Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

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dda1996a
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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#26 Post by dda1996a » Fri Dec 04, 2015 10:34 am

I am surprised no one mentioned my personal favourite, Stand By Me. I know a lot of people who wish that was their childhood (and as fun as mine was, I am one of those).

Planes Trains and Automobiles is also one of the funniest and most perfect road movies out there, John Candy and Steve Martin are perfect together.

Midnight Run, with another perfect buddy road movie, this time with De-Niro and Charles Grodin

and since there are too much I will just list the rest:
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
David Lynch's The Straight Story
Max Max 2 and Road Warrior
Dumb and Dumber (the second can also count, but it is terrible. The original is great though)
Almost Famous
Drugstore Cowboy
Borat
The Adventures of Priscilla
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Nebraska
True Romance
Bonnie and Clyde
Natural Born Killers
Detour
The Hitcher
Scarecrow
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America
The Rover
Duel (1971)
The Sure Thing (inspired by It Happened One Night)
Thelma and Louise
The Motorcycle Diaries

And Wim Wenders other Road movies:
Until the End of the World, Kings of the Road, Alice in the Cities and Wrong Move

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mizo
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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#27 Post by mizo » Thu Dec 10, 2015 1:17 am

Saboteur (Alfred Hitchcock, 1942)
Lots of spoilers ahead, just because I can't say much about this film without giving away things you'll surely want to see for yourself without preparation.

I can't get over how strange this movie is. Some scenes seem to come straight out of nightmares (the early scene in the truck when the driver's eerily familiar talk sets Cummings way the hell on edge, followed by the billboard warning which alerts him to the presence of the motorcycle cop), others are light comedy (Robert Cummings plays with a baby in this movie; he ends up using her as a human shield, but before that, he takes time out of his whole "running from the police, gotta find me a secret Nazi" business to get a baby to throw balls at him). Some are unexpectedly poignant (Cummings and Lane practically saying their goodbyes while dancing mournfully in front of a screen on which are projected the other oblivious partygoers) and others genuinely stunning, in the sense that there's no appropriate reaction but to stare at the screen in wonder (the finale). And that's not even the half of it! There's an anti-authoritarian blind man who I'm almost convinced was the inspiration for that scene in Slacker where the small-time burglar finds out his elderly victim is a small-time anarchist. There's a group of sideshow freaks (societal outsiders, who I swear are the most sympathetic and interesting characters in the film; I was genuinely sad to see them go after just one scene) who represent a kind of cross-section of the American public and enact, among themselves, a miniature version of the democratic process.

And that begins to get at what's so bizarrely fascinating about this movie. Maybe I'm crazy for seeing this (and a quick search hasn't turned up any other readings of the film remotely sympathetic to mine) but I can't help but feel that this whole movie is driven by a massive, very troubling antipathy towards just about every major social institution it touches, including the law, the culture of spectatorship, and that shocking ending even strikes me as a slap in the face to political parties, ideologies, or absolutely anything originating from the outside of oneself that turns one person against another.

This being a Hitchcock "man on the run" film, there's a more-than-healthy amount of distrust of the police. In this film, though, it gets almost cartoonish – particularly in how it makes sure every sympathetic character (excepting Priscilla Lane, whose trust in Cummings is much harder to win) anti-cop through and through, often for no apparent reason. Why on earth would the truck driver help Cummings escape the police? He knows nothing about him, save what he told him, which was mostly fabricated anyway. What feasible reason does he have to, upon seeing the man running towards him with handcuffs, help him run from the law? He’s less of a psychologically readable character than a Hitchcock archetype – the helpful, trusting guy who helps the hero out of a tough scrape. But there’s an odd digression (one among many) in his speech while Cummings is preoccupied with worrying about his own predicament. He describes a disastrous fire, in which the friend of a driver was nearly killed, and he quickly follows this with something like, “I wish I coulda seen that. I always miss stuff like that.” Of course, this – like everything else he says for some time – has a direct correlative with the first scene, in Cummings watching his friend burn to death in the fire. But it also speaks to a morbid obsession with viewing and spectatorship. That moment is quickly followed by the also disturbingly relevant message on the billboard they pass (something to the effect of “You’re Being Followed”), which linked them in my mind (although in hindsight, that link seems a lot more dubious than I took it for at the time). The motif of spectatorship, particularly in rather morbid contexts, is constantly reiterated throughout the film, culminating in that very darkly comical scene where Norman Lloyd drags his police chase into a movie theater and the patrons initially take it for part of the show, even for some time after one gets shot. Perhaps even more startling is the juxtaposition, in the finale, of Lloyd’s body dangling from the Statue of Liberty while tourists look in wonder toward the city. (To this intellectually overzealous undergrad, it sounds a bit like Debord, but I think I might be showing too much of my hand there.)

