Film #131: Vanishing Point

With a plaintive, desert-baked guitar acting as soundtrack, Richard C. Sarafian's existential action epic Vanishing Point begins at its end, with rust-speckled bulldozers rumbling through the morning light of a funereal California town apparently populated only by doddering old men with ancient hats. As helicopters dot the air, these earth-movers situate themselves imposingly in Main Street's middle as a makeshift roadblock. They're the law's last stab at halting a determined, enigmatic force named Kowalski (Barry Newman), who's about to spend the rest of this melancholy, pepped-up movie muscling towards San Francisco in high-speed flashback.

From the outset, Vanishing Point's then-retro framing and locale is a devoted tip of the brim to the western. After Peckinpah and Leone blew the genre up in the late 1960s, it had nowhere to go but here. Spotted palaminos were replicated by similarly-named cars--in this case, the key one being a blindingly white 1970 Dodge Challenger, piloted by a nearly empty-hearted, tow-headed Colorado cowboy who must deliver it to the California coastline in record time (as in Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch--a welcome influence--wide-eyed children are constantly documented as witnesses to the action). Jazzed by handfuls of Bennies, Kowalski is unshakingly single-minded and, like all great cowboys, has little to say about his task except through unfettered dash. His crotchety old boss admonishes him early on: "You're gonna kill yourself one day, do ya know?" "Yeah, I know" is Kowalski's tired reply.

Vanishing Point was one of the cinema's prime offerings to the drive-in gods in the 1970s. I must have sat in the back seat, with my parents up front, watching this adrenaline-pumper (often as a second feature) at least ten times that decade. I vividly remember it being paired often with another searching 1971 car movie, Monte Hellman's Two Lane Blacktop, and also in re-release as part of a much-touted 1974 20th-Century Fox-powered double bill with another key drive-in car-chase classic, Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, starring Peter Fonda and Susan George (I can also recall its appearing with Floyd Mutrix's like-minded auto-centric romance Aloha Bobby and Rose). Watching Vanishing Point recently, I realized its immutable impact on me when, ten minutes in, Kowalski's speeding car is at once stopped in freeze-frame, and then disappears from the screen. Even as a kid, I thought: "What is THIS?!" In its own way, it's as indelible a moment as Truffaut's freeze-frame climax to The 400 Blows.

Kowalski's not a bad guy. He may be a bifurcated speed addict through and through, but he has a job to do and he does it well. Stodgy badge-wearers retreat to radios, roads and sky to keep the man from doing his chore, but they amount to little more than housefly-scaled irritants. Even with his lawlessness, Kowalski's careful to ensure the safety of the civilian and non-civilian drivers he deftly runs off the dusty western byways. Differently from the heroes of a host of 1970s films, this vigorous man--an unappreciated Vietnam vet and former racetrack loser--is always thoughtful regarding those he's bested. In return, the fates hand him the victory/homecoming he always desired. This character, in his most dire moment, gets assistance from Dean Jagger (the Supporting Actor Oscar-winnner for 1949's WWII saga Twelve O'Clock High, portrays a desert-wisened snake charmer who teaches Kowalski how to truly become invisible). Amidst this movie's screeching, dust-cloud bedlam--as with the whole of the clip-clopping western genre--one of the glitziest adornments to Vanishing Point is its portraiture of the rocky, brush-covered countryside, though here the boonies are slashed not by towering buttes, but by the horizontally-angular intrusion of asphalt and white lines.

Sarafian's studied camera is captained by cinematographer John A. Alonzo, who'd later extend his grainy, rarely-showy talent to classics like Harold and Maude, Sounder, Chinatown, The Bad News Bears, Norma Rae, Scarface and George Clooney's black-and-white live-TV remake of Fail Safe (2000). Alonzo broke through to the A-list with Vanishing Point and it's no mystery why: his agile camera keeps up with that raging Dodge Challenger like a battle-scarred trooper. It zooms in slightly, seemingly desirous to become one with the automobile's metallic body, spotting the white demon in long shot through the astral prism of the wavy desert heat, and then capturing it in disorienting, motion-filled close-ups as the sandy sunshine reflecting off Kowalski's windshield blinds us to this dude's actual motivations (the worst scene in the movie, which should have hit the post-production floor, mawkishly refers to Kowalski's seaside past with a long-haired blonde, who's mirrored often amongst the movie's few women; as it's inferred, she disappears in a surfing mishap). This thankfully brief moment--along with one involving an adoring, nude lady hog rider--confuses and bores the viewer, since we already know Kowalski's uber-practical aims. We don't need ladles of sentiment to satify here.One who hasn't seen this jaunty, stunt-laden movie jewel might think that the intense, sparse lead performance by Newman is Vanishing Point's only relation to humanity. But throughout the film, we also follow Cleavon Little (more well known for his later role as the snide, self-confident lead in Mel Brooks' western spoof Blazing Saddles). He's dedicates much energy to the charismatic, out-of-place Super Soul, who uses his airwaves to comfort, forcibly deceive, and ultimately cheerlead Kowalski towards his soul destination. Little's introduction in the film is another of its treasures. Sighted, yet wearing a blind man's sunglasses--he sees nothing but he sees it all--Super Soul trails behind a German Sheperd through a small town's weedy crossroads (the pissed-off townsmen keep their mouths shut tight as he passes--he's a bizarre fixture there, but he's already given them what for, and besides, he's "handicapped," so hands off, bub). Super Soul arrives at the KOW(alski) studios--"the noisiest, bounciest, fanciest radio station in the faaaaaarrr west"--as an undisputed superstar (his first broadcasting salvo is absolutely electric). Even considering Wolfman Jack in American Graffiti, Jeff Bridges in The Fisher King, Eric Bogosian in Talk Radio, and Lynne Thigpen in The Warriors, this is surely the best performance ever by someone playing a radio DJ. Along with Wolfman Jack's performance, it's certainly the purest, since the music and not the talk seems to be his point. I do love it when Super Soul advises Kowalski that the desert will beat him; Kowalski tells him to go to hell, and switches off the radio. Later, after Super Soul and his producer (John Amos) are brutalized by the cops, Little and Newman--both equallly put-upon--seem to have an impossible conversation with each other through the ether.

