he would have lived long enough to even hear lines like these:

"Give me a diablo sandwich, a Dr. Pepper, and make it quick. I'm in a God damn hurry."
"There's no way that you came from my loins. Soon as I get home, first thing I'm going to do is punch your mama in the mouth."
"You sumbitches couldn't close an umbrella."
"Get off of there, you Schnauzer's tit."
"My name is Smokey Bear and I'm tail-grabbin' your ass right now."
"Do what I say you pile of monkey nuts."
"Duck or you're gonna be talking out your ass."
"Nobody make Sheriff Buford T. Justice look like a possum's pecker."
"This happens every time one of these floozies starts poontanging around with those show folk fags."
"I'm going to barbecue your ass in molasses."

Combine writing like that with the cinematography, Burt Reynolds' mustache, and the grace of Sally Field and you've got yourself something a little closer to poetry than just your average movie. The incomparable Jerry Reed plays Snowman so well that you wonder how much of his life was spent talking on a CB radio. He also contributed a song or two that you won't be able to get out of your head for a week or so after you watch this movie, especially if you're like me and had to watch it six times straight. Paul Williams plays Little Enos, and he's not really a little person but I'm using my tag anyway. He wrote "An Old Fashioned Love Song" which became a hit for Three Dog Night, the first band I ever saw in concert. He also wrote "We've Only Just Begun" and "Rainy Days and Mondays" for the Carpenters and, most importantly for me, "Rainbow Connection" for The Muppet Movie.

Two bits of Shane trivia: 1) I stopped wearing jeans, for obvious reasons, after seeing this movie. 2) Sally Field was my first lover.

Deadhead Miles

1972 truck movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A possibly-crazy Cooper steals a Peterbilt, paints it yellow, and starts a transcontinental trip. He picks up the Jeffersons' butler, and they have a series of misadventures.

If you like trucker movies or 70's counterculture road movies, you need to check this one out before you forget about it and it goes away forever. A large percentage of the population ain't going to get this Malick-penned undiscovered little gem, but for those who do, it's going to hit hard. I came for the truck driving and Malick script, stayed for Alan Arkin's ridiculous performance, and fell in love with the Paul Benedict brilliance. Let's start with that script which seemed aimed straight for my funny bone. There's very little story here, just episodic free-form truck-driving tomfooleries, but there's a great feeling of nostalgia and a celebration of the open road. The story has a very made-as-you-go feel, but not in a bad way at all. Take this sequence when the characters try to go to a drag race: They can't get into the drag race because they either can't pay or don't want to pay. Paul Benedict's character says that he is going to watch the drag race from inside. The two have a little fight. Benedict buys a fake mustache. They steal a doll. Arkin rips off the dolls head and attaches it to the bottom of the gear shift in somebody else's truck. He moves the gear shift which contorts the doll's face and then says, "The world is bigger than you know." Nothing in that scene connects with anything else. Hell, the scene doesn't make sense on its own, but for whatever reason, it adds to the experience and is really funny. Here's another bit of dialogue after the characters throw full stolen bottles of soda at signs from their moving cab in a scene that might be about six bottles too long:

Arkin: Boy, I never had so much fun. Howdy mighty damn!
Benedict: Golly.
Arkin: That was fun.
Benedict: Gee.
Arkin: That's what I call fun.
Benedict: That was something all right.

Come on! That's almost Shakespearean! I also liked this exchange, following some enthusiastic singing:

Benedict: You know "Red River Valley"?
Arkin: Yeah.
Benedict: You want to sing it?
Arkin: No.

As I type that, I realize it's one of those you-had-to-have-been-there moments, but I don't care. I'm typing it anyway. I'm not sure any of the dialogue would work without Arkin and Benedict. The latter I was just thrilled to see. Arkin is completely unhinged here, so close to Depp's Hunter S. Thompson that you almost wonder if Depp drew inspiration from this before remembering that he drew his inspiration from an actual guy. Arkin's performance is one of the oddest I've seen as he hollers at blow-up dolls, claims his name is Bingo Freighthaulers, or tells stories about Jesus. A lot of the fun is this weird rapport that Arkin and Benedict have. Watch Benedict's face as Arkin is talking through a drive-in showing of Samson and Delilah when he says, "Hey, look at Jesus up there!" or claims that "Jesus don't make no deals." Or when Arkin's rambling something like "If I see him again, I'm gonna stick his head with a fork mumble mumble mumble" followed by a pained scream, a moment when Arkin just gives up on using words. That look on Benedict's face is priceless. My favorite moment (possibly ever) is when both characters are screaming. A feeling of euphoria washed over me, dear readers.