Off on another tangent, as I indicated before, Hitchcock seems to have a lot more sympathy for social outcasts than those who fit easily in. The fantastically adjusted Otto Kruger character (family man, has the respect of all his neighbors) and the much esteemed high-society woman (with all her charitable causes) are the two most despicable characters, while the most likable are the blind man and the sideshow freaks. Fascinatingly, however, there is still one other character who’s hesitant or unable to conform: the fifth columnist (I’d actually never heard that term before) that Cummings meets in Soda City, the ghost town. In one of the most memorable exchanges in the film, he describes the beautiful locks of long blond hair he had as a boy, and wonders if he should let his youngest grow his out too. This is the same man who’ll be (not wrongly) blamed for allowing Cummings to breach their secret organization and thoroughly humiliated for it, and will consequently be decommissioned from the rest of the film. Going back to that particular exchange, also very revealing, I think, is Cummings’ response: something along the lines of “Get his hair cut. These days it’ll save him a lot of trouble.” Even though he’s been forced out of society, Cummings still favors submitting to its pressures at the expense of individuality. He’s not an entirely likable protagonist, particularly in moments like this.

I don’t want to delve deeply into the ending (its implications are so myriad and knotty, in relation to the rest of the film, I doubt I could do it justice, particularly after midnight when I need to get up early in the morning). But that dead silence (apart from the near-moan given by Lloyd), along with the juxtaposition I mentioned above, and just that sudden moment of empathy between the two. There are far too many issues tied up in that to make the speedy reunion with Lane convincing even for a moment. Unlike apparently everyone else, I had no idea going in how or where this film was going to end, but I’m convinced that that single scene is one of Hitchcock’s greatest creations. Really astonishing.

I’d love to hear some other thoughts about this one. I really don’t think I managed to touch upon enough of the issues this film deals with – I really wasn’t expecting it to be anywhere near as dense and weird as it is. I know it’s not a popular favorite, but it has a few boosters surely. It was domino’s brief notice in the 40’s List Project that tipped me off this was a road movie at all, so I know he’s a fan.
Last edited by mizo on Fri Dec 11, 2015 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#28 Post by domino harvey » Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:40 am

Saboteur is a great film, and it's one of three Hitchcock films on my prospective list for this project (along with the 39 Steps and North by Northwest). I rarely heard it singled out as one of Hitchcock's best, but it's always been in my Top Five. I teach it a lot too and the finale never fails to absolutely spellbind the entire class. I can't really argue with singling it out as the singular Hitchcock moment-- it's one of the greatest action setpieces ever made by anyone. As far as interesting villains goes, this is certainly not uncommon for Hitchcock to give us colorful baddies (and in the case of Notorious, the villain is actually more sympathetic than the protagonists), but this isn't a film that comes to mind for its bad guys to me. I think of the great forward momentum, the wonderful mix of comedy and drama, the tried and true Hitchcock formula of being the wrong man, and wonderful grace notes like the sideshow train sequence. It's a film easy to be effusive about, so it's nice but unsurprising to see such an impassioned first response to it here! As much as I love knowing all the Hitchcock films by heart, I do wish I could see them all again for the first time!

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#29 Post by mizo » Fri Dec 11, 2015 7:33 pm

domino harvey wrote:I think of the great forward momentum, the wonderful mix of comedy and drama, the tried and true Hitchcock formula of being the wrong man, and wonderful grace notes like the sideshow train sequence.
Agreed on all accounts - it's a marvelously enjoyable film, which makes me look forward all the more to revisiting it in the hopes of delving deeper into some of its mysteries.