Gifted with a diverse soundtrack that includes gospel, soul, hard rock, bluegrass, honky tonk and elevator music from Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, Mountain, a way-pre "Bette Davis Eyes" Kim Carnes, Jerry Reed, and others, Vanishing Point sounds as good as it looks (it also knows how to employ silence and sound effects). The accomplished Sarafian shoots his lean story with confident aplumb. In an era where viewers were just getting over the often goony use of rear-screen projection to convince them L.A.-bound actors were completely ensconced in other places and times, Sarafian historically, bravely chose to shoot everything in Vanishing Point as if it were happening presently (now, CGI has taken the place of rear-projection, as the extra-lame remake of Gone in 60 Seconds and, conversely, Tarantino's "reality"-loving Death Proof have shown). Sarafian sternly locks the camera down upon the hoods of that Dodge Charger, and on the hoods of rival sedans, with Kowalski-like determination. The repeatedly dizzying shots of the rushing road, with white dots speeding by, and the searching, driver's-side-window close-ups of the concentrated Kowalski are waggishly exhilarating. Sarafian later delivered underrated B-product like the southern passion play Lolly Madonna XXX (with Robert Ryan, Season Hubley, and Jeff Bridges) and the compassionate Burt Reynolds western The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing. And the director would also pen a valuable production primer called The Film Director. Sarafian would nevertheless cruelly sink into obscurity (though, as an actor, he'd get a few juicy roles in films like Barry Levinson's Bugsy). However, with his unrelenting Vanishing Point, he definitely caught one moment where the rubber met the road.

Film #121: Smokey and the Bandit

I can still vividly remember, as a 10-year-old Atlanta kid, first seeing Smokey and the Bandit. My parents had taken me to the Northeast Expressway Drive-In Theater on opening night (if you look at the top right hand corner of this blog, you can see a torn ticket from the theater). The film's star, Burt Reynolds, was then the number one box office attraction in the country, and nowhere was this more evident than in the South. Even though he was born in Michigan but raised in Florida, Burt was pretty much adopted as a hometown boy after his breakout performance in 1972's Georgia-filmed Deliverance, he was pretty much. He returned to the state to shoot White Lightning (1973), Gator (1976) and, in 1977, Smokey and the Bandit. So seeing the latter open at an Atlanta drive-in was a big event.

My father wheeled his much-adored red-and-white '57 Chevy onto the drive-in lot way before dusk, and we sat and waited for the light to change so we could see this film we'd been hearing about for so long. The action-comedy had been in production all throughout 1976, filmed primarily in neighboring Jonesboro and McDonough, with major scenes filmed at the Atlanta's Lakewood Fairgrounds, where a gigantic racetrack and rollercoaster were situated. It was unbelievably exciting for my ten-year-old self to be at the Northeast Expressway Drive-In Theater on opening night; only Burt's very presence could have made it more so.

When darkness fell, we settled in with our snacks and waited for the joy. And so it began, and the film was just gearing up when disaster struck. The frames fluttered and then cooked brightly on the screen, and we knew what this meant: the print had been damaged. The screen lights flashed on in surprise, and I remember instantly looking out the back window and seeing the second screen at the drive-in (this was the first multi-screened drive-in in Atlanta). Smokey was going to be such a Georgia hit that the managers had booked it on the other screen as well, and there, the film was still playing fine. Now, horns on our side were honking in protest as we all waited impatiently for the situation to be fixed. When the projector powered up again, we got a shock: we weren't gonna be seeing Smokey and the Bandit; instead, the second feature, Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive flickered forth.

Now, I don't know if you've ever seen Eaten Alive, but no matter how much love gorehounds may have for it, it ain't no Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and it CERTAINLY ain't no Smokey and the Bandit. It's a nasty, scuzzy, unfrightening, totally mean-spirited piece of crap that has Neville Brand as a hotel owner who chops the heads off his guests with his scythe and feeds the corpses to his pet alligator. My mother, an avid animal lover (as we all were) was particularly scarred by the filmed feeding of a guest's pooch to the 'gator (to this day, my mother won't watch scary movies where a dog or a cat appears, because she's sure they're going to be killed off, and she's almost always right; it's a trend that's thankfully almost died off). Anyway, needless to say, we were mightilly pissed. But we stayed steadfast for Smokey, because Burt was our man. Happily, we weren't disappointed.

In it, Reynolds plays Bo "Bandit" Darville, a fast-talking, fast-moving rig driver who makes a massive wager with a bizarre, cocky pair of Texas businessmen (Big Enos and Little Enos, played by Pat McCormick and Paul Williams). They challenge the Bandit to deliver of truckload of Coors beer from Texarkana, TX to Atlanta, GA--a little under 1500 miles--in 28 hours (which was a little more difficult back when the speed limit was only 55 MPH). At any rate, Bandit has no problem with this. He hops into his black Trans Am (you know--the one with the T-top and the firey eagle on the hood) and gits, enlisting the help of Cletus ("When You're Hot, You're Hot" country singer Jerry Reed), who's to drive the actual payload while the Bandit's Trans Am serves as a decoy for the po-lice.

Only problem is, Reynolds takes the time to pick up Sally Field, who's decked out in a wedding dress and is thumbing a ride on the highway, escaping her marriage to a doofus played by former football star Mike Henry (who'd played alongside Reynolds in The Longest Yard). Henry's father happens to be a foul-mouthed, over-zealous country sheriff named Buford T. Justice (a dynamic, career-reviving, Southern-fried turn for certified New Yorker Jackie Gleason), who makes it his mission to catch the Bandit and foil his delivery of that Coors beer. So then we get nearly an hour of terrific car chase stunt-work from director Hal Needham, a former stuntman himself. Drive-in audiences (and four-wall audiences, too) wouldn't see so many cars pulverized for another three years, when John Landis' The Blues Brothers hit the screen. Next to that and H.B. Halicki's Gone in 60 Seconds, there has never been more wholesale destruction of Detroit product ever recorded on film. This makes Smokey and the Bandit one of the greatest drive-in movies ever (not one of the film's scenes takes place at night, which made it great for drive-ins, as it was hard to see, under the stars, scenes filmed in darkness).

Scripted by James Lee Barrett (The Greatest Story Ever Told) and Charles Shyer (Private Benjamin), the film was tight, funny, and fast. It may seem stupid today--and it is, really. But I defy you to admit you're not entertained at least a bit by it upon first viewing. Reynolds and Fields are a searing-hot couple (they'd go on to a real-life relationship that lasted for four years; together, they'd go on to appear in Smokey 2, Hooper, and the excellent Reynolds- directed comedy The End); Gleason, with his cornpone Southern accent, is ridiculously funny as the bumbling sheriff (I love it, against my better judgment, when he lets loose with the undying catchphrase "I'm gonna barbecue your ass," but my truly favorite scene--one that still makes me giggle like a kid--occurs when Justice walks out of a restaurant with a long stream of toilet paper improbably hooked onto his treasured smokey's hat). Henry also gets laughs as his idiot-boy son, always there making sure his dad's hat is secure (even after the top's been lopped off of their patrol car). Once cast as a villain in Gator, another Reynolds vehicle, Reed is quite charming (his "boogety, boogety, boogety" has become a rallying cry at present-day NASCAR events, and his songs "Eastbound and Down" and "They Call Him The Bandit" have become country classics). And my mom even got to instantly get over her distaste at the death of that dog in Eaten Alive, because Smokey starred a yelping basset hound named Fred as Reed's sidekick.

