Car Movies

Two races of intergalactical robots – the Autobots and the Decepticons – have been waging a century-long war on planet Cybertron for power of the AllSpark, a cube that keeps the surviving race alive. The former is led by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and the latter is led by Megatron (Hugo Weaving), who has been long since frozen inside the Hoover Dam in Las Vegas on Earth. Incidentally, the AllSpark is also frozen there too.

Connections to the AllSpark lead to nebbish high school student Sam Whitwicky (Shia LaBeouf), who plans on selling his grandfather’s old glasses on eBay so he could afford enough cash to buy a new car and impress long-time crush Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox). But when he realizes what potential the glasses are, he unwillingly becomes a factor in the fight between the Autobots and the Decepticons. Of course, he’s not alone; he receives help from army sergeants William Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Epps (Tyrese Gibson), Department of Defense assistant Maggie Madsen (Rachael Taylor), computer hacker Glen Whitman (Anthony Anderson), and Secretary of Defense John Keller (Jon Voight).

Having a legendary franchise like “Transformers” (comic books, TV shows, toys, and the like) transformed (no pun intended) into a summer blockbuster could’ve been one of the worst ideas ever. Especially when the man behind the lens in none other than Michael Bay, he of critical revulsion from message board geeks and “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

Of course, Bay didn’t do bad in the past (I still hold “The Rock” as a great example of Bay delivering a megaton punch of visceral tension with jokes thrown in). It was once “Armageddon” came rolling in that he was looking to do more than just giving crowds a rip-roaring time, though I don’t think a crap love story should be putting a damper on what could’ve been able competition against “Independence Day”. But when Bay threw out his attempts to be fun, and have another ridiculously corny love story be the backdrop of a historic event, he brought upon the world the poison that was “Pearl Harbor”. Then, his anger towards critics thus brought “Bad Boys II”, which replaced the fun and charm of the first one with reckless endangerment for an unbearable 147 minutes. Of course, Bay did pick up footing with the underrated and misunderstood sci-fi action “The Island”, which ALMOST brought back memories of when he wasn’t lashing out at critics.

Now it’s 2007. With “Transformers”, Bay comes in with some secret weapons. One of them is Steven Spielberg, basically one of the legendary directors of our time. It being a sci-fi film, like most of his films (E.T., War of the Worlds), helped increase anticipation for the film’s release. Then there’s Shia LaBeouf, the former “Even Stevens” co-star who recently blew up after the success of the “Rear Window” update “Disturbia”. Throw those ingredients in with a bunch of other stars, Spielberg’s Industrial Lights & Magic for the special effects, and an estimated budget of $147 million, and you’ve got this summer’s largest crowd-pleaser ever.

With “Transformers”, almost every robot of the famed franchise are thrown into the mix. Bay has the iconic Optimus Prime and Megatron, while throwing in minor figures like Barricade, Bonecrusher, Bumblebee, Frenzy, Ironhide, Jazz, Ratchet, and Starscream into the wrestling ring. Much has been made to the movie-based versions of these robots. But thanks to IL&M, every one of them is wonderfully rendered with amazing attention to detail. Bay even gets a pat on the back for rangling in Peter Cullen, the original voice of Optimus Prime in all Transformers cartoons, to reprise his role. Now that’s pleasing the fanbase!

Where the team of Bay/Spielberg succeed is not taking the film too seriously, a la the cartoon. Much like “Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl”, there’s a jocular tone to all the madness going on. Some of it does get a little heavy-handed (I could’ve dealt without a “lubriaction” gag, character actor Kevin Dunn hiding inside a tiny bathtub, or Sam getting cornered by Barricade – that scene plays for both laughs and suspense, and it comes off a little awkward), but thanks to a film free of bleakness that would normally weight the film down (see “TMNT”), there’s a high energy to the film that makes up for any flaws. Probably one of the bigger compliments to the nature of the film is character actor John Turturro; he’s a ball of joy as the scenery-chewing FBI agent who gets his comeuppance from one of the Autobots (hint: Superman boxers are on display).