And speaking of Hitchcock and enjoyableness, I just finished Foreign Correspondent and my god is that movie entertaining! Compulsively watchable for its brilliant dialogue and twisty plot alone, never mind that it's comprised of a string of set-pieces that are as ingenious as they are flawlessly-executed. The closest thing I've got to a complaint is that I wish there could've been more Robert Benchley, but Sanders more than makes up for it. Just an incredibly fun experience all around.

On a somewhat related note, it's lucky Hitchcock made a handful of road movies, because otherwise I'm not sure I'd have been able to finish this project. I mentioned somewhere above that I just discovered my local library has a fantastic movie collection, and hard as I tried to limit myself just to renting road movies, I pretty quickly abandoned that restriction. Instead, I've spent a few weeks delving into the careers of directors I'd always heard were great but had limited personal exposure to (particularly Ford, Lubitsch, Bresson, Anthony Mann, etc.) until I eventually hit Hitchcock (who doesn't quite fit with the others as I'd already seen all the most popularly beloved of his films, and loved most of them, so it's the also-rans I've been spending time with lately) which brought me back into the fold, so to speak. Perhaps there's a lesson in that: I shouldn't try to commit to a project like this until I've got under my belt at least the most tempting of these. Still, I suppose there is something to be said for taking time off and not trying to monopolize a list project thread (as I may have been in danger of doing :wink: ).

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#30 Post by domino harvey » Fri Dec 11, 2015 7:45 pm

You need not fear monopolizing the thread, and also keep in mind that while voting may end, you and anyone else is always welcome and encouraged to continue posting about films fitting the category in this thread

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#31 Post by domino harvey » Sat Dec 12, 2015 10:50 am

Some great unmentioned road movies in contention for my list which are worth a look or consideration before submitting your ballot in a week:

A Ticket to Tomahawk (Richard Sale 1950) The funniest western comedy I’ve ever seen (and if you follow my comments on this board, you know how rare praise of this nature is), this is a witty fictional take on the coming railroad revolution in American culture, and is one of the most solidly entertaining films I’ve ever seen. A must.

Emperor of the North (Robert Aldrich 1973) How a film about train-hopping hoboes versus overzealous conductors could sustain a feature-length film, much less one this gleefully watchable, is a testament to everyone involved.

Hollywood or Bust! (Frank Tashlin 1956) Filled with in-jokes and innuendos, the final pairing of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin is also their best, with great songs and all of Tashlin’s requisite visual wit.

Inside Out (Pete Docter 2015) A divisive choice on this forum, but the only animated film in danger of making my list. More of my thoughts can be found in its dedicated thread.

the Last Wagon (Delmer Daves 1956) Richard Widmark must lead a gaggle of young settlers through the ominous sounding “Apache Canyon of Death” and one by one they either fall in line or fall behind. Shockingly brutal and violent, this is one of the great westerns and arguably Daves’ masterpiece.

Magic Mike XXL (Gregory Jacobs 2015) The rare sequel that betters the original. More thoughts in its dedicated thread.

War of the Worlds (Steve Spielberg 2005) Another divisive choice on this board, but I rewatched it recently and I think it still holds up as one of the most effective works dealing with post-9/11 fears and anxieties. Tom Cruise has never been better and the action set pieces still turn my stomach ten years after I first lived through them. I didn’t even mind the ending this time around— that’s how you know it’s growing on me!

Wristcutters: A Love Story (Goran Dukić 2007) A vision of the afterlife where people who kill themselves are forced to live in a world just a little bit worse than the one they left behind too early. I seem to always be the only one here talking about or voting for this film, but everyone I know in real life who’s seen it enjoys it, so not sure why that is.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#32 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Dec 12, 2015 5:11 pm

Since we are talking about train films too I'll also recommend that early Richard Linklater film It's Impossible To Learn To Plow By Reading Books, which is structured around a cross-country train journey and its various stops.

The best thing about Emperor of the North is that way that it keeps skillfully shifting our sympathies between the main trio of characters and even manages the feat of sustaining this into and beyond the climax of the film. It also highlights a key structural aspect of any kind of film involving train travel - the way that people keep getting thrown off of the constantly moving train or left behind and have to race to catch up with it, as if the mode of transport itself (or the conductors or bad guys throwing them off) is like a bucking bronco that needs to be re-captured and tamed! Gene Wilder has the same problem in Silver Streak!

