It takes many elements to make a great film in most instances. Genre pictures sometimes are given high marks because of a standout "moment" in what might be an abysmal other 80 minutes. Well, TRUCK STOP WOMEN may be never referred to as a great film but almost 30 years after its release it damn sure has many of the elements it takes to get there.
Mark Lester co-wrote and directed TRUCK STOP WOMEN at the ripe old age of 27 just a year after chronicling nutcase daredevil Dusty Russell in the strange time capsule, STEEL ARENA, which isn't a documentary but a "drama" starring Dusty and his crew, which included the real Buddy Love! Quite a career that Mr. Lester was seeding and Truck Stop Women may not be Lester's finest hour, but as a testament to a young director with some tricks up his sleeve, you will do TRUCK STOP WOMEN, you will do.
During 1973, at the height of the so-called Arab Oil Embargo, the masses were buying, installing and using something called Citizen Band Radios by the millions. These radios were at first used by truck drivers to help each other out by directing their fellow commades to which gas stations were open and who had the cheapest gas going. The government had gone as far as telling station owners to close at dark to help the public curb its appetite for petrol. CB's were a way for truckers to share information and with that information sharing came a fair amount of bitching about the state of affairs in this great land. It wasn't long before the general public caught on to this and for about $50 Americans were joining into this form of communication and the catharsis of pushing the microphone button and yakking with a total stranger with a handle like Greasy Granny or Polish Pickle became a daily activity, and with this daily activity the media did stories, before long everyone was at once enamored with CB culture and the longing romanticism of the Long Haul Trucker…Hollywood, exploitation filmmakers and artists in general, always with the finger somewhere near the pulse of the public's consciousness began the feeding frenzy to cash in on what was quickly becoming a fad.
So from this mindset, TRUCK STOP WOMEN was born. Part sexploitation flick, part tribute to trucking, part anti-organized crime flick and all feminist fuck-you to the big boys traditionally thought to run the trucing biz TSW is slightly ground-breaking. A fairly simple plot which involves a female truck stop owner, Anna, played to the hilt and believable to a creepy extreme by Lieux Dressler, best remembered for a few minutes in the Shatner classic KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, as she is trying to keep her business of ripping off truckers of their cargo and of their trucks from being taking over by the mob after her boss and mentor is gunned down in a giant bathtub while getting his feet rubbed before the opening credits. Anna's daughter Rose, brought to life in all her glory by former Playboy Playmate of the Year and perennial b-movie thump-rag fave, Claudia Jennings is in on the take as a hitchhiking bait substance that lures truckers to the side of the road and her partners clock them upside the head and make getaway with their rigs. The trucks are repainted and sent on down the road usually hauling stolen TVs or something that Anna's boys have stolen out of trailers while Anna's whores service them in the rooms behind the truck stop. How realistic is this scenario, only real truckers know for sure, but there is no doubt some truth to the wanton sluts that hang around truckstops offering up hand jobs, blow jobs and the like for the ephedrine fueled long hauler.
All the standard devices of cheap exploitation flickage are explored but the film by no means looks cheap. We do get over dubs, screeching tires on gravel, and jump cuts but on the flip side we get good performances, tons of nudity, great truck stunts, crane shots and tons of nudi…never mind I said that already, but I haven't mentioned Uschi Digard, yep she's there, nekkid, handcuffed and well, stacked, as usual.
TSW really heats up for the final act when all the plot twists kick in, the murders start mounting up and the double-crossing takes over. Also the song "Big Bull-Shippers" rolls along on the soundtrack. This song and a montage sequence smack dab in the middle of the film really help sell some of the reality of trucking. "I'm a Truck" bellows Big Mack as footage and stills of real trucks, real truckers, real truck chicks, real trucker chick tits and real truck stops are edited together travelogue style as an homage to the numb-assed, white socked, Vitalis wearing, modern gladiator known as truck driver. It works, don't knock it.
Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry is a cult 1974 car chase film starring Peter Fonda, Susan George, Adam Roarke, and Vic Morrow. The film was directed by John Hough. The music score contains no incidental music, apart from the theme song over the opening and closing titles, and a small amount of music heard over the radio.
The story deals with two would-be NASCAR hopefuls; the driver, Larry (Peter Fonda), and his mechanic, Deke (Adam Roarke), who successfully execute a supermarket heist to finance their jump into the big-time auto racing world, extorting $150,000 in cash from the supermarket manager (Roddy McDowall) by holding his wife and daughter hostage.
In making their escape, they are confronted by Larry's one-night stand, Mary (Susan George), who convinces them to take her along for the ride (under the threat of her blowing the whistle on them both). After the heist is reported to the Sherriff, Captain Franklin Vic Morrow obsessively sets out to capture the trio in a dragnet, only to find his patrol cars woefully inadequate to catch Larry, Mary and Deke in a high-performance 1969 Dodge Charger.
The trio evades several patrol cars, a high-performance police interceptor, and even Captain Franklin himself in a Bell JetRanger helicopter, before meeting their fate head on.