Of course, Bay puts a lid briefly on the jokes and delivers a whopping 40-minute-long, action-packed finale. Bay, being the mad director that he is, cuts away like crazy (a habit from “Bad Boys II”), though he’s a bit more restrained in letting viewers be immersed in the battle (once Smashing Pumpkins’ “Doomsday Clock” begins playing, you’d better hang on to your theater seats). And Bay’s staple of the marines are in also full force here, and he gives Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson, awesome actors who may go big after the film comes and goes, plenty of time to play with guns. While Duhamel takes too much of Gibson’s shine (the R&B singer/actor doesn’t make much of an impression), both actors having a ball, and that’s fine with me.

This is Shia LaBeouf’s third movie in a row where a clunky performance is definitely out of the question. Sure, his smart-aleck persona is put in full force, though he’s not too quick to lose our sympathy even in the humorous scenes when his character Sam fails in wooing Mikaela, who’s surprsingly well played by Megan Fox (who could go wrong with an actress who appeared on the Kelly Ripa sitcom “Hope and Faith” posed for FHM/Maxim magazine, and plays X-box?). And there’s great supporting performances from side actors like Rachael Taylor (despite being ridiculously attractive, she’s actually believable as a government understudy), Anthony Anderson (who’s a 100% hoot here), and Jon Voight (co-star of Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor once again plays a president, though here, he stands out more).

Not everyone is going to like this film (especially the Razzies association, probably understandable after Bay’s recent bombs). But there are kids like me who want to have a giddy pre-teen jump out and relive our memorable past. “Transformers” is pretty much that movie.

This movie helped George Lucas move onto bigger and better things (like the Star Wars saga) and helped make stars out of Paul LeMat, Mackensie Philips, Harrison Ford, Candy Clark, and Richard Dreyfuss (I didn’t include Ron Howard since he was already well-known from the Andy Griffith Show). In this movie, the viewer is treated to the era Lucas grew up in. It takes place in September, 1962 (all in one night) in Northern California.

Steve (Howard) and Curt (Dreyfuss) are debating whether or not to go off to college. Steve is eager, though he realizes he and his girlfriend Laurie (Williams) must split if he does. Curt is reluctant, since as he says “It doesn’t make sense to leave home to find a home and say goodbye to people I love”. Steve generously loans his wheels to the nerdy Terry the Toad (Charles Martin Smith) who picks up a flirtatious blonde (Candy Clark) and spends the entire night trying to impress her with his tall tales (until the car gets stolen). John Milner (LeMat) tries picking up women and winds up with the obnoxious 13-year-old Carol (Philips). Meanwhile, Laurie gives Steve the cold shoulder and tries to lure him back. Curt in turn goes from trying to find an attractive blonde in a T-bird (Suzanne Somers) to nearly joining the Pharoahs (a gang of hoodlums) to asking the Wolfman to play a request (all in the same night!). Milner later meets up with Bob Falfa who challenges him to a drag race.

The soundtrack features such classics as “Rock Around the Clock”, “Come Go with Me”, “Surfin’ Safari”, “Maybe Baby”, “At the Hop”, “Johny B Goode”, “Green Onions”, “Since I Don’t Have You”, “Teen Angel”, and “Only You”. This edition also features interviews with Howard, LeMat, Philips, Williams, Smith, and Lucas, explaining the making of this classic movie.

You have to figure that by 1983 James Taylor was having serious regrets about being one of the four stars of “Two Lane Blacktop”. Dennis Wilson’s 1983 drowning had been proceeded by Warren Oates’ 1982 heart attack and Laurie Bird’s 1979 suicide (she was just age 25). But somehow Taylor has dodged the “Two Lane Blacktop” curse and is still with us.