According to Box Office Mojo's ALL TIME BOX OFFICE CHAMPS adjusted for inflation list, Smokey and the Bandit ended up making more than $408 million, and became the centerpiece for the CB craze of the 1970s. Two sequels followed--the second was just okay, and the third was one of the most hilariously bad movies ever made); it also spawned countless rip-offs. My mom and dad liked it so much they ended up shelling out for a black Trans Am in 1978; now, THAT was bitchin' (though it broke down so much my parents swore never to buy another American-made car again). So, even now, after seeing all the Bergmans, Antonionis, Kubricks and Kurosawas the world has to offer, my fondness for Smokey and the Bandit remains as indelible as my love for fried chicken, cicadas, dogwood trees, and drive-ins.

Film #113: The Outfit

Just look at this cast! Robert Duvall, Robert Ryan, Timothy Carey, Joe Don Baker, Karen Black, Richard Jaekel, Henry Jones, Bill McKinney (one of the villainous hillbillies in Deliverance), Sheree North and a very young Joanna Cassidy (maybe best known as the fleeing stripper replicant in Blade Runner)! They're all milling about in this blood-drenched 1973 gangster film that has Duvall and Baker as thieves who have contracts put out on their heads after they knock off a mob-owned bank. Ooops! Sleepy-eyed psychotronic movie staple Timothy Carey (The Killing, The World's Greatest Sinner, Poor White Trash) lands one of his meatiest mainstream roles as the henchman assigned to rubout the duo. Ryan, meanwhile, appears in his pentultimate performance (his last film was John Frankenheimer's epic 1974 adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh). Though you may have never heard of it before, The Outfit has a great deal going for it. It's written and directed by John Flynn (who did the memorable Taxi Driver-flavored, Paul Schrader-penned revenge movie Rolling Thunder with William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones). The film's adapted from a pulp novel by the legendary, late Donald E. Westlake (Oscar-nominated for his 1990 screenplay The Grifters). It reunites two more cast members from Kubrick's The Killing (Elisha Cook and Marie Windsor, so gloriously at each other's throats in the Kubrick movie), and it's loaded with 70s-L.A. flavored cameos from the likes of jazz great Anita O'Day and Hollywood columnist Army Archard. Plus, the movie's exciting as all get out! It's a must.

Film #108: Grindhouse

The following is an interview conducted by the magnificent Dark City Dame of Noirish City about one of my favorite films of the 2000s:

DarkCityDame: Let me start off by asking you this question: why did you select the film Grindhouse to be added to your list of 30 films from 2000 to the present?

Dean: Grindhouse stands as one of the most unusual moviegoing experiences I've had in recent years. As a fan of Tarantino's, and to a lesser extent Rodriguez's, I had immensely high hopes for the picture, but I got so much more than I was anticipating. Here I go into a personal story. I saw the film in Atlanta on a blah-sort-of Monday afternoon with one of my best friends, Patrick Flynn. We're both big fans of the grindhouse genre, so we were looking forward to this movie greatly. We snuck in some beers and sat down for a good time. There were, I think, only about 15 other people in the theater--surely all of them were as excited as we were to see this movie. Once it began, with that funky-cool old 1970s "Coming Attractions" teaser trailer and a few fake trailers for movies we'd never see in full, we all knew we were in for a treat. By the time the movie surely had its hooks in us, we were all whoopin’ and hollerin’, crackin’ jokes out loud just like you do at the drive-in or maybe at a midnite movie. After Patrick and I caught our wind after gasping and laughing so hard at the film’s final minutes, I decided I had just seen a masterpiece. But I hadn’t just SEEN it—I had very much LIVED it. See, Grindhouse is a movie about watching movies—about the LOVE of watching movies and having fun at the movie theater. It reproduces, down to every little edit and scratched bit of film, the ecstatic adventure of watching a beat-up old film print at an 80s-era Times Square venue or at an old, battered drive-in. This is a quality that was lost on many of the film's younger viewers, who were not of the generation that experienced weathered double features on a regular basis, if at all.DarkCityDame: So tell us about the first film in this double-feature

Dean: The first film on the bill, Planet Terror is a perfect reproduction of an early 80s zombie action movie, replete with a sexy opening credits sequence (obviously inspired by Russ Meyer's Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!), a role for Josh Brolin that makes him look exactly like his father James (who was in at least a few of these sort of movies—most memorably 1977’s fun/awful The Car) and some soppy scenes of gore unlike anything either Rodriguez or Tarantino had ever delivered to movie audiences.

DarkCityDame: Who are some of the other people in the cast?

Dean: Well, we've got Freddy Rodriguez as a lovelorn trucker, Rose McGowan as his stripper girlfriend, Jeff Fahey as a mad truck stop owner, Josh Brolin as an ultra-serious doctor, Marley Shelton as an excitable physician on Brolin's ward, Michael Biehn as a harried sheriff, Bruce Willis as a zombie-killing military man, and Tarantino himself as a character billed as "The Rapist." Quite a cast.DarkCityDame: And the second feature Death Proof? What’d you think of that?

Dean: That was quite a change of pace from Planet Terror—a little more talky and maybe political than the first feature. I’d also say it’s a spoof of a movie, maybe, from the late 70s, so it’s a bit slower, but perfectly so. A lot of viewers complained that Death Proof was a film with a different, more subdued sort of energy to it, but we have to remember that Grindhouse was trying to replicate the double feature, and as such, the two movies couldn’t be cut from exactly the same cloth. Planet Terror was such a whirlwind of blood and guts that we needed a breather. Death Proof provides us with that. It stars Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike, a cucumber-cool customer in a 1971 Dodge Charger who has a beef with women. And there are a group of attractive ladies that prove to be his toughest challenges: Tracie Thoms as Kim, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lee, real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell as Zoe, Marcy Harriell as Marcy. I love the Tarantino dialogue here; still as entertaining as always. (It mystified me that people were impatient with the dialogue in the film; who writes better talk than Tarantino?) And the stuntwork towards the latter half of Death Proof is among the best examples of the craft in recent years (particularly since CGI has taken over in the moviemaking world). Finally, I adore the performances of Zoe Bell (who was Uma Thurman's stunt double in the Kill Bill series) and Kurt Russell, who's never been more repulsively unctious. His girlish crying at the end of the movie is pure joy to me.

DarkCityDame: How did Grindhouse fare at the box office? Do you think that Tarantino and Rodriguez will team up again?