Ever popular B-grade trucker movie starring square jawed Jan-Michael Vincent as a returned Vietnam veteran who comes home to Tuscon, Arizona to take over his fathers trucking business and marry his teenage sweetheart. However, the well meaning Carrol Jo Hummer (Vincent) soon finds to his dismay that wholesale corruption has permeated the trucking game, and he is forced to either haul illegal loads of cigarettes and slot machines, or he doesn't work at all.
Directed by Jonathon Kaplan ( who later directed many episodes of the hit medico TV series "ER" ), the movie ticks along at a brisk pace and for a modest production, it hits all the right notes. Waif like Kay Lenz is believable as Carrol Jo Hummer's equally strong headed wife, Jerri, and serial cowboy star Slim Pickens ( in obligatory ten gallon hat, bolo ties and embroided suits ) is a hoot as friendly, but weak willed trucking depot boss, Duane Haller. A young Martin Kove is excellent as the taciturn bully, Klem ( breaking Carrol Jo's ribs with a tyre iron ), and another Western genre regular, L.Q. Jones, is equally impressive as the leering Buck Wessell. Plus, keep an eye out for wonderful character actor Dick Miller playing a fellow trucker named R. "Birdie" Corman. ( A film about independant truckers with a sly reference to Hollywood's maverick independant film producer ! )
The truck stunt work was capably handled by noted Hollywood stunt driver, Carey Loftin, who had previously handled the stunt driving in such memorable films as "Duel", "Bullitt", "Vanishing Point" and "Diamonds are Forever", and the creative cinematography of the big rigs was provided by Fred J. Koenekamp. "White Line Fever" was quite a success upon it's release (especially on the drive in circuit ) as it was cashing in on the then popularity of CB radio and the image of truckers as knights of the highways struggling against big business and politics. Not sure if this cult film will ever turn up as a studio release DVD, but one can only wait and hope !
The Gumball Rally is a 1976 film about a coast-to-coast road race. It was inspired by the actual Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash run held by Brock Yates that inspired several other movies, like Cannonball with David Carradine, also from 1976. The main difference is while Cannonball is an action film, The Gumball Rally is a comedy, just like the later series of Cannonball movies starring Burt Reynolds and many others. The Gumball Rally is often considered better and less infantile compared to the later, star studded exploitations of the Cannonball run, which even copied the running gags of the police man chasing the racers through the whole USA.
The Gumball Rally stars Raul Julia, Michael Sarrazin, Norman Burton, Gary Busey, John Durran, and Susan Flattery, and was directed and co-written by Charles Bail.
Cannonball was a 1976 movie starring David Carradine. The film is one of two released in 1976 (the other being The Gumball Rally) that were based on a real illegal cross-continent road race that took place for a number of years in the United States. The same topic later became the basis for the films The Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II. The movie was written and directed by Paul Bartel, who also directed Death Race 2000.
The name of the film and the plot were inspired by Erwin G. "Cannon Ball" Baker, (1882-1960), who travelled across the USA several times, and by the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an illegal cross-continent road race introduced by Brock Yates to protest against the 55 MPH speed limit.
The Trans-America Grand Prix is an illegal race held every year between Los Angeles, California and New York, New York. David Carradine plays a recently released convict, Cannonball Buckman, trying to restart his automobile racing career by entering the race. Buckman is still on parole and if he is caught in the illegal race he will go back to prison; his brother also enters the race with an identical car and an identical paint job to try and run cover for Buckman.
The race degenerates into a violent demolition derby as contestants use any means at their disposal to try and eliminate the competition. It culminates in a multiple car pileup in New York.
An Alaskan truck driver and former karate champ returns to his Texan home for a vacation only to find that his kid brother had been beaten by a group of corrupt cops. In retaliation, he organizes a convoy and goes after the abusive police.
Chuck Norris (John David Dawes), George Murdock (Judge Trimmings), Terry O'Connor (Arlene), Don Gentry (Sergeant Strode), John Di Fusco (Arney), Ron Cedillos (Deputy Boles), Michael Augenstein (Billy Dawes), Dan Vandergrift (Wilfred), Douglas Stevenson (Drake), Paul Kawecki (Wade), Larry Feder (George), Jack Nance (Burton), David Bezar (Tony), Miranda Garrison (Barmaid), Amelia Laurenson (Luana), Ray Saniger (Cook), Dee Cooper (Jailer), Deborah Shore (Pearl), The Great John L. (Kaminski), David Stephen Essex (Elroy), Chuck "The Tuna" Collins, Bob 'Red Dog' Young, Danny 'Budman' Delany, Ron Holmstrom, Kristie Helstoski (C.B. Voices)
"It's mostly unintentional, but there's plenty to enjoy in this bizarre melding of Chuck Norris and CB radio hollering truckers." -- BBCi-Films
Handle With Care is a 1977 comedy movie set in a small town in Nebraska and loosely based on the wide popularity of citizens' band radio, usually called "CB," at the time. It was directed by Jonathan Demme.
The movie was also re-released under the title Citizens Band, and, at this writing the only home video release to date of the film (on VHS tape) was under the latter title.
In the film, all of the cast of characters are known by their CB "handles" (nicknames.)
Paul Le Mat plays "Spider," a young man who makes a meager living repairing CB radios and spends his spare time volunteering with REACT International. He lives with his father, an irascible retired truck driver (Roberts Blossom) whose CB handle is "Papa Thermodyne."