“Two Lane Blacktop” is a rather strange character study packaged as a car/road film. Strange because like a lot of Director Monte Hellman’s stuff, there isn’t much done in the character development department. Which makes studying the characters quite a strain but it seems like a lot of viewers are willing to burn serious energy on the subject. See “Ride the Whirlwind” and “The Shooting” for other examples of his technique. Hellman apparently is a master of working with actors from all backgrounds as he gets exactly the performances he needs from the experienced Oates and his three completely inexperienced co-stars. Note the use of local radio stations in this film and its similarity in this regard to “Reservoir Dogs”, a film that Hellman co-produced.

Anyway, what you have in the film are four people who converge from three different directions (universes) and link up. They interact for most of the movie and at the end separate and go back to doing exactly what they had been doing before, utterly unchanged by their interactions with each other. This is pretty much the polar opposite of most films, which exist to illustrate examples of characters changing as a result of their experiences. While there are films like “Fat City” where the main character is unchanged by the events of the film, “Two Lane Blacktop” may be unique in extending this to all four of the main characters. That it would be unique in this regard is especially interesting when you consider that real life interpersonal relationships are closer to the way they are portrayed in “Two Lane Blacktop” than in your basic uplifting film. I guess we are reminded of this fact daily and don’t need to be hit with it by our escapist entertainment.

An effort is made to symbolically illustrate the three universes Hellman portrays in the film. The Driver and the Mechanic are defined by their function and their 55 Chevy has been customized to maximize its most basic function, performance. It has no heater and no comforts other than a radio, which the Driver turns off when there is serious driving to be done. GTO is defined by things (his car and his baggage-both real and emotional). Like him, his car is a poser and is compromised by a host of non-performance related features. The Girl is defined by her companion of the moment and has neither function nor identity. The Driver is unable to teach her to function as a driver and she abandons what few possessions she has at the end.

What is most striking about the film is how beautifully it was shot and how contemporary it looks. The colors are great and the style is more like 2004 than 1971. The print being shown on the Sundance Channel is in perfect shape. A side benefit of the film is that it is a great time capsule of the muscle car era. There is an especially great shot early in the film, a wide shot from inside a diner with the jukebox on the right and a slit in the middle of the frame (the diner door) through which you see The Girl getting into the car. Highly recommended for brooding viewers.

Anti-hero Kowalski has had an eventful and troubled life as a Vietnam vet, policeman, motorcycle racer, and off-track racer. He is now reduced to the more mundane job of a car delivery driver. In his latest assignment – delivering a car from Colorado to California – he starts down a path of self-destruction for no apparent reason. The car, a supercharged Dodge Challenger with no equal, has given him the chance to begin his journey out of society and into the abyss.

He outruns the police in several states, brooding all the way over his past, and digs himself deeper and deeper into trouble with the law. He also meets a variety of characters along the way. His exploits are reported by a funky DJ and he becomes a counterculture hero.

Although Kowalski seems to drift through life with no purpose, like the protagonist in “The Stranger,” he never loses his humanity. This is evident when he encounters a total jerk in a Jaguar who taunts him and engages him in a drag race. After the Jaguar driver runs off the road and crashes, Kowalski runs back to see if he is alright, putting himself at risk of being caught by the police, who are in pursuit and not far off.

The movie ages well. The early 70′s images don’t come off as corny, but rather as a clear snapshot of the time, much like “Saturday Night Fever” gives a snapshot of the late 70′s. This is not just another car chase movie with fruit stands being knocked over. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable tale of existentialism and defiance that reflects the tensions of the period.

This classic cop thriller starring Steve McQueen helped define the “cool cop” genre, along with the Dirty Harry movies and a few others such as the original “Shaft”.

It is amazing just how well this epic tale has aged, for watching it one is not really very aware of the decades that have passed other than by the dress and car styles apparent in the movie. Here the cop anti-hero character is well honed into being a dark, moody, but very personable loner who also happens to have one of the loveliest screen paramours ever in a very young and desirable Jacqueline Bisset. This was before her turn in “Summer of ’42″, and she was a literal unknown at the time. She certainly caught a few eyes with her turn here as the girlfreind caught in the middle of Bullitt’s violence.