Dean: I would love to see more Rodriguez/Tarantino Grindhouse movies, but, alas, this one was not a hit at the ticket counter. People just were all out confused at the notion of double features and I suppose they weren't willing, for some damn reason, to sit in a theater for three hours and FOR ONCE truly get their money's worth in entertainment. As a result, the film Grindhouse has still not gotten a proper release on DVD, and has instead been released as two separate films. Which, I think, is a travesty and an insult. For laughs, thrills, and moviemaking detail (loooove those fake trailers, especially Edgar Wright’s “DON’T”), nothing comes close to bringing the goods like Grindhouse does. It's a shame people couldn't just go with the flow and enjoy it. That said, I'm sure Rodriguez and Tarantino will work together again. They're joined at the hip, so to speak (though I think the film's success has a lot more to do with Tarantino than Rodriguez).

DarkCityDame: My final question: since you selected this film as number 24 on your list of 30 films from the year 2000 to present, why do you think that the readers and I should add this film to our DVD collections?

Dean: Put simply: if you're a student of all types of film, nothing--and I mean nothing--replicates the pure joy of seeing trashy movies in a broken-down urban movie palace like Grindhouse. I mean, a whole book could be written on the directors' attention to detail in this film. They got every little splice mark, cigarette-burned frame, credits typeface, and music cue just exactly right. What’s not to like? What more could you want as an entertainment and an education? All movielovers owe it to themselves to see it. So when Miramax actually DOES release the full, reunited Grindhouse on DVD (as I hear is soon to happen), rush out and buy it post-haste.

Film #104: JCVD

I've never sat all the way through even one Jean Claude Van Damme movie. Not one. Bloodsport, Universal Soldier, Kickboxer, Street Fighter, even John Woo's Hard Target? Sorry. Missed 'em. I despise the conversion of video games to movies, so should I why waste my time hoping each one is gonna be good? So I went into JCVD with low expectations, even though I've been told by some very reliable sources that it displays a different side to Van Damme. But I was rewarded mightily upon seeing it, because JCVD is not only a crack action movie (with more than a few nods to Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon), it's also a witty commentary on fame, responsibility, and movie-inspired heroism.

Mabrouk El Mechri's film, shot in near black-and-white, follows a sadly depleted Van Damme. The actor (playing himself) is going through a relentless child custody battle in which his own violent movies are held up as judicial evidence towards his unsuitability as a father. He's being hounded by pesky tax problems. And, at a fit but tired 48, he's finding it difficult to complete the sort of bang-up martial arts scenes that made him a star (the film's opening shot is hysterical). So he returns to his home country, Belgium, in order to start what he hopes to be a quieter life. But it's not to be. Told in a time-jumbling fashion, JCVD finds Van Damme bedeviled and gifted by the inescapable trappings of his muscled persona. Even in Brussels, he's a star--in fact, he's more well-known there because he's their hometown boy. So he's still has to take time out of his messed-up life to pose for pictures with adoring fans, and if he refuses any autograph requests (as he does with a gabby female taxi driver), he's raked harshly over the coals (the scene in which he apologizes profusely for his rudeness to this cab driver reminded me of Scorsese's The King of Comedy in which Jerry Lewis is repeatedly being castigated for refusing his fans' requests for face time).

Van Damme exits the cab and asks the driver to wait while he visits a post office to pick up money that's been wired over. It's here that things get complicated, requiring the actor to prove himself in unusual ways. I'll stop there, because JCVD will impress more if its charms are discovered one by one. Suffice it to say that Van Damme delivers an astonishing performance (one scene, in particular, will have you hanging intently on each word); director/co-writer Mabrouk El Mechri makes incisive use of talents we never knew the man had (as well of those for which he's most famous). Delightfully self-reflexive and nearly always chaotic, JCVD deserves a wide cult following once it hits DVD, because it's entertaining, revealing, and ultimately quite moving. How amazing is that?

Film #86: Rollerball (1975)

Remakes make me so angry. Let's take the redo of 1975's Rollerball. When one deigns to mention this, yes, over-the-top but still entertaining and meaningful film to people who don't know about IT, but DO know about John McTiernan's missed-the-whole-point, Razzie-nominated 2002 remake, you inevitably hear a groan. And then you have to explain "No, not that one---the GOOD one..." I must have wasted two hours of my life saying that phrase.

Now that my rant is done, I can go on and rant about how much I love Norman Jewison's original film--it's a real memorable treat from my childhood, so I can't be swayed on this matter. Anyway, Jewison's an interesting director--the guy has done comedies (The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming, Moonstruck, Best Friends), musicals (Jesus Christ Superstar, Fiddler on the Roof), mysteries (In The Heat of the Night, Agnes of God, A Soldier's Story), heavy dramas (The Hurricane, In Country), heist movies (The Thomas Crown Affair--sigh...THE ORIGINAL, withe Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway) and with Rollerball, science fiction. I can't say he has any discernible style as a filmmaker except in the choices he makes story-wise--all of his films have a certain "message," for lack of a better word--y'know, racism is bad, respect war veterans, understand each other, and so on. Sounds like I have a problem with that, but I don't; I like Jewison's liberalism. And I like that one never knows what to expect from his movies, except that they're going to be expertly produced (he often acts as his own producer, too). With Rollerball, he sends us a stark missive about the savage quality of sports and its fans that, like Dr. Strangelove and Network, is coming more true with each passing year (cage match, anyone?). James Caan stars as Jonathan E., the reigning superstar of a future sport that combines roller derby, motorcross racing, football, basketball, and all-out warfare. This X-tremely gory pastime has in fact replaced warfare between nations by slaking the bloodthirst of its maniacal fan base. So this ongoing World Cup, with games between international cities, marches on with Jonathan as its poster boy. However, what Rollerball REALLY represents is not a battle between countries, but between the omnipotent corporate entities that own each franchise (here represented by John Houseman's blustery Mr. Bartholomew).

What this ultimately means is "There is no 'I' in 'team'." Jonathan and his mates aren't allowed a personality; their job is only to win at all costs. Problem is, Jonathan is becoming a little too famous. And his best friend, Moonpie (John Beck), is letting the Dallas team's Rollerball superiority go to his head. It's Moonpie's head, in fact, that gets needlessly cracked (at Houseman's go-ahead) after he insults his boss in the locker room. With his best friend now in a coma, Jonathan begins to see the wizard behind the curtain, and it feeds into his distaste for a game he used to love.
As a person who has always been at odds with the blind love of sports to which most seem to cling, I find Rollerball's anti-sports-violence stance not only to be brave but actually singular. I can find no other movie, except for maybe North Dallas Forty (the football movie with Nick Nolte and Mac Davis) and Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday, that has such a low opinion of its subject. But Rollerball goes way further than those movies do in illustration (mainly because the genre to which it belongs allows such hyperbole). Here we have a populace that erupts into chaos with each metal-knuckled punch, hairy motorcycle wipe-out, and pointless goal (the steely 10-pound ball makes an aggressive CLANG every time a point is scored). And the film's notion of corporations taking over in the sporting world has become all too prescient. We all know who wins most of the time these days: it's the team with the most money in its coffers.