"Chrome Angel" (played by Charles Napier) is an interstate truck driver named Harold passing through the outskirts of town during bad weather, when he is injured in an accident. After Chrome Angel issues an emergency call over CB Channel 9, Spider rescues him, taking him to the hospital. During his recovery in town, Harold is visited by a local prostitute Debbie (alias "Hot Coffee"--played by Alix Elias), who solicits customers over the CB radio. Chrome Angel has two wives, Connie (Marcia Rodd) who calls herself "Portland Angel" as she is from Portland, Oregon and the other, Joyce (alias "Dallas Angel"--Ann Wedgeworth) who lives in Dallas, Texas, neither of whom know he is married to the other, and both of them arrive in town at the same time to visit him while he is recovering. They not only discover that he has been seeing Hot Coffee, but during a conversation the two strike up in the bus station, both meeting for the first time they discover for the first time that they are married to the same man.
Spider, meanwhile, is seeing Pam ("Electra"--Candy Clark), a waitress who, unbeknownst to Spider, has a hobby of her own, striking up erotic conversations over the CB with teenage boys. She is also romantically interested in Spider's older brother, Dean, (Bruce McGill) who goes by the CB handle "Blood."
After Spider's activities with REACT are seriously disrupted by a gang of local kids holding a frivolous conversation on Channel 9, which is reserved for emergency communications, he decides to go on a singlehanded county-wide crusade to shut down disruptive and illegal CB stations, such as those using unlawful linear amplifiers. Spider's targets include "The Red Baron," a neo-Nazi who uses a high-powered CB base station to broadcast white supremacist monologues; "The Hustler," a teenage boy who reads pornography aloud over the air, and several others. Spider and a partner from REACT begin a spree of cutting antenna wires, intimidating offenders by visiting their homes and claiming to be Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officials, and other vigilante acts in the hopes of cleaning up the CB airwaves.
As Chrome Angel's two wives learn they are both married to the same man, and Spider learns that his fiancee is the infamous Electra, much of the last part of the film resembles a comic soap opera as the myriad complicated friendships and odd romantic relationships are finally sorted out. Finally, the whole town comes together in a search and rescue effort after Papa Thermodyne suddenly disappears.
Smokey and the Bandit was a 1977 movie starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Paul Williams, and Mike Henry. It is considered by many to be the truck drivers movie & would inspire several other trucking films including two sequels, Smokey and the Bandit II, and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. Also, a television movie was loosely based on the film called Bandit. The 3 movies introduced three generations of the Pontiac Trans Am (unlike the television movie version which the other Bandit drives the Dodge Stealth R/T Twin Turbo). The film was the second highest grossing film of 1977, beaten only by Star Wars.
Most of the movie centers around Cledus "Snowman" Snow (Reed) and Bo "Bandit" Darville (Reynolds) taking a shipment of Coors beer from Texarkana, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia (At the time Coors wasn't available in the eastern US, it was illegal to ship it east of Texas). They were promised $80,000 from Big and Little Enos Burdett if they could make the run in 28 hours. Along the way, Bandit picks up Carrie "Frog" (Field), and finds himself being pursued by Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Gleason). Carrie had run away from her wedding to Justice's son, Junior, (Henry) and so the plot gets going when Buford is told Frog got into a Trans-Am.
Convoy was a movie released in 1978, directed by Sam Peckinpah, and starring Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw, Ernest Borgnine, and Burt Young. Co-starring: Madge Sinclair, Seymour Cassel, and Franklyn Ajaye.
Independent truckers form a mile-long convoy in support of a fellow trucker's vendetta with an abusive sheriff. Based on the 1976 hit country song by C.W. McCall.
The trip touches on social empowernment issues of class, race and gender as well as the place of the law in modern society. As the rebellious truckers run from the police, "The Rubber Duck" (Kristofferson) becomes a reluctant folk hero.
Eventually culminating in a show down on the Gulf of Mexico, this is really a Western film with a modern setting, the individualistic American dreamers, running foul of the law.
Produced by exploitation studio AIP, this low-budget trucking epic followed in the wake of Burt Reynolds's Smokey and the Bandit and went head-to-head with Sam Peckinpah's Convoy. Jerry Reed, who appeared in three Smokey films, is joined this time by biker Peter Fonda and female trucker Helen Shaver. The real star, though, is the massive rig that bowls down the freeway causing mayhem while our three heroes resist various hijackers, bootleggers and the corrupt trucking boss played by Chris Wiggins. If roadside diners, CB radio slang and exhaust fumes are your thing, then hitch a ride.
CB Hustlers [1978]
Servicing the highway's sleaziest truckers is the name of the game for the ladies of CB HUSTLERS, who operate a brothel out of their van in this bawdy comedy. Taking their work on the road, these ladies offer physical satisfaction to anyone who needs a little "rest stop" on their journey. Through their CB radio, the ladies keep in contact with truckers statewide, informing them whenever and wherever they plan to pull over. This sex-station on wheels works out perfectly for all involved until the girls cross the state line and encounter some moral opposition. A prime example of the sex-fuelled road movies that proliferated throughout the 1970s, CB HUSTLERS stars Tiffany Jones, Edward Roehm, and the legendary Uschi Digard. 1978.