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#33 Post by domino harvey » Sat Dec 12, 2015 11:25 pm

With some more thought to my prospective list, I’ve come up with an another eight films worthy of being considered for list purposes:

A Far Off Place (Mikael Salomon 1993)) Teenager Reese Witherspoon braves the Australian outback while on the run from deadly poachers in the most violent, un-Disney Disney movie of all time. A longer writeup can be found here

America America (Elia Kazan 1963) Wonderful story of one young man’s journey to the titular country, this is un-Hollywood-y work from Kazan, and luckily he’s a master in this mode too.

Cold Mountain (Anthony Minghella 2003) Jude Law treks through the sidelines of the end of the Civil War to find his true love. Lots of colorful supporting turns by actors who went on to bigger things, and Renee Zellweger won the Oscar for playing a supremely audience-pleasing bait role to the hilt.

Harry and Tonto (Paul Mazursky 1974) About as wonderful as movies get. I’m only ashamed it didn’t occur to me on first pass with this list!

Monsters (Gareth Edwards 2010) Edwards was granted the keys to the Godzilla franchise (which he blew) on the strength of this super-cheap yet impressively expensive-looking indie. The finale to this film is beautiful and sad and unforgettable.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Lorene Scafaria 2012) As is the ending to this film— how does one end a romantic comedy set against the unlikely backdrop of armageddon? Exactly like this— it’s a perfect note to go out on, and one I’ve thought of a lot in passing since first seeing the film. The rest of the film, with its movement from vulgar comedy to sweet romance, is touching and effective. Honestly, if you’re scrambling for a film from these brief writeups to seek out, make it this one.

Tracks (John Curran 2014) Mia Wasikowska treks across the Australian Outback, mostly just because, in a beautifully observed film that had the misfortune of being released stateside in the same year as Wild.

Where Danger Lives (John Farrow 1950) I’ve described it elsewhere on the board as one of the best One Damn Thing After Another films ever made, and what better way to describe the road movie? Robert Mitchum and forced mustaches, this movie has it all.

…I’ve got about thirty unwatched films to get to between now and the deadline (one week from tomorrow, for those counting at home). I doubt I’ll get through them all, but I've never managed to get my stacks and piles for List Project viewings small enough to ever be this conquerable, so I’m excited to try! Not that I have any space on my list as it stands now anyways, but isn’t that part of the fun? You’re sure you can’t budge, and then you see a new classic out of nowhere and all your plans get shot to hell! It’s the list equivalent of the road movie. Or not. Probably not. Ignore that last part.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#34 Post by D50 » Sun Dec 13, 2015 8:48 am

I just watched Altman's Thieves Like Us last week and think it should be in contention.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#35 Post by knives » Sun Dec 13, 2015 10:17 am

domino harvey wrote: Wristcutters: A Love Story (Goran Dukić 2007) A vision of the afterlife where people who kill themselves are forced to live in a world just a little bit worse than the one they left behind too early. I seem to always be the only one here talking about or voting for this film, but everyone I know in real life who’s seen it enjoys it, so not sure why that is.
I rather enjoy it but it constantly feels like the poor man's this and that which has the crippling effect of leaving its merits more bland then they probably are.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#36 Post by domino harvey » Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:45 pm

Viewings from this weekend:

Camilla (Deepa Mehta 1994) Jessica Tandy is the spitfire former concert violinist who inspires budding musician Bridget Fonda to follow her dreams in this by the numbers Old Person Saying Naughty Things movie. If you ever wanted to hear Tandy talk about her "boobs," good news! This was Tandy's last film, and given that I don't think much of her as an actress, a fitting one.

Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg 2012) Just a great big cinematic zero, a wasteland of talented actors performing ultra-arch meaningless soliloquies in the presence or near vicinity of Robert Pattinson. I felt personally insulted by this film's dicking around and general sense of false superiority. I think Cronenberg is a lot more hit and miss than his fans would admit, but I've never seen him falter this poorly before. I'd also say it's one of the worst films I've ever seen, but I'm not sure I can even reconcile this exercise with being a movie.

the Great Race (Blake Edwards 1965) Well, now I know where Hanna-Barbera got the "inspiration" for Wacky Racers. And this movie's about as funny as that cartoon, which is to say not at all. Jack Lemmon preens, Natalie Wood looks good in a bustier, and Tony Curtis fails to register at all in this endless (nearly three hours long, dear God) unfunny slog through fake-looking sets. This was at the time the most expensive comedy ever made. Too bad they forgot to spend some time on making it worthwhile.