That said, there are some problems with Rollerball. For all its sports naysaying, it sure makes the game look great. The Rollerball sequences are some of the most exciting cinematic sports moments you're likely to ever see (Jewison, to his credit, does take the trouble to make us wince occasionally at the on-screen blitzkrieg). James Caan was a former college football star at Michigan State and--get this--a one-time regular on the rodeo circuit with the nickname "The Jewish Cowboy." This athleticism shows up in his committed physicality as Jonathan E. He doesn't just leave it to the stuntmen to do all this stuff; he and his "teammates" are actually skating around in the thick of it. However, how are we really supposed to eventually hate the game along with Jonathan when we're always looking forward to the next on-screen match-up? The film really wants to have it both ways, and it's a problem (though this is cleared up at the climax).

Also, though I adore way-off 1970s visions of the future, sometimes things go a little overboard here, particularly in a party sequence that pops up in the film's middle. The John Box production design, filled with billowy whites and harsh chromes, is a little embarrassing, and the Julie Harris costume design is the inevitable combo of "futuristic" spandex and gowny '70s awards show regalia. I like it, against my better angels, but others perhaps won't--though the design of the team uniforms is sharp. Neither will some enjoy Andre Previn's annoying futuremusik--electronic squeaks and squiggles done to a disco beat. (However, any movie that begins--as this one strongly does--with an organ rendition of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor cannot be all bad!) I do love that the partygoers adjourn to nature to blow up trees with a powerful, fireball-spewing gun (I'm sure if one of those were on the market today, they'd be elms bursting into flames all over the place). And there's the occasional dull moment, usually involving Maud Adams as Jonathan's opportunistic lover. But then, to make up for that, there's Houseman (always good), a fine one-scene cameo with Ralph Richardson as a brainy librarian, and an energetic Moses Gunn as Jonathan's coach. So, with all of this, Rollerball is right on the edge of being a sinful pleasure for me. But a pleasure it remains...even if I do have to sometimes remind people it's not the one from 2002.

Film #84: The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three

I still remember sitting over at my friend Brian Matson's apartment, snacks in hand, as I ran across this movie's opening credits. I'd always remembered the title: The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three. But somehow I missed this bloodcurdling juggernaut as a free-so-freeeee filmgoing child of the 1970s. But, here, in the 1990s, sitting in my friend's living room, I was struck by one thing first and foremost: the massively bombastic score by David Shire. This was a score that said, in all caps, "HERE'S A MOVIE FOR YA, BUDDY! TRY AND TOP THIS ONE, PAL O' MINE!! BETCHA CAN'T! DOUBLE BETCHA! TRIPLE BETCHA!!!"

Even Brian stuck his head around the corner and said "What the hell are you watching?" I said "I dunno, but it sounds good, don't it??!!" Needless to say, I stayed with it and I've been thanking my lucky stars ever since. If you wanna see an action film that the God's honest roadmap for every other action movie made in its wake, then look no further, Mac. Here we have Jaws fisherman Robert Shaw as ultra-calm Mr. Blue, Garry- Marshall- movie- mainstay Hector Elizondo as kill-krazy Mr. Grey, Home Improvement's barely-seen next-door neighbor Earl Hindman as the shy Mr. Brown, and A Thousand Clowns Oscar-winner Martin Balsam as Mr. Green. (So, do all these Mr. Color names remind you of anything?) Together, these guys hatch a plot to hijack a subway car for...get this...ONE MILLION dollars (hey, stop those Dr. Evil jokes...a million bucks was really a MILLION BUCKS back in 1974).

Mr. Blue contacts the subway authorities, headed by Walter Matthau (in a rare 1970s dramatic role, though he still gets a laugh here and there (like when he insults a group of picture-taking Japanese businessmen who actually know English pretty well). Just as jowly as ever, Matthau acts as a reluctant go-between for the city and the kidnappers, who've given the mayor (an Ed-Koch-like Lee Wallace) one little hour to get their asses moving on this thing. Lemme tell ya, ab-so-lute chaos ensues.

Even if you find '70s movies boring (shame on you if you do), you're gonna love this one. It's about to be remade with snoozearama veterans John Travolta and Denzel Washington in the leads, so see it soon, cause the new version is bound to blow big-time (even if it does co-star the fantastic James Gandofini from The Sopranos). If you do rent it, you'll get to see Ben's dad Jerry Stiller in a supporting role as Matthau's smart-aleck second-in-command. You'll see Matthew's dad James Broderick as a flummoxed subway driver who's let go pretty early. You'll see Woody Allen sidekick Tony Roberts as the mayor's no-shit advisor. You'll see a quick flash of Doris Roberts before she became the mother on Everybody Loves Raymond. You'll see a vast array of then-scuzzy-cool New York locales expertly captured by cinematographer Owen Roizman (who did a few other little New York films like The French Connection, Network, Tootsie, and The Exorcist).

And, most importantly, you'll actually find that--hey, my heart is in my freakin' throat--as the train chugs towards its fate. Yeah, ya don't care about any of the passengers (because they're so annoying--the movie's one fault, or its bravest choice, take your pick). But it don't matter 'cause you'll still never be able to guess what's gonna happen in this head-butt of a movie based on John Godey's best seller, and directed by Emmy-winner Joseph Sargeant. And that title theme--occasionally you'll be able to shake your fanny to it on the dance floor, courtesy of some VERY creative DJs out there. So what's not to like?

Film #78: Coogan's Bluff

1968's Coogan's Bluff, whether you've heard of it or not, is a deceptively historic movie. It brought Clint Eastwood out of the western milieu he'd been so well-known for through his TV series Rawhide and his Spaghetti Western cycle with Italian director Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good The Bad & The Ugly), and into the streets of U.S. cities like New York (Coogan's Bluff), San Francisco (the Dirty Harry cycle), Phoenix (The Gauntlet), and New Orleans (Tightrope).
And it brought director Don Siegel back to the forefront of American directors (that is, after the French film magazine Cahiers Du Cinema had already vetted him in the 1960s). TV director Alex Segal (Playhouse 90) was first at the helm of Coogan's Bluff, but later producer Jennings Lang (who went on to help out with Eastwood's High Plains Drifter and Play Misty For Me, as well as with disaster epics like Airport '75, Earthquake, and Rollercoaster) felt a quicker, more no-nonsense director was needed for the project. Fortunately, the great director Don Siegel was under contract to Lang's company, Universal, and thus a lucrative collaboration between Eastwood and Siegel was afoot--a collaboration that would lead Eastwood to dedicate his 1992 Oscar winner Unforgiven to both Sergio Leone and Don Siegel.