Of course, for those us of struggling through our undergraduate school years at the time, the real star of the film was McQueen’s throaty high-performance British racing green Ford Cobra Mustang. In what many consider the finest car chase sequence ever filmed, McQueen relentlessly and recklessly pursues the super-charged Dodge Charger in a drive to the death (ah, back when cars really rattled the pavement with their sheer horsepower and all that testosterone rumbled down the street!).

Can we all say muscle car perfection? One recalls the terrific sounds of all those upshifts and downshifts as McQueen, who insisted on doing his own stunt-driving here, careened dangerously at high speeds through the streets of San Francisco in pursuit of the bad guys.

The film unrolls with a tight, interestingly written, and well-directed story, one that interweaves money, crime, politics, and suspense in a script that could as easily fall from today’s headlines as from those populating the newspapers of thirty years ago when “Bullitt” was filmed. Detective Frank Bullitt (McQueen) is assigned for the weekend to protect a witness for a local hearing by one of California’s senators (Robert Vaughn) the next Monday. When mob hit men fatefully interrupt such well-laid plans, the plot spins into overdrive, and a masterful cat and mouse game ensues. The supporting cast is terrific, and the hit men are well played with deadpan bad guy grimaces and suitable grunts and groans. These guys really seem both evil and professional. And yet the duel between McQueen and the hit men serves only to introduce us into the nuances and undercurrents in the plot, which Bullitt must somehow unravel to solve the crime and rescue himself from the aftermath.

“The Gumball Rally” is really a cult-classic. Overshadowed by the later Burt Reynolds “Cannonball Run” films, “Gumball” is a movie that will please any true automobile enthusiast.

Although it was filmed as a comedy, it is just so much more entertaining than the pathetic Burt Reynolds movies. There is a much, much larger focus on the cars. No sped-up footage anywhere here folks, and the fact that the cars are really being driven by the actors makes it all the more interesting. There is nothing I have seen in my entire life more satisfying than seeing and hearing the beautiful sounds of a Ferrari Daytona and an AC Cobra racing for superiority; and the camera captures it all beautifully, to boot.

As for the comedy, the movie does a far better job than I would have expected, serving up plenty of quotable one-liners, along with lots of straight car humor (the Jaguar’s problem starting, for instance). The acting is actually surprisingly good as well. Michael Sarrazin nails his role as Michael Bannon, an eccentric candy company exec with a passion for speed; and the late Raul Julia convinces as Franco Bertollini, Bannon’s rival, an Italian F1 ace with a passion for breasts. All of the other actors impress as well, though Sarrazin and Julia particularly impress.

This movie is the most captivating car movie I have ever seen. It’s a quotable movie with great cars, great cinematography, and great acting. Now my dreams are posessed by 70′s roadsters with Cibie fog lights.

Thunder Road benefits from a strong story, and an honest appreciation of the redneck code of honor that allows a democratic vote on how the community will break the law and defy outside criminal elements no matter what the cost.
the strong family relationships among the moonshiners are revealed in authentic dialogue. The director never lets the strong and stoic characters become caricatures of themselves. They are slow spoken,and easy with long silence, like the real life people the story depicts. Anyone who has met mountsin folk sees it immediately.

The car chases are not drawn out for effect, they are nasty, brutish fights to the death and Mitchum’s character shows that he knows he is not immune. He chooses to fight and die with honor rather than try and hide from the troubles he faces.

I hear a remake is in the works, spearheaded by James Mitchum. Well done it would be a fine tribute to his father’s work and a way to show a new generation the ethos and values that redneck culture gives to America for good and bad.