Interstate 60 (Bob Gale 2002) Gale calls in all his favors with this weird, amateurish movie about James Marsden's journey down the fictional highway on his way to enlightenment. Cameos by Christopher Lloyd, Michael J Fox, and Kurt Russell show Gale could still call on his old pals, but Gary Oldman and Chris Cooper provide the only real diverting presences here with suitably over the top portrayals that are right at home in the scrappy narrative at work. This movie is a disaster, but it's the good kind of bad movie, the sort HBO used to let you stumble into some Thursday night while channel flipping.

My One and Only (Richard Loncraine 2009) I'm not sure who was asking for the true life adventures of teenage George Hamilton, but that's what we get here as Logan Lerman sets out with his ever on the prowl mom, Renee Zellweger, in search of happiness on the open road. This was suitably episodic and well-made, but I didn't really get anything out of it by the time it was over. Give me a bad film I'll remember over a mediocre one I'll immediately forget.

My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant 1991) I know it has its fans here, but I didn't like this at all. Lots of weird stylistic choices and Shakespearean slumming, but nothing ever added up to a satisfying whole.

the Sure Thing (Rob Reiner 1985) Notably welcome diversion in the midst of this murderer's row of bad road movies, this loose remake of It Happened One Night is helped immensely by John Cusack's lead performance. I'm not sure this film would have worked without Cusack's requisite blend of likable assholeish traits as he makes his way across the country with Daphne Zuniga in search of an easy lay waiting for him in California. Of course Cusack and Zuniga fate is predestined, but the film is mildly entertaining as it brings these two to realize what the audience knows five minutes in.

Without Reservations (Mervyn LeRoy 1946) The first ten minutes or so of this flick are a promising parody of the infamous Hollywood drama surrounding Ayn Rand's refusal to allow the Fountainhead to be made with anyone but Gary Cooper. Claudette Colbert has penned a best-selling novel which captures the mind and imagination of all of America, as embodied in her fictional protagonist. He must be played by Cary Grant, Colbert insists, before meeting actual soldier John Wayne on the train and jumping through many unfunny hoops to alternately conceal and exploit her identity as the famous author in hopes of casting the unknown in the lead. If you think the romantic pairing of Colbert and Wayne sounds off, you're right. Sadly, the resulting road movie adventure is unfunny and rather laborious, with some creaky sexual politics thrown in for good measure.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#37 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Dec 14, 2015 4:00 pm

I imagine Alain Tanner's Messidor fits the bill -- but I never managed to track this down, in any format. Anyone here seen it? Better yet, anyone here find any way to _get_ this?

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#38 Post by domino harvey » Thu Dec 17, 2015 4:10 pm

Hoping to get through as much of my unwatched stack as I can in advance of Sunday's deadline. Some thoughts on recent viewings:

Blood Diamond (Edward Zwick 2006) Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou trek through war-torn Africa in search of a hidden diamond in this socially conscious drama that means well but never quite makes a case for itself as a worthwhile film. I mean, I’m not going to go buy conflict diamonds after this, but I already wasn’t going to do that before I saw it. DiCaprio and Hounsou’s Oscar noms were more for their characters than the acting, I suspect.

Blue State (Marshall Lewy 2007) Obnoxious characters played by Breckin Meyer and Anna Paquin travel up to Canada in the wake of John Kerry’s defeat as a form of political protest… sort of. Meyer is supposed to be intolerably obnoxious in his political tirades, but the film lets him indulge too much, and Paquin as his foil is too inert to really register. The film is completely unfunny too, which doesn’t help. Avoid.