Every Which Way But Loose [1978]
This unusual combination of bare knuckle fighting and lighthearted romp was also a comedic change of pace for its rugged star Clint Eastwood. Eastwood plays trucker Philo Beddoe, a revered brawler who lives in a shack with his best pal's feisty, elderly mother (Ruth Gordon) and an orangutan, Clyde, who sips beer and thumbs his nose at authority. Philo is preparing for a bout against the wishes of his mother and his new love interest (Sandra Locke). If clashing with the women in his life weren't enough, he has to deal with his cocky opponent, gamblers, and a chopper gang who constantly harrass him. Fortunately, he does have Clyde backing him up as well as his trusty companion Orville Boggs (regular Eastwood collaborator Geoffrey Lewis).
This bizarre hick comedy was a surprise hit and spawned a sequel featuring many in the original cast. The country soundtrack combines the talents of Steve Dorff and Snuff Garrett and boasts a hit single by Eddie Rabbit.
The Great Smokey Roadblock / The Last Of The Cowboys [1978]
"His name was Elegant John. He vowed to be an independent trucking man as long as he lived. And as long as voices sounded on CB, they'd be telling the story loud and clear of the greatest cross country run an 18 wheel Kenworth ever made - the wildly incredibly perfect long haul that was every trucking man's ultimate dream."
Henry Fonda plays Elegant John, an old trucker who steals back his prized rig in California and takes off with almost no money. His Kenworth tractor has the name Eleanor on it. Elegant John once met Eleanor Roosevelt. He pulls a Fruehauf van with a "sunroof". Why is he called Elegant John? Well, sonny, if you drive five million miles without being late or having a wreck, you deserve to be called Elegant. Elegant John picks up Bible-thumping hitchhiker Beebo Crozier, who is going to Florida to learn motel management. Elegant John stops and gets fuel. Beebo reluctantly pays for fuel. The two stop at a whorehouse for truckers at Cheyenne, Wyoming, a possible homage to Fonda's movie The Cheyenne Social Club. The prostitutes are about to be raided, and the madam hires Elegant John to take them to the coast of South Carolina to start another prostitution business. Thus Elegant John's trip will be coast to coast. They go through Kansas and have a commotion near Springfield, Missouri, with Dub Taylor's character Harley Davidson. After that, there's a truck stop dancing scene to the music of Orleans' "Still the One", which is pop rock in a country sort of way. The movie claims that it's a compliment for a truck driver to be called a cowboy, but I've seen where an out-of-place, amateur, careless truck driver is called a cowboy or a cotton picker. There's a great Smokey roadblock in Georgia to stop them. Will Elegant John's Kenworth plow through a bunch of old Mopars? Will Elegant John live to see the Atlantic Ocean? And what is Beebo going to do with his life, now that it has taken an unexpected turn? This movie is just a hodgepodge of elements thrown together for drive-in fare.
Cannonball Run was a campy, screwball comedy movie released in 1981 that starred Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise and Farrah Fawcett. Hal Needham was the director and had an uncredited role as an emergency medical technician. The premise is very similar to the earlier Cannonball and The Gumball Rally (both 1976).
Based on a true story, the movie is about a cross-country rally from Ohio to the pier at Redondo Beach, California organized by automotive journalist Brock Yates. Since the entire point of the rally was to get to the finish line as quickly as possible, it's safe to assume that many speed laws were broken along the way.
Reynolds and DeLuise play has-been race driver "J.J. McClure" and his mild-mannered mechanic "Victor Prinzim" (with a superhero alter ego, "Captain Chaos") who run the Cannonball in an ambulance, a heavily modified Dodge Tradesman van which was actually used in the original running of the Cannonball. In an attempt to appear legitimate to law enforcement, Victor hires "Doctor Nikolas Van Helsing," an inebriated physician of questionable skill played by Jack Elam. They kidnap young photographer "Pamela Glover" (Farrah Fawcett) nicknamed "Beauty" to be their "patient." Though Beauty protests her apprehension at first, she eventually comes around to the idea of being a participant in the race. A scene where the ambulance is stopped by law enforcement for speeding to California since the patient was "unable to fly" is based on an actual event.
Cannonball Run II is a film that was released in 1984. Like the original Cannonball Run, this film is a comedy set around an illegal cross-country race. The cast included Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Catherine Bach, Tim Conway, Susan Anton, Jackie Chan, Shirley MacLaine, Sid Caesar, Foster Brooks, Telly Savalas, Jamie Farr, Marilu Henner, Tony Danza, Ricardo Montalban, Jack Elam, Richard Kiel, Don Knotts, Jim Nabors, Louis Nye, Molly Picon, Charles Nelson Reilly, Abe Vigoda, Alex Rocco, Henry Silva, Mel Tillis, Arte Johnson, Chris Lemmon, Marty Allen, Avery Schreiber, former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann and Frank Sinatra.
Despite its all-star cast, it is widely considered to be silly in terms of plot development. However, many still appreciate it for its kitsch value. The film received eight Golden Raspberry Award nominations in 1984, including Worst Picture, Worst Actor, and Worst Actress, but no wins.