If one reads about Eastwood's and Siegel's directorial senses, one would find that they are quite similar: as Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel puts it "[Siegel] was Clint's kind of guy: a decisive filmmaker who didn't waste time, words, or film on the set." Any examination of any actor's experiences with the director Eastwood--Morgan Freeman, Hillary Swank, Charlie Sheen, Kevin Spacey, and the casts of Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers, High Plains Drifter, White Hunter Black Heart, Bird, Play Misty For Me, Breezy, or Mystic River (and those are all huge casts)--will turn up commentaries about Eastwood's fair, effective, but no-nonsense, one- or two-take approach to filmmaking (his films are legendary in Hollywood for coming in under- or on-schedule and under- or on-budget).

Even before they met, Eastwood and Siegel needed each other. Eastwood required Siegel's know-how. But Siegel hungered for the power of Eastwood's fame and name. We should remember: in 1956, Siegel completed the classic sci-fi/sociological study Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which has, as of 2008, been remade three times: as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 78), Body Snatchers (Abel Ferrara, 93) and The Invasion (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 07).

This HAS to be a record over the course of 50 years. Name me one movie that has been remade almost every decade since the original has hit the screens. Believe me, you can't. Obviously the original Siegel-directed Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an influential movie. But after Siegel made that movie, he was offered NOTHING. This is clearly a political response to Siegel's incendiary, left-leaning work about the negatives of unconsidered conformism in the light of the Cold War Communist scare. But, regardless of his ever-so-slight blackballing, Siegel kept going, through B-movies and TV-films (including 1964's originally TV-bound remake of 1946's The Killers, staring Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, and Ronald Reagan--in his last role, as a villain).

When it came time for Coogan's Bluff to be made, producer Lang had obviously hit on something perfect. As a result of Lang's suggestion, Eastwood watched some of Siegel's 1950s films and liked them. He'd also heard (from actor/director Mark Rydell, of On Golden Pond and The Cowboys fame) that Siegel was a director who could get things done in a hurry. Siegel, meanwhile, watched and loved Eastwood's Italian films done with Leone. In 1967, the two men met in Carmel, California (the same town that of which Eastwood would eventually become mayor in 1986). According to Siegel, they discussed "dames, golf, dames, the glorious weather" and then, once Siegel was called quickly back to Hollywood, the team quietly decided that they could certainly work together, and all of this happened without the two having discussed very much about their first film together.

When all was said and done, Coogan's Bluff turned out to be an entertaining fish-out-of-water actioner that had Clint playing a horse-ridin', cowboy-hat-wearin' Arizona cop who storms New York City in pursuit of an on-the-lam bad-guy headcase played by Don Stroud (who later reteamed with Eastwood in 1971's Joe Kidd) Co-star Lee J. Cobb (12 Angry Men, The Exorcist and Death of a Salesman's original Willy Loman, on Broadway and on film) was his usual grumpy self as the NYC detective whose work habits clash with Coogan's rough, no-Miranda-rights method of law enforcement.

A suitable precursor to Eastwood's more violent later work with Siegel (including Two Mules for Sister Sara, The Beguiled, Dirty Harry, and Escape from Alcatraz), Coogan's Bluff was later shamelessly ripped off by the creators of NBC's Emmy-winning hit TV series McCloud, starring Dennis Weaver in the acclaimed lead role. The TV series failed to even credit Herman Miller, the writer of the original novel and screenplay to Coogan's Bluff. Still, to this day, this is inexplicable and unforgivable, as anyone who see both the movie and the TV series can easily attest.

An appreciator of Coogan's Bluff--mind you, an incredibly engrossing movie--cannot forget the contribution of Don Stroud. As a result of his outstanding performance as Eastwood's nemesis, Stroud later became the star of Roger Corman's Bloody Mama and Von Richthofen and Brown (AKA The Red Baron), and of cult classics Live a Little, Steal a Lot, The Buddy Holly Story, and The Amityville Horror, as well as scads of special appearances on an amazing lineup of TV shows (including McMillan and Wife, Adam-12, Ironside, The FBI, Gunsmoke, Police Woman, Hawaii-Five-O, Charlie's Angels, CHIPs, Knots Landing, Fantasy Island, The A-Team, McGuyver, and Babylon 5). In Coogan's Bluff, he invests his slimy character with a strangely appealing blend of malice and hippy-dippyness (some of which date the movie considerably). I have to note here that my mother, Lynn--an avid drive-in movie buff--has always had a thing for Stroud, who sported blond-haired good looks while also delivering wild-eyed villainous performances (which typecast him throughout his career). I've always thought her love for Stroud was strange, but, hey, there it is!

I conclude my examination of the deceptively low-key Coogan's Bluff by mentioning its jazzy score by Lalo Schifrin (Bullitt, Mission Impossible, Dirty Harry, Cool Hand Luke, and many TV show themes), some of which comes into play during a scene set at a wild-assed 1968 NYC hippy club humorously deemed "The Pigeon-Toed Orange Peel." If someone was smart, they'd open a club with that incredible moniker. (Actually, I now think there is one located in Dublin, Ireland, but where is its NYC counterpart?)
Coogan's Bluff may not be a must-see, as must-sees go. But it's a movie you will not, I guarantee you, mind seeing at all, my friend.

Film #69: Streets of Fire

1984's schizophrenic sci-fi-tinged action musical from writer/director Walter Hill marked the beginning of the filmmaker's downward slide. Hill was once the heir to the Peckinpah throne, the action master of 80s classics like Southern Comfort, 48 HRS, and The Long Riders--and let's not forget his 70s classics like Alien (as producer and co-writer), The Warriors, Hickey and Boggs (as writer), and Hard Times. After the weird but rewarding Streets of Fire, he slid with Another 48 HRS and then plunged by ill-advisedly entering fully into the comedy genre with Brewster's Millions and Red Heat. He's since bounced back again with 1994's Wild Bill and his involvement in HBO's Deadwood. He's had an fascinating career. And Streets of Fire is undoubtedly most bizarre production (notwithstanding the outstandingly terrible Brewster's Millions with Richard Pryor and John Candy).