Elvis and Anabelle (Will Geiger 2009) Wonderful slice of life tale of the unlikely romance that forms between an anorexic teenage beauty queen and a reclusive undertaker. After about thirty minutes or so I was surprised at how invested I was in the characters and their interactions and I realized how effectively writer/director Geiger had aligned audience sympathies with our two extremely likable protagonists, ably played by Max Minghella and Blake Lively. On paper this film is a cliche-ridden disaster, but it plays out with sincerity and purity of emotion, like the best of YA list (and indeed this movie seems like the greatest YA lit adaptation ever made, if only someone had written it as a book first). It all falters a bit in the last act, and seeing the Weinstein name in the credits leads me to make assumptions, but the film is on the whole an effective and touching fairy tale. Highly recommended.

the Hidden Fortress (Akira Kurosawa 1958) Though I could have done with maybe a half hour less of the two greedy crooks who frame and filter our story, I still found this to be one of Kurosawa’s better offerings, with some memorable set pieces and explorations of greed and sacrifice. In no danger of making my list, but I was glad to have finally seen it.

Il Sorpasso (Dino Risi 1962) A near miss for me, primarily due to the hard left turn the film takes in its final moments, which struck me as cheap and shoehorned in from an entirely different film. I read the various theories and defenses in the dedicated thread and I’m glad it doesn’t bother others, but for me it undermined everything that came before ala Fat Girl several decades later.

the Lucky Ones (Neil Burger 2008) Ignored by audiences (I’d never even heard of it before seeing it pop up on an IMDB list of Road Movies) and savaged by critics, this tale of three extremely likable and interesting Iraq war soldiers on leave and making their way through the country together is easily my favorite discovery yet from this project. I can’t believe the writer/director responsible for the turgid the Illusionist is the same guy responsible for this charming exploration of how people from all walks of life encounter and react to our trio of vets. That the film isn’t concerned with taking a side as far as the war goes presumably put a bad taste in the mouth of critics at the time, but the film gives us full brushstrokes for each of the characters played by Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams, and Michael Pena, complete with a smattering of unlikable traits that go unresolved in each, which to my eyes makes them all the more fascinating. This is in many ways exactly the kind of thing a road movie can do well, and it will be making my already full list, somehow. Highly recommended.

Wild at Heart (David Lynch 1990) I just don’t get or don’t care to get whatever it is Lynch is doing here. I didn’t like this when I tried watching it ten-plus years ago, and I don’t like it now. I do not think it will receive a third trial.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#39 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Dec 17, 2015 4:24 pm

Hidden Fortress -- Mifune's (Errol Flynn channeling?) general, the general who switches sides and the rescued slave girl are all pretty awesome. The other performances, not so much.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#40 Post by domino harvey » Thu Dec 17, 2015 4:31 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:Hidden Fortress -- Mifune's (Errol Flynn channeling?) general, the general who switches sides and the rescued slave girl are all pretty awesome. The other performances, not so much.
The forceful line-reading/body language of the Princess, presumably to represent her regal "otherness" with respect to the other lay-characters, was an odd choice and so theatrical that I wonder if there was some other (cultural?) purpose behind directing the actress to behave in such a distracting fashion?

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#41 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Dec 17, 2015 5:32 pm

My sense is that this the Princess was played by a pretty inexperienced actress, who never developed into an important one. Kurosawa didn't do well with inexperienced performers -- except when they were incipient future stars (such as the sulky girl in Stray Dog).

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#42 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Dec 19, 2015 8:42 am

The deadline for this has come up so quick, so apologies for not doing many write ups! However I have very much enjoyed finalising my list for this and just thinking about potential films and the variety of themes that came up was surprising, as I've never really consciously focused on this particular genre compared to horror films, say. Here are a couple of notes I wrote in the margin of my list that seem interesting to explore when discussing this genre as themes that help to bind otherwise superficially disparate films together:

There is the interesting sense that the road is a place for experimenting with relationships: sexual experimentation (with either an embracing of a new life, or alternatively a bittersweet nostalgia for what once was and what could have been once the destination has been reached and normal life returned to) The road is both an endless 'non-place', with various transitory stops made along the way, but is also entirely dependent on and defined around a goal or destination for structure that is the purest kind of Hitchcockian McGuffin, and it is the relative weight that a specific film places on the journey and the destination that creates its individual character.