OK, I'm going to start reminiscing with myself about this movie that none of you will ever see. My new favorite movie!

Oh, but for all you Richard Kiel completists--you could blink and miss him, but he is in this one. You know, the dude with the 7'2" teeth.

Breaker! Breaker!

1977 truckdriver kung-fu movie

Rating: 5/20

Plot: Chuck Norris, truckdrivin' tough guy, puts his ears on and gets word that his brother is lost in Texas City, California, a town run by a corrupt judge. Chuck, his roundhouse kick, a yellow t-shirt, and a tacky blue van with a giant eagle painted on the side go looking for him. Unfortunately for the citizens of Texas City, California, they're not smart enough to realize that the best way to get rid of Chuck Norris is just to shoot him.

Seriously, I'm with the Judge Trimmings (that's his name) on this one. "He was unarmed." When an action hero gets by on ingenuity, resourcefulness, or something else, I can accept it. But when he's walking out in the open in broad daylight, and the bad guys can't figure out a way to kill him, there's a problem. And speaking of Judge Trimmings (that's his name), what a character you've got here. George Murdock plays the character like he's in a Shakespearean production. He's Acting with a capital A. His lines clash incongruously with everybody else's in Texas City, California, things like "I'm gonna stick ya! I'm gonna stick ya!" repeated by a guy with a pitchfork and another hick whining, "The guy's a bad dude!" Texas City and its occupants reminded me a bit of the locale and characters in Deliverance, so imagine Hamlet replying to "Squeal like a pig!" This doesn't seem like an authentic representation of the profession of truck driving. At the end (SPOILER ALERT!), a bunch of unseen truckers, including one named Mudflapper, come to the rescue after easily locating this dump town (Texas City, California) sans modern technology and crash into buildings in their manic search for Chuck, all while taking turns crackin' wise on their CB's. Their CB banter sounded like the type of thing that was improvised, possibly by some of the dumbest people on earth. At one point, a trucker (maybe Mudflapper) says, "I haven't had this much fun since I broke my shoulder." I had to rewind that to make sure I heard it correctly. Without context (did I miss a prequel to this?), that makes no sense. This also has one of the most terrible musical montages I've seen in a long time with this insipid pop song accompanying scenes of Chuck Norris and Arlene just standing in various places. And there's a stutterer with a stutter that, just like the representation of truck driving, doesn't seem like an accurate representation of stuttering. Chuck Norris says, "I had a brother but I lost him," to him. There's also a wonderfully poignant moment when the stuttering character says, "I'm-I-I-I-I'mma, I-I'm m-m-m-m-m-ma-ma-m-mad at y-y-y-you," leading to one of the bad guys, the stutterer's brother, doing a little soul searching. Oh, and there's a scene where the stuttering guy makes love to a stuffed lion in a barn. But you can't talk about a Chuck Norris movie without discussing the fight scenes. They're nearly nonstop, but they aren't entertaining at all. I couldn't understand why a kick to the abdomen seems to finish off anybody. Maybe that's because Chuck Norris was the fight coordinator for Breaker! Breaker! I've never been roundhouse-kicked in the stomach by Chuck Norris though, so I'm not exactly an expert. I do know that if I was to remake this movie, I'd have anybody who is roundhouse-kicked in the stomach to violently explode in a CGI fireball. That would totally rule and oddly wouldn't really affect the believability of Breaker! Breaker! It all builds to a climactic fight scene where the hero, right after he's been shot, survives having hay and a tire hurled at him, fights off a man attacking him with a hook and later a bottle, and ends up killing the guy with a roundhouse kick to the abdomen. All while a horse watches!

Special note: Jack Nance followed his award-worthy performance in Eraserhead with a performance as a truck driver in this one. Maybe that's why Cory recommended it to me.

This trucker movie was recommended by Cory!