In this Road Warrior clone, an aging trucker spends his retirement mining an old cobalt mine with the assistance of his devoted grandson. A good friend lures the trucker out of retirement by offering him a quarter of a million dollars to drive some plutonium from Nevada to a high-security operation in Arizona. He begins his trek in a high-tech rig unaware that terrorist are waiting to ambush him and his deadly cargo.
When an army of evil aliens invades earth with the intention of selling mankind as intergalactic hamburger meat, the New Zealand government calls in an elite team of psychotic assassins. But are these boys brutal enough to tackle the vilest villains in the universe? Get ready for the ultimate battle of flying guts, splattering brains, exploding sheep and guzzling vomit. This is more than just one of the greatest - and most disgusting - horror comedies ever made.
You have never seen anything like Bad Taste! This legendary low-budget debut from producer/director/c0-writer/star Peter Jackson is packed with all the outrageous action, senseless violence and sick humor that has made it one of the most radical cult classics of all time. Restored and newly transferred from original vault materials, Bad Taste is now presented completely uncut, uncensored and unrated in all its gory glory!
After working on this movie for more than four years on an extremely tight budget (and with a cast and crew consisting only of himself and a group of close friends), filmmaker Peter Jackson eventually completed it with the help of the New Zealand Film Commission, who were very impressed with what they'd seen so far of Jackson's first cinematic effort. In BAD TASTE, a small New Zealand coastal town is taken over by the extraterrestrial Lord Crumb and his army of alien invaders, who are planning to "harvest" the inhabitants for an intergalactic chain of fast-food restaurants. But Derek (Jackson) and his mates from AIDS (the Astro Investigation and Defense Service) are sent in by the government to destroy the enemy at all costs and ensure the survival of mankind. With plenty of gross-out shock effects, grotesque humanoid aliens, and high camp value, it's easy to see why this film became a cult favorite and a big hit on the midnight-movie scene. Jackson would go on to direct the ultragory DEAD ALIVE, the acclaimed drama HEAVENLY CREATURES, and one of the greatest trilogies in cinema history--THE LORD OF THE RINGS....
Social realism regarding struggles of reservation-dwelling Native Americans in the North Central states of the US. Main character is an introspective and lovable person in a process of seeking pride and identity through tradtional and mystical means of gathering power. His high school friend, who is a Vietnam War Veteran, is exerting power as a highly principled social activist, using a modern rational materialist adversarial model of progress.
Buddy Red Bow is struggling, in the face of persecution, by greedy developers and political in-fighting, to keep his nation on a Montana Cheyenne Reservation financially solvent and independent. Philbert, a simple-minded friend of Buddy's, ardently pursues Native American/First Nation wisdom and lore wherever he can find it--even on Bonanza--in order to earn his warrior name. He's even got his war pony, Protector: a beat-up old wreck of a car. Buddy's sister has been arrested in Santa Fe, and together Buddy and Philbert set off on a road trip to look after her kids and go bail her out. However, Bonnie's arrest has something strange about it as her friend Rabbit points out. As the miles roll by, Philbert's faith challenges Buddy's hard-edged view of the world (and occasional bout of reckless violence), and together they face the realities and dreams of being Cheyenne in the modern-day US as they fight to free Bonnie and her children and elude the Feds.
Dazed and Confused movie posterDazed and Confused is a 1993 American movie written and directed by Richard Linklater. The movie has a large ensemble cast, many of whom share the spotlight. The title is derived from the Led Zeppelin song "Dazed and Confused".
The movie tells the stories of the last day of school in May 1976 in a Texas suburb. It was shot on location in Austin, Texas. The camera dips in and out of the lives of a variety of students at the school, rather than focusing on a single individual - in a manner reminiscent of, but less extreme than, Linklater's earlier film Slacker, which was likewise shot on location in Austin, Texas.
The film took in only $8 million at the box office, but in recent years has achieved cult film status, particularly on U.S. college campuses.
The film paid considerable attention to period and locational detail, mostly the cars, clothing, slang and music of the time, the soundtrack featuring rock staples of the era and fads like citizens' band radio. It also occasionally featured a sense of melancholy, the belief of having "missed out" by several years on the monumental events of the turbulent late 1960s.
The film's lack of conventional narrative structure, and undemonized depiction of marijuana use, have associated it with "stoner" culture somewhat. It should be noted that the film's biggest marijuana smoker is portrayed as a loser allowing life to pass him by while everyone else gets on with their lives.
"Dazed and Confused" has been compared to American Graffiti in its loosely-structured depiction of one night in the lives of a group of high school students.
As the movie starts, the last day of school at a small town Texas high school is beginning. Most of the main characters are introduced during this time. One of the characters is Randall "Pink" Floyd, a star football player who hangs around with not only the jocks but also with members of the two other cliques at the school, stoners and nerds. Pink thus serves as a link connecting all of the school's different social groups.
The last day of school proceeds with regular classes but the soon-to-be-senior class (Class of 1977) is more interested in getting ready for the annual hazing of the incoming freshman class, which will take place after school. The boys spend the day making paddles in shop class, the girls buy groceries which will be used for the hazing. In the film, the hazing is depicted as a ritualized event that has the support of the town (the town even opens the concession stand for the event.) Boys and girls have different hazing rituals; freshman boys are chased and paddled when caught, freshman girls have food poured on them, do "air raid" drills, and then have to propose marriage to boys in the senior class.