Diane Lane plays Ellen Aim, the sexy lead singer for the house band at Torchy's, where she is kidnapped off the stage by Raven Shaddock (a memorably high-cheekboned Willem Dafoe) and his motorcycle gang The Bombers. Michael Pare is Tom Cody, the bad-ass ex-boyfriend who comes to her rescue, hired by her meek new boyfriend Billy Fish (Rick Moranis). Amy Madigan scores high marks (in a part originally written for a guy) as McCoy, a female soldier-of-fortune who finds employment as Cody's sidekick. Rounding out the unusual cast are 80s starlet Deborah Van Valkenburgh, former Fear lead singer Lee Ving, pre-autuer Robert Townsend (Hollywood Shuffle), Elizabeth Daily (Pee-Wee's cute girlfriend in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure), Rick Rossovich, and now more-famous actors Mykelti Williamson, Lynne Thigpen, Bill Paxton and Ed Begley Jr.

Great cast, bombing around in a ridiculous movie that's so over-the-top, it's delicious. Streets of Fire belongs in that "everything and the sink" genre that The Adventures of Buckeroo Banzai, Repo Man, Zachariah, Ice Pirates, The Phantom of the Paradise, The Apple, Southland Tales and Big Trouble in Little China belong in--genre mashups that have limited appeal, but which are cult films from the word go (most of these movies, including Streets of Fire, were box office duds but home video hits). Streets of Fire, by virtue of its incredible production design (by John Vallone), cinematography (by Andrew Lazlo), and costumes (by Marilyn Vance), smacks of a setting that's not quite 50s, not quite 60s, and almost but not quite the 80s...but somewhere in that intradimensional sub-slice, knowwhutimean? It gives you that same sense of disorientation that Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Mystery Men, and Michael Radford's 1984 give you.

This "timeless" quality alone makes the film worth seeing. Add to its joys fine performances from a very scary Willem Dafoe, a doofy Rick Moranis and an ass-kicking Amy Madigan, PLUS a chart-topping song score including contributions from Walter Hill-mainstay Ry Cooder, Tom Petty, Duane Eddy, Link Wray, Bob Seger, Dan Hartman (who had a very-1980s top 20 hit with "I Can Dream About You"), and "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" writer Jim Steinman, who delivers the film's best song, a Springsteen-esque anthem "sung" by Diane Lane called "Nowhere Fast" that features the strange climactic call-out "Godspeed! Godspeed!!" Streets of Fire, with all this on its side, and everything against it, remains strange and unforgettable.

Film #55: Sharky's Machine

All Atlantans of a certain age have a soft spot for this Burt Reynolds movie that, like it or not, remains one of the best ones ever shot in the ATL. I think it's a lotta fun and probably Reynolds' finest directorial outing. It's adapted from Georgia author William Diehl's best seller
about Tom Sharky, an Atlanta homicide detective obsessively tracking a local mobster (a slimy Vittorio Gassman). He keeps on with this even after being busted down to the city's seedy vice department, where Sharky starts recruiting members of his machine (including old guy Brian Keith, goofy technician Richard Libertini, vice chief Charles Durning, mousy forensics expert John Fiedler, and cool black dude Bernie Casey). Beautiful British model Rachel Ward made her feature film debut playing Gassman's premier $1000-a-night call girl (with whom Reynolds naturally falls in love). The scenes with the Machine provide a lot of good comic relief that matches nicely with the more violent portions of the film (highlighted by a deliciously over-the-top bad-guy turn from coke-snortin' Henry Silva).

A former Georgia native, Burt Reynolds has an affinity for Atlanta that shines right through on Sharky's Machine. The city's 1982-era locations are put to optimal use, from the opening shootout outside City Hall to
the climactic race to the top of the 72-story Peachtree Plaza Hotel (the closing scene features a stunt by Dar Robinson that still holds the record for longest free-fall stunt in motion picture history). The opening image of the hotel, set to Randy Crawford's "Street Life," gives me chills especially when the helicopter shot centers in on a tough Reynolds navigating the city's train tracks. Sharky's Machine looks good, having been
photographed by William A. Fraker (1941, WarGames), and it sounds good, too, scored with an energetic collection of jazz standards and originals by Mel Torme, Sarah Vaughn, Peggy Lee, and The Manhattan Transfer. Violent yet often quite funny, I think Sharky's Machine has had a big influence on Quentin Tarantino, for one; it's filled with the sort of cheeky banter and bravado that runs all through his films (plus he used "Street Life" as a song in Jackie Brown). I'm curious to see if anyone out there agrees that it must be a Tarantino favorite. Just look at this clip and tell me this doesn't feel like something Q.T. ate up as a kid.

Film #30: Electra Glide in Blue

It's a strange feeling to write about Robert Blake movies now, after so much has happened to him in his personal life. But, all that aside, if you think about it, Blake had a long and fascinating career in movies. Under his real name Mickey Gubutosi, he was Mickey in Hal Roach's Our Gang series of short films. He went on to play Little Beaver, the Native American sidekick to Red Ryder (Bill Elliott) in a long, now-forgotten series of westerns. He had a memorable two-scene role in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre as a kid trying deperately to sell a lottery ticket to a busted Bogart.

Later, he was in Pork Chop Hill (the best Korean War movie, by Lewis Milestone), Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (the western that was only the second movie by once-blacklisted Force of Evil director Abraham Polonsky), Richard Brooks' In Cold Blood (as Perry), David Lynch's Lost Highway (in a scary white-faced mask), and most famously, he became the unorthodox TV cop Baretta, playing alongside a cockatoo named Fred and a streetwise best friend named Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas). He was well-known for his funny 70s motor oil TV commercials and his manic Johnny Carson appearances. Pretty good career, really. But now, after all his court troubles, this all seems quite far away.


Still, I have a fondness for the actor, mostly stemming from 1973's Electra Glide In Blue, the only film written and directed by--get this--the founding member of the supergroup Chicago! James William Guercio delivered, in his only screen outing, the single best motorcycle cop movie ever made. In it, Blake plays John Wintergreen, a diminutive, Alan Ladd-loving Arizona patrolman whose desire to be a state detective throws him feet-first into a bizarre murder investigation. His enthusiasm garners him a mentor, detective Harve Pool (the despicable Mitchell Ryan), who eventually on him and sets roadblocks up against his acceptance into the detective program.

This moody picture is endlessly influential (one of its opening scenes has been aped by Rambo and Aliens, among others). Guercio was lucky enough to coerce cinematographer Conrad Hall--Oscar winner for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, American Beauty and Road to Perdition--into throwing his talents into the ring, resulting in a luciously-colored widescreen frame throughout. (The film's long, extended final shot MUST be seen--it's one of the most indelible images in movie history.) Blake is quite likable as Wintergreen--perhaps the most likable he'd been since buddying around with Spanky and Darla. I personally love the scene where he's trying on his detective's uniform for the first time, stepping outside, cigar in mouth, before realizing he's forgotten something essential. Yeah, it's a little silly but through moments like this, or when he's arguing with a coroner (the creepy Royal Dano) for the further investigation of a desert bum's murder, we can feel his excitement, his passion, his capacity to always do the right thing. And when he's punished for it, we're heartbroken (SPOILER ALERT: the ending is some kind of retribution for the climax of Easy Rider).