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, why does it get 5 out of 5 stars from me? Simply because for what this type of movie is, it does it better than almost any other film of this genre. Sure it’s a trashy roller coaster ride, but the camera shots are beautifully done and the actors deliver the lines just right. Peter Fonda is determined to make the big time no matter what, even if involves armed robbery and extortion. He’s remorseless and reckless, yet delivers some great lines. “Yeah, yeah, so we got off to a bad start. Know what that means?…” as the director zooms in on Fonda, “…not a goddamn thing!” (as he puts the accelerator to the floor).

His sidekick played by the underrated Adam Roarke slowly asserts himself in the movie, projecting a coolness that contrasts with Fonda’s obsessiveness. Susan George plays the slatterny Mary who throws a monkey wrench into Fonda’s plans, three’s a crowd indeed.

Vic Morrow lights up the screen with one of his classic hardass portrayals. He’s the rule breaking cop who’s determined to hunt Fonda’s car down and take him out. “You know how to take orders?” he says to the nodding helicopter pilot he’s comandeering. “Good, cause I give lots of ‘em!”

The car chases are excellent, don’t get me wrong. The drawbridge scene, the crazy driving on the orchard roads, the close calls with tractor trailers, the good ol’ boy cop in his loaded car chasing Fonda down a dusty rural road, just great action all around. For those who like Dodge Chargers you’ve come to the right movie.

Don’t forget Roddy McDowall’s uncredited cameo as the supermarket manager. Oh yes, the ending is great, no spoilers here, enjoy.

Take a simple bet to go from Georgia to Texarkana and back in 28 hours with an 18-wheeler. Add in 400 cases of illegal Corrs beer being transported across multiple state lines. Enter Burt Reynolds driving a black T-top to run blocker giving law enforcement from Texas to Georgia the chase of a lifetime. Let Jackie Gleason (Sheriff Buford T. Justice) give chase to Renyolds while giving everyone else lip. Mix with Jerry Reed’s singing and you’ve got a smash hit movie.

It may surprise some to learn that the only movie to beat Smokey and the Bandit at the box office in the year of its release was Star Wars. There’s a reason the movie was successful and that is simply because it’s such a fun ride.

If you like car chases that always result in destruction, trucking, CB radios, outrageous sheriffs, sarcasm, country music, bar fights, or any combination of the above, then you will likely enjoy this movie.

Jackie Gleason steals the show on this one. Eager to work in movies again at the time, he worked for a lower salary so the director/producers would give him more lattitude with his character. The result was a lawman no one in their right mind would ever want to run into and you have to see the movie to really appreciate it.

The movie was made in a different era, so don’t expect it to be exactly PC. There are one or two moments of racist/sexist/whatever overtones, but they are mostly the rantings of the out-of-his-mind sheriff engaged in a nine-hundred mile hot pursuit, and it’s strictly for comedic effect. I don’t believe that most people (other than actual law enforcement) would find this movie offensive.

In a rare instance of a SNL skit translating WELL to big-screen (the only other exception being Wayne’s World), John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd produced a hilarious high-speed wild-ride of non-stop laughs.

Completely throwing all known laws of physics out the window (witness the car jumps, surviving a transient hotel bombing, stealing an air-raid-siren et al), the Dynamic Duo of The Blues embarks on a do-or-die Mission From God to reunite their beloved band and save the orphanage that provided them a home growing up against all odds and obstacles? The odds and obstacles? Try the entire Chicago and Illinois state police forces, The Army, a local Neo-Nazi chapter, a hell-bent-on-violent-revenge former fiancee’(Carrie Fisher), a touring band that plays BOTH types of music (Country AND Western!)and a skeptical concert promoter (Steve Lawrence).

Some great guest appearances from Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Cab Colloway, John Lee Hooker and James Brown hold your interest as well as coutless police car pileups, hilarious encounters at Holiday Inns, and snooty French restaurants finding their old bandmates, disastrous gigs at redneck bars, Ackroyd’s low-tech resourcefulness and a devastatingly hilarious mall chase that has to be seen to be believed! All throughout, you really get the feeling the two main characters LIVED the blues and not just played them.