Mitch Kramer, one of the incoming freshmen, is a pitcher on his baseball team and he is singled out for hazing by the seniors, who wait for him after a late afternoon baseball game. Among the seniors there is Pink Floyd; perhaps because Pink is a starting quarterback and Kramer is a starting pitcher, Pink sees Kramer as following in his footsteps as one of the school's top athletes, and invites him to tag along to party for the rest of the evening.
Another subplot involves the coaches introducing a new policy for the upcomimg 1976-77 school year in which athletes have to sign a written pledge that they will not use alcohol or illegal drugs. Pink refuses to sign the pledge sheet. The coaches berate Pink for hanging out with "that other crowd" (meaning the stoners).
After the hazing is over, a night of partying begins. One of the students, the drug dealer Pickford whose parents were planning on leaving town that day for a vacation, plans a party at his house. A truck delivering kegs of beer for the party arrives early before his parents have left, and they find out about the party and cancel their vacation.
The party thus cancelled, the kids head downtown to a pool hall called the Emporium. Kramer is sent to buy beer at a convenience store even though he is only a 14-year-old freshman. The movie conspicuously shows the much more relaxed attitudes toward both teenage alcohol consumption and driving with open beer containers at the time; Kramer can easily buy beer as the lawful Texas drinking age at the time was 18 and even that was lightly enforced.
Also at the Emporium, Wooderson is introduced. He is in his twenties but still hangs around with the high school students and is mostly interested in smoking marijuana and chasing high school girls.
A few freshmen have endured a particularly brutal hazing at the hands of one of the seniors, O'Bannion, and they plot their revenge by luring O'Bannion outside of the Emporium and dumping paint on him.
After the Emporium, the kids head for an all-night keg party in the woods which was put together by Wooderson.
Other activities depicted in the film include cruising the streets, mailbox baseball, the use of the public address function of CB radio, and foosball. The film goes into great detail showing prices of the time such as rising gasoline and cigarette prices, social issues, clothing styles and music popular in 1976, and other popular culture references ranging from Gilligan's Island and Star Trek to the American Bicentennial.
Academy Awards: Nominated for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, 1997.
Directed by Jan De Bont. Starring Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz, Lois Smith, Alan Ruck, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Unlike earthquakes, their fury is precise. Unlike hurricanes, their reach is unlimited. Unlike fires, there is no way to combat them. Unlike floods, their terror is sudden.
Tornadoes are a singular phenomenon, at once breathtaking in their beauty and unspeakable in their ruin. Their capricious nature -- laying waste to acres or carrying a baby unharmed for miles, flattening a house while leaving its next-door neighbor untouched -- has given them a fearsome and mighty place in American mythology.
They have remained enigmatic and undisciplined killers . . . until now.
The largest storm to hit Oklahoma in more than half a century is brewing, and it promises to drop multiple twisters into Tornado Alley. It's the storm that two rival groups of scientists have been waiting for to earn their place in meteorological history.
Each team wants to be the first to launch their own equipment pack inside a twister to transmit valuable scientific data about tornadic behavior. The one who does might finally solve the mystery of a tornado and help save countless lives. But to do so, they must put themselves directly in the path of the marauding monster -- and stay always just ahead of the swirling twister, anticipating its every erratic move.
Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) and her band of brash university scientists in their banged-up trucks race better-funded, corporate-sponsored Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes) and his sleek, crack cadre with their state-of-the-art research vans. Through an unforgettable afternoon, night and morning marked by life-endangering exploits, they come face-to-face with a series of tornadoes ripping through the Oklahoma countryside.
Adding to the charged atmosphere, Jo's soon-to-be-ex-husband, meteorologist Bill Harding (Bill Paxton), reluctantly joins Jo and his old crew for this last, epic chase. Bill's brought his not-prepared-for-this kind-of-thing girlfriend, Melissa (Jamie Gertz), whose presence alongside the bickering Jo and Bill makes for a three-sided relationship as stormy as the weather around them.
Twister is inspired by real-life adventurers who live and work in the Midwest's Tornado Alley. These courageous storm chasers are called to action when a tornado watch is issued by the National Weather Service, who can only predict the likelihood of a twister touchdown.
In spite of all the modern electronic and satellite scientific wizardry at their disposal, the National Weather Service still has to rely mainly on the human eye for the final devastating confirmation of a tornado, so it's left to the storm chasers to witness and confirm "ground truth" of a cyclone. These professionals are often the best and sometimes the only warning that a 300-mile-an-hour wind is coming down from the sky.
And to help save the lives of others, they must continually endanger their own.
Team Ahma [1998] (THE one and only Finnish CB-"movie";)
The series tells about two best friends; Jarno Ahma and Alpo Kurkinen. Jarno is a grounds-keeper and Alpo is a Post office worker - UNTIL THAT DAY
"That day" means the day, when Jarno and Alpo are bored to their jobs and they need some change in their lives. Jarno get's an idea - TO MAKE THEIR OWN HIGHROAD - SERVICE! They tune their Saab (Saab is a car, if you didn't know!), so it looks like a real highway service car, they make their service uniforms... Then is time for the service title - TEAM AHMA!