The cast is rounded out by Billy "Green" Bush (excellent at Zipper, Blake's over-the-top partner), a sexy Jeannine Riley, a more-crazed-than-usual Elisha Cook Jr., key cameos from Chicago members Peter Cetera and the late Terry Kath. Oh---and THE star, Blake's glorious Harley Davidson Electra Glide motorcycle. As one might expect, Guercio's horn-laden score is excellent, with songs by The Marcels, Mark Spoelstra, Terry Kath, and Madura (who perform in live concert footage). And the closing song, by Chicago, called "Tell Me," is a sad, majestic ballad about the vanishing wilderness---it's a song I'd like to have a copy of (anybody out there got one?) Now, if we could only get Guercio to make another movie...and put Robert Blake in it.

Film #24: Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

If you're looking for the greatest car chase movie in history, I’ve got it. It’s not The Fast and the Furious, or Bullitt, or The French Connection, or The Italian Job or The Seven-Ups. And it’s not the crappy Nicholas Cage remake that bears this movie’s title. It’s H.B. Halicki’s 1974 drive-in masterpiece Gone in 60 Seconds.

The title refers to the time it takes for this movie’s thieving crew to get into and steal someone’s automobile. Their task here is to steal 48 cars of varying makes and deliver them to the South American buyer in a short amount of time. That’s nearly all you need to know about the plot. Character and dialogue run a distant second to action in Gone in 60 Seconds and that’s the way it should be. Somehow, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced remake screwed this up and gave away precious car chase time for a ridiculous, boring family-revenge plot involving Cage and his brother, played by Giovanni Ribisi. Why, I ask? Why?


The original Gone in 60 Seconds does contain some family strife plot elements, but it’s more concerned with seeing how Halicki—who plays lead stunt driver AND lead car thief Maindrian Pace—gets away with stealing the most coveted buggy of all: a 1973 orange Ford Mustang Mach I code-named “Eleanor.” This serves as the backbone for the film’s centerpiece: a nail-biting, 40-minute car holocaust that was often staged on the real highways of California with barely a notice given to police, onlookers, and uninvolved fellow drivers (there’s one smash-up involving Eleanor and a light pole that was really an accident—one so hairy that the production had to be shut down while Halicki healed up). In fact, now that I think about it, no movie ever has documented so many KINDS of car troubles--from fender-benders and chugging breakdowns to the sort of all-out destruction that eventually has Eleanor looking like a raisin on wheels. By the way, all 93 cars destroyed within these frames were ones that Halicki owned. (Regret to inform: Halicki died in 1989 while performing a stunt for this film’s never-finished sequel.)


Some who’ve never seen this movie before will be struck by one thing in particular. Remember those lame/cool fake wigs and mustaches the Beastie Boys used for their “Sabotage” video? Well, that look came from this film! Now you know this, and having recommended this movie to all whole-heartedly, I must caution those with ADD that GI60S's improvised first half is often hard for some to get through. It was clearly filmed largely without sound, resulting in some weird dialogue scenes where the participants are never seen, and one pointless time-padding segment has the one woman in the midst of all these macho thieves sitting around the office daydreaming while some terrible music plays in the background. (I hate that, for the DVD release, the Halickis opted to replace Philip Katchurian’s once-cool country song score with much blander tunes.) But if you can make it through the first half, Gone in 60 Seconds has some unparalled thrills in store for you.


Finally, and I stole this from the IMDB for fans of the movie, here’s a list of all the cars the guys have to steal in this film, and their corresponding feminine names. Enjoy, car nuts!
"The complete list of 48 cars stolen by Maindrian and his crew for the contract, with the celebrity/business owners, where applicable, is as follows (pieced together from the blackboard in Maindrian's office as well as dialogue throughout the film):
1. Donna: 1974 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 Limousine
2. Karen: 1973 Stutz Blackhawk (The Upstairs Art Gallery)
3. Marilyn: 1970 De Tomaso Mangusta
4. Judy: 1962 Ferrari 340 America
5. Kathy: 1970 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow I
6. Nancy: 1971 Cadillac El Dorado
7. Terry: 1971 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow I (Willie Davis)
8. Dianne: 1972 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 Limousine (Morgan Limousine Service)
9. Christy: 1971 Chevrolet Vega
10. Patti: 1971 Citroen SM
11. Marion: 1974 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham Limousine (The Gamby Mortuary)
12. Janet: 1971 Ford "Big Oly" Bronco (Parnelli Jones)
13. Annie: 1969 Manta Mirage (Whittlesey Motors)
14. Maxine: 1969 De Tomaso Pantera
15. Claudia: 1970 Jaguar XK1500
16. Leona: 1972 Cadillac Fleetwood Station Wagon (Bruce Industries)
17. Ruth: 1974 Lincoln Continental Mark IV
18. Sandy: 1972 Maserati Ghibli Coupe
19. Laurie: 1973 Cadillac El Dorado
20. Patricia: 1974 Cadillac Coupe DeVille
21. Tracie: 1967 Lamborghini Miura (Tayco)
22. Kelly: 1971 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow I (J.C. Agajanian)
23. Rosie: 1959 Rolls Royce Phantom V
24. Dorothy: 1957 MercedesBenz 300SL
25. Eleanor: 1973 Ford Mustang Mach I (Hal McClain)
26. Martha: 1972 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 Limousine (Morgan Limousine Service)
27. Beverly: 1930 Hudson Great Eight
28. Jean: 1971 Chevrolet Corvette C3
29. Betty: 1973 Jensen Interceptor
30. Joanne: 1972 MercedesBenz 200SE
31. Carey: 1966 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II
32. Mary: 1973 Cadillac Coupe DeVille
33. Dorie: 1973 Stutz Blackhawk (FlorenceWestern Medical Center)
34. Frances: 1971 White Freightliner (Transall Trucking Co.)
35. Maria: 1970 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow I
36. Sharon: 1972 Ferrari 365 GTB
37. Ruby: 1972 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 Limousine (Morgan Limousine Service)
38. Michelle: 1969 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray
39. Susan: 1972 Plymouth Barracuda
40. Alice: 1953 Chrysler Coupe Elegance
41. Paula: 1949 Ferrari V12
42. Julie: 1973 Lincoln Continental Mark IV Limousine
43. Renee: 1966 Lotus Europa S1
44. Jackie: 1966 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III
45. Eileen: 1924 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost
46. Elizabeth: 1927 Citroen B14 Conduite
47. Lorna: 1968 Intermeccanica Italia GFX (Lyle Waggoner)
48. Nicole: 1972 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 Limousine (Morgan Limousine Service)"