That brings me to the dangerous and delicate balancing act that road movies have to pull off. Tone and atmosphere, and the sensibilities of the filmmakers towards that, are often the key elements that define the best of these films. The plot, and really even the characters themselves, aren't! They are the the structural framework upon which the digressions, the chase scenes, the races, the brief encounters, happen. The very best road movies turn into almost abstract pieces of purely visual art and often attempt to express very difficult ideas such as alienation or existentialism. Or even at their purest just the propulsive sense of movement!

This is all getting to sound like a veiled defence for Border Radio as being about more than its annoying characters, I know! But Border Radio actually does work (and get better on re-watching!) as a road movie as it kind of emphasises the sense that the characters are kind of lost at either end of their journey and it is only when travelling that they have any sense of purpose. When they have a quite literal drive to do something!

The main reason that road movies seem to fail is that tone and atmosphere are difficult things to 'sell', whereas dramatic situations and strong characters are. They can also fall flat when a filmmaker does not really seem to have any affinity to the idea of being on the move, or a particular millieu. That can lead occasionally lead to films where the backdrop and the opportunities offered by a changing landscape is almost made irrelevant to a story that could be happening anywhere rather than made for a transitory space. This is really the problem with that recent On The Road adaptation, which focused too much on the characters and too little on the atmosphere that what being rhapsodised about in the Kerouac book. We are told about the significance of the trip rather than actually feeling it ourselves through the journey. It is difficult to articulate it properly but its the kind of thing that means that road movies which don't capture that delicate magic end up seeming dreadfully dull!

Thats also what makes road movies so visceral and immediate - they are about the here and now, about vague hopes and dreams for the future or a past that is being left behind, while life just happens in the moment. Its carries a seductive charge, where both casual sex and casual violence can happen, but it is also seductively dangerous in that a road movie only gives the impression that everyone's troubles are being left behind, when usually they are steadily in pursuit, waiting for the characters to stop for a moment (or break down, or run out of gas) before it all catches up with them again for the climax.

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I love the idea of UK road movies too, although there is that old adage that you cannot really do an American-style epic road trip in the UK as you just fall off the end of it after a few hundred miles! But that itself puts a whole different atmospheric twist on road movies in this country from US ones: they are more haunted and there often isn't that possibility of complete escape to a whole new life. Most road movies deal with the car breaking down (say Radio On, where the car eventually stalls out on the cliff edge of an disused industrial quarry in a kind of pointed commentary about the UK at the end of the 1970s!) or utter frustration with the entire endeavour (as in the John Cleese starring Clockwise, that eventually drives the harried teacher into a monastry idyll at his lowest point on his journey). This isn't a film, but I couldn't imagine that One Foot In The Grave episode that takes place entirely in a Bank Holiday traffic jam ever happening anywhere else! (The closest is probably the mania of National Lampoon's Vacation but that turns its despair into a particular kind of proactivism!) Or that advert capturing the existential bleakness of 1990s society!

That also makes me think: what about anti-road movies? Where people are trying to get out of somewhere but continually fail? Something sweet like Doc Hollywood, where prospective plastic surgeon Michael J. Fox gets trapped in a small town and regains his soul. Which is your standard kind of plot that gets mixed with darker neo-noir ideas (and mysterious drifters) in Red Rock West and totally curdles in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers follow up U-Turn.

Or what about the seemingly underrated Quick Change, in which it is impossible to escape from New York? What about all those movies where its difficult to get across New York to a deadline? Like say Premium Rush?
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And finally, what is the reason for the strong link between music and the road movie? Is it that musicians are constantly travelling, so they are the best subjects to build a film around? Or just that images of the landscape work best when scored to a beautifully curated soundtrack, something which makes the visuals and the music inseparable, such as in the opening titles of Easy Rider? Emphasising music might just be a hangover from watching Border Radio, but at the very least that experience inspired me to look out another musician-led road movie that is probably a perfect one for Criterion to release some day: Candy Mountain.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#43 Post by domino harvey » Sat Dec 19, 2015 10:41 am

I hadn't even thought about Quick Change, but a good call!

A reminder to all that lists are due tomorrow. I'll be counting votes Monday morning, so you technically have until I wake up to turn them in. I will post in this thread when voting it closed, so if you don't see an announcement here to that effect, you can still PM me your list.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#44 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 20, 2015 12:04 pm

Six lists in so far, not counting my own. Hopefully some of our members who don't usually devote their time to one of our longer list projects submit to this one by the deadline. Even if you're just a casual reader of this subforum or even our site, you are free to participate!