Their new job is going well, but - they forgot one thing - LISENCES! Without licenses you can't build out a service team, as we all know, the law says so! Jarno and Alpo get's in a jail, both in their own cells. I can still hear in my head, when Alpo is yelling for Jarmo on a prison night: "Jarno! Jarnooo!!!"
Oooooh, creepy.
Jarno's parent's get for J. and A. their license and they can continue their street works...
While they are at prison, their Saab has been stolen, and the stealer is........... Well, i ain't telling ya! Jarno find's it back, when he's searched it for awhile, and Jarno and Alpo can continue their highway services. Happy ending, ain't it?
You know, I told the whole series's story in ONE comment only!
Patrick Swayze does some "dirty driving" in this routine trucker tale. There hasn't been a good truck-driving movie on the horizon since the glory days of CB radios and convoys. Black Dog does nothing to alter that situation. It's the kind of movie that gives good trucker movies (i.e., Jonathan Kaplan's White Line Fever, Sam Peckinpah's Convoy, Steven Spielberg's Duel and Hal Needham's first Smokey and the Bandit) a bad name. A butched-up Swayze plays Jack Crews, an unlicensed trucker hauling an illegal shipment of AK-47s from Atlanta to Newark, New Jersey. Jack used to be one of the best truckers around but then he pushed too far and saw the Black Dog ñ the apparition reportedly seen by sleepy truckers at the end of the line. Jack's run-in with the Black Dog caused the death of two individuals. Now, after serving two years in prison, Jack has been released, minus his license to operate a rig. All he wants at this point is to do right by his wife and young daughter. But the bank is trying to foreclose on his house and his boss wants him to drive just this one illegal shipment, so what's an earnest, well-intentioned guy to do? Director Kevin Hooks demonstrates his massive versatility as he switches from the airplane action of Passenger 57 to the truck theatrics of Black Dog. The script by William Mickelberry and Dan Vining woefully slides by on autopilot and sports some of the worst dialogue this side of Quest for Fire. Lots of trucks get blown up real good (especially when colliding with trains or hurtling off cliffs). Swayze maintains a stolid, low-key presence throughout but it seems, well, too stolid and low-key for someone caught in the eye of this death run. Randy Travis has a tongue-in-cheek good time with his role as a trucker who writes tuneless country songs in his abundant spare time. Meat Loaf, on the other hand, as the gospel-spouting bad guy and sputtering loon, plays a character more tired than yesterday's meatloaf. The usually reliable Charles Dutton and Stephen Tobolowsky are utterly wasted as the squabbling FBI and ATF chiefs in charge of the mission. Black Dog is best kept on a short leash.
Joy Ride is a 2001 thriller film directed by John Dahl and starring Paul Walker, Leelee Sobieski and Steve Zahn. It was written by Clay Tarver and J.J. Abrams. In Australia and the UK it was marketed as Roadkill.
The film concerns a young college student driving across the country to pick up his high school sweetheart. Unfortunately, after picking up his raucous-spirited older brother along the way, they soon get on the bad side of a psychotic truck driver after taunting him over a CB radio. The driver hunts them down in similiar vein to the film Duel (1971).
Bad horror films are where America's least-talented kids go to die. But the ones in the new farmland gothic ''Jeepers Creepers 2'' don't get picked off soon enough. There's a killer on the loose, and he's having a tough time figuring out which of the 20 or so stranded members of the championship varsity basketball team he wants to eat. (I say, start with the actors who have three names.)
As the genre demands, their school bus has broken down in the Heartland (or if you're a Hollywood movie, the middle of nowhere), leaving the boys and three girls to fuss and fight over whether to flee the bus or stay inside, trapped like advanced-placement sardines.
Victor Salva's sequel is set mere days after his minor 2001 hit. And it plays better as exasperating comedy than genuine horror -- although there is something terrifying about being stuck in a movie whose idea of a bogeyman is a scarecrow with an eating disorder.
To be fair, he can swoop down without warning and carry you off somewhere to do God knows what. But he's not scary enough to stir more than a chuckle when a newscaster announces that he's creating ''a human tapestry of sadism and terror.'' Jack Taggart -- played by Ray Wise as a solemn piece of kitsch -- isn't laughing. The thing swooped down on his farm and took off with his boy. He's now determined to hunt it down. Once his CB picks up the cries of help coming from the bus, it's on.
This thing, this Creeper, as the credits call him, is part generic space demon, part bassist in an unsigned speed metal band: deadly but unduly righteous. (Jonathan Breck plays him.) On the bus, we learn from Minxie (Nicki Lynn Aycox) that every 23d day of every 23d spring, the Creeper eats till he's full. Seeing that bus on the road, he must realize he just doesn't feel like cooking tonight.
Mysteriously, Minxie -- her name is Minxie -- has caught the vapors, a condition that gives her visions of Darry (Justin Long), one of the first film's victims. He's a psychic hotline to the Creeper's intentions, which she shares with her skeptical schoolmates.