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#45 Post by zedz » Sun Dec 20, 2015 3:56 pm

I missed the fact that this was closing today, so I just jerry-rigged a very hasty list. There are some films I really love that have been suggested, but which I really can't consider road movies, so sorry for not backing anybody up on The Hitch-Hiker or Buffalo 66. Never mind, I've probably got films on my list that nobody else considers road movies either. The country spread, in order of frequency, was Iran, USA, UK, and one apiece from Germany, Czechoslovakia, France, USSR and Greece.

My top pick was the Ur-Road Movie from 1927.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#46 Post by swo17 » Sun Dec 20, 2015 11:36 pm

Assuming you mean Walking from Munich to Berlin, that hadn't occurred to me before, and I need to revise my list now, if domino will allow it.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#47 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 20, 2015 11:39 pm

Sure, anyone can send me an updated list up til when I say voting's closed

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Road Movies Genre Mini-List

#48 Post by Noiradelic » Mon Dec 21, 2015 4:38 am

It might be a stretch for some, but I think Stalker counts.

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#49 Post by domino harvey » Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:47 am

Voting closed, results soon

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Re: Road Movies Genre Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#50 Post by domino harvey » Mon Dec 21, 2015 9:57 am

Image

TOP 25 ROAD MOVIES

01 Two-Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman 1971)
02 Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich 1973)
03 Life and Nothing More (Abbas Kiarostami 1991)
04 Wrong Move (Wim Wenders 1975)
05 Week End (Jean-Luc Godard 1967)
06 the Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot 1953)
06 Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman 1957)
08 Badlands (Terrence Malick 1973)
09 Mr Thank You (Hiroshi Shimizu 1936)
10 Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard 1965)
11 Sullivan’s Travels (Preston Sturges 1941)
12 Walking from Munich to Berlin (Oskar Fischinger 1927)
13 Detour (Edgar G Ulmer 1945)
13 Saboteur (Alfred Hitchcock 1942)
13 Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón 2001)
16 Lost in America (Albert Brooks 1985)
17 Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg 1971)
18 It Happened One Night (Frank Capra 1934)
18 the Straight Story (David Lynch 1999)
20 North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock 1959)
21 Stagecoach (John Ford 1939)
22 Harry and Tonto (Paul Mazursky 1974)
22 Vagabond (Agnes Varda, 1985)
24 Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson 1970)
24 the Last Detail (Hal Ashby 1973)



ALSO RANS

Stalker, Landscape in the Mist, the Milky Way, Hollywood or Bust!, Rules of the Road (1993), Emperor of the North, Nebraska


ORPHANS

A Perfect World, A Ticket to Tomahawk, A Walk Through H, the Adventures of Prince Achmed, the Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Alice in the Cities, Apocalypse Now, Ascent to Heaven / Mexican Bus Ride

the Color Wheel, Cosmopolis, Crash (1996)

Diamonds of the Night, Down By Law, Duel

Easy Rider, Eureka (2000)

Foreign Correspondent

Get On the Bus, the Grapes of Wrath, Gun Crazy

Half Moon, Highway 61

Il Sorpasso

Kings of the Road

L’Atlante, L’Avventura, the Last Wagon, Leningrad Cowboys Go America, Lolita

Magic Mike XXL, Maine-Océan, Meek’s Cutoff, Mobile Men, the Motorcycle Diaries, the Muppet Movie

Night Train

O Brother Where Art Thou?, Old Joy, One Way Passage

Paris, Texas, the Passenger, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Radio On, Red River, the Road Warrior, Roadkill (1989)

the Searchers, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Sherman’s March, the Shooting, Sideways, Something Wild, Sorcerer, Stranger Than Paradise, the Sugarland Express

Ten (2002), They Live By Night, Thieves Like Us, Traveller, the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Two For the Road, Two Women

Voyage to Italy

Wagonmaster, War of the Worlds (2005), Watership Down, Wendy and Lucy, Where is the Friend’s House?, Wild at Heart, the Wizard of Oz

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