Salva offers only a vague logic behind his monster's killing. He makes up all manners of legend and myth, but it's the kind of mumbo jumbo that promises more sequels but no scares. Like its predecessor, ''Jeepers Creepers'' is suspenseful as long as you don't have to look its Creeper in the eye.
Surprisingly, the kids-trapped-on-a-bus plot takes longer to blow a tire than the bus. There are good, funny bits involving the passengers darting in unison from one side of the bus to the other to see what's going on outside. But there's no way Salva can juggle more than 20 characters and a vengeful farmer and his scarecrow. After a while he just gives up -- even on the schvitzing nerd Bucky (Billy Aaron Brown).
The boys don't seem all that concerned about the pending doom, anyway. They have another monster in their midst: Scotty (Eric Nenninger), the blue-eyed sulker who's annoyed that he played in the big game for only 12 minutes. He cries reverse racism, basically calling Deundre (Garikayi Mutambirwa) a ball hog and berating Izzy (Travis Schiffner) for his alleged trip to a gay bar. Earlier, Minxie warned everybody that the Creeper preys on fear. So it's evidence of a major character flaw that it doesn't eat the racist-homophobe first.
Five years ago, Rennie (Jim Caviezel) witnessed his wife being killed in a deliberate hit and run incident; now he drives around the U.S.A. searching for the man who committed the murder. Molly (Rhona Mitra) is a singer in a choir who is attending practice one night, and she declines a lift home from a fellow performer to go with her friend Alex (Andrea Roth). As they drive through the city streets, they enter a tunnel only to be met with the sight of a crashed truck which carried a horse - Alex swerves to avoid it and causes the truck behind her to crash. They stop to survey the damage, and Alex tells Molly to stay where she is while she goes to get help, but there's another car in the tunnel... the car belonging to the hit and run driver...
This bizarre, handsomely photographed horror was scripted by Craig Mitchell and Hans Bauer, and sounds like it could feature the plot of a seventies drive-in movie with its gimmicky serial killer and action sequences. However, director Robert Harmon doesn't go the sensational route but instead opts for a moody approach where a trashy style might have served the more than slightly silly story better. Its murderer, Fargo (Colm Feore), is a man who has made himself part of his car, an extension of his body as Rennie says, after he was seriously injured in a smash up. So we glimpse the killer as a wheelchair-bound half man-half machine, with prosthetic limbs and a neck brace, zooming around in his customised car.
If you're looking for positive images of the disabled, then move along please, because you won't find them here. Fargo is an irredeemable psychopath, although at least we find out he was a psychopath before his crippling accident rather than because of it. When he sees Alex in the tunnel, he doesn't waste much time in running her over with undisguised glee, using his car as weapon of choice. Molly manages to escape, but not before Fargo has taken a photograph of her for future reference, and speeds off. At the crime scene, Rennie turns up and realises that the killer won't be satisfied with letting Molly go so easily, so decides to help her by helping himself - he will use her as bait.
Later, Rennie meets Molly at a support group, and persuades her to arrange a meeting. Rennie is just as obsessed as Fargo, and they have been engaging in a cat and mouse chase across the states, communicating via CB radio to taunt each other. At this point, another pursuer enters the story, a middle aged traffic investigator named Macklin (Frankie Faison) who realises that Rennie has something to do with the tunnel incident. And so the small cast of characters is complete, and Fargo makes his move by smashing into a car Molly is riding in one night, flipping it upside down and towing it along the highway with a chain until Rennie catches up with them. These action scenes are well handled, but can't shake the feeling of what you're watching is expertly-staged nonsense.
After that, Molly reluctantly teams up with Rennie, and more low key acting ensues as there's nobody turning up the charisma here. The hunter versus the hunted storyline is a tried and tested one, and Highwaymen keeps this formula as simple as possible, with any dialogue about motives and purpose seeming extraneous. Fargo used to pore over car crash photographs when he was a kid, Rennie was the one who smashed up the killer in revenge, but of course the police never take an interest, seeing the deaths as random accidents. Eventually the action moves to the middle of nowhere, lonely highways running between rolling plains, which is where it looks most comfortable, and the final confrontation occurs with Molly as a strangely fetishised kidnap victim. You can admire the film's single-mindedness and sleek appearance, but its lack of depth does nothing to make its big idea look palatable, and even though it's short, it should have lost the final minute. Music by Mark Isham.
The Dukes of Hazzard is a movie based on the American television sitcom, The Dukes of Hazzard. Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar and released to movie theatres nationwide on August 5, 2005, The Dukes of Hazzard depicts the adventures of cousins Bo, Luke, Daisy and their Uncle Jesse as they outfox crooked Hazzard County commissioner Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane.
The film was #1 at the box office its opening weekend, grossing $30.7 million on 3,785 screens — this despite being panned by most professional film critics (its Tomatometer rating at Rotten Tomatoes is an abysmal 18 percent). Roger Ebert gave the film one star, calling it a "lame-brained, outdated wheeze" and suggesting that Burt Reynolds' part in the film is "karma-wise... the second half of what "Smokey and the Bandit" was the first half of." [1] The Washington Post's Desson Thomson saw it differently: "This is one unusual case in which aiming for a middling C grade turns out to be A-plus work."
