LoC #132 Top 112 Road Movies / Journey Films

[stethacantus]

I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look—wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build, I'll be there, too.

That was the speech delivered by Tom Joad ( played by Henry Fonda, who earned an Academy Award nomination for the role ) from the great American film The Grapes of Wrath. A film so inspiring, that no one had it on their list.  Oh well. I guess we found the one place Tom Joad will not be, and that is this LoC. In 1940 when The Grapes of Wrath was in theaters, the Road Movie was not a genre. Sure, what would be counted today as a Road Movie had been around for a while. Just that no one thought of it as a genre yet.  the closest any studio came to that was two months later when Paramount released Road to Singapore, the first in what would be six Road to... movie sin the next twelve years. These films had a formula. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby would play conmen who both fall for Dorothy Lamour. She would end up choosing Bob, only for him to realize she was really in love with Bing, which has him encouraging her to go be with Bing. The films took place in exotic locations, or at least as exotic as they could make a Hollywood soundstage look. But the films had very little in travel to those locations. They weren't really travel films, and the title "Road To..." was meant more metaphorically than literally. Especially as some of the locals Crosby, Hope and Lamour were headed to could only be reached by boat. As for pictures that took place on an actual road, studios were resistant of making them. They preferred their films to be made within the studio gates, not so much as to keep down production costs, but because it was nearly impossible to keep crowds of fans away from location shoots, and with sound film technology still in it's early years, impossible to keep outside noises from ruining takes. Any outside shooting was usually done on a backlot, or on a fenced off ranch, with some additional establishing shots filmed by outside the studio by second units.

Road Movies would not be thought of as a genre until television created the genre. It was not derived from previously existing movies, but from Jack Kerouac's ground breaking novel On The Road, which was plagiarized by producers Herbert Leonard and Stirling Silliphant for their series Route 66, the same route Tom Jode had taken on the silver screen twenty years earlier. The series had two young men named Tod and Buz deciding to take a cross country trip by car across America, randomly stopping in towns where they ended up helping the inhabitants. The series lasted three seasons, but began a long lasting genre of television.

Over on ABC, producer Quinn Martin took the Route 66 concept and slightly reinvented it as the series The Fugitive. In that series, Dr. Richard Kimble is convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, despite his insistence his wife was killed by a one armed man. The train he is being transported on derails, and he escapes, deciding to track down the one armed man himself and prove his innocence. Aside from he police, he is relentlessly tracked by Lt. Philip Gerard, who is always just one step behind Kimble, just as Kimble is usually one step behind the mysterious one armed man. Each episode has Kimble arriving in a town the one armed man had just been in. Then, just like Buz and Tod over on CBS, discovers some sort of crime in the town and ends up helping the inhabitants, then leaving town just as Gerard arrives. The Fugitive was one of the first television series to know it was ending , allowing it to have a proper series finale where Kimble corners the one armed man in an amusement park, and finally proves his innocence. At the time, the final episode broke all ratings records, having more viewership than the Beatles appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Of course, other television producers noticed this, and decided to copy the formula. Variants of the formula, the protagonist traveling from town to town as a fugitive, searching for something, finding a crime he ends up solving, was plugged into a wide variety of series. With Kung Fu, the protagonist, the Shaolin Monk Kwai Chang Cain, is on the run from authorities for the murder of a Chinese prince, and goes from town to town in the old  American West searching for his half brother.  The Planet of the Apes television series had astronauts Burden and Burke on the run from the apes, searching for the technology to play digital tapes from their rocket which would tell them why they went through a time warp into the future. The Logan's Run television series had Logan and Jessica on the run from the Sandmen, searching for a safe place called Sanctuary. The title character of  Lucan was abandoned as an infant in a forest and raised by wolves. Captured and institutionalized by doctors trying to teach him to be civilized, he escapes the institute to search for his birth parents, In The Incredible Hulk, Dr. David Banner travels the country searching for a cure to his self inflicted exposure to Gamma radiation which turns him into a green giant every time he gets mad. Instead of being perused by the army as in the comic book, the producers saved money by having Banner perused by a single reporter determined to prove that the Hulk exists. In Phoenix, a Peruvian mummy is unearthed, and not only turns out to still be alive, but is an ancient alien astronaut. Called Bennuof the Golden Light, he soon escapes from the scientists who found him, and is hunted by the government because.... well, he's a f%$king alien, as he searches for a female alien who had been sent to Earth with him. And The Master had master ninja John Peter McAlister on the run from other ninjas as he searches for his daughter. Each series had it protagonist going from town to town, discovering some sort of criminal activity, and helping the townspeople before moving on.

By the time The Master aired, the Fugitive formula was on it's way out. It's final episode had broken ratings records, but by the 80s that record had been surpassed by the mini-series Roots, the Dallas episode where the mystery as to who shot J.R. is solved, and the final episode of M*A*S*H, not to mention several Super Bowl broadcasts.  The Fugitive had gone from a recently aired network series, to something to something that gets a mention on shows depicting the history of television. An entire generation had not seen The Fugitive, and had no idea these  other series were basically remakes. The trope with series where the characters went from town to town solving problems continued, but like Highway to Heaven, became mission specific, where Landon's angel character showed up in a town God sent him to specifically to solve a problem there.  The final major series of that era to use the trope where the characters were on the run being The A-Team, although showing up in towns they had been hired to eliminate the local criminals from. Of course, just because television executives thought the Fugitive formula had grown stale, didn't mean it wasn't attractive to movie producers. in 1993 a theatrical version of The Fugitive with Harrison Ford as Dr. Kimble. As a two hour film, the film did not have Kimble traveling from town to town rescuing people from criminals as had been done in the series, but rather specifically stuck to Kimble finding the evidence to prove his innocence.

But enough with the Road themed television series. By the time television producers were finally putting the Fugitive formula to rest, another major shift was coming to television. VCRs and video rental and sales shops. Only a few hundred films had been released on home video to that point, most of which were public domain or foreign films. The major studios officially got into the home video market with the release of Superman on VHS, and soon after began releasing all their recent hits and popular library films. Initially rental shops only had to separate their films by a few categories: Comedy, Drama, Western, Classic ( Or Nostalgia ), Kids ( or Family ) and Adult. As more movies became available, the library of rental tapes in each store became so massive that there needed to be further divisions. he more rental tapes you had, the more you needed them separated so your customers could find the type of film they wanted. Musicals ( or simply "Music" when the record companies began releasing music video compilations ), Science Fiction, Foreign Language and Horror were the next categories added. The films were further divided into the categories of Action, Mystery, Fantasy and Romance.  Categories that had existed for years, some for decades, but were just being added to video stores. As home videos continued to be released, and video stores grew to the size of the average Blockbuster Video, further classifications needed to be created. New Releases became their own category, naturally. But these stores also had a massive back catalog of older releases. It became necessary to further sub divide into more categories by taking what was previously thought of as sub genres, such as Spy Films and Cult, and making them a category of their own. And beyond that, finding commonality among movies and giving them their own category that previously didn't exist.  Did we really think of Kaiju films as being a category before home video? They were monster movies, and monster movies were clearly Horror. Gamera was in the same category as Jason. Now Jason is in the Slasher movie category.

This is where trying to write the history of Road Films gets impossible, as it was not an actual genre prior to the 90s. It was a trope. But tropes are something you add to existing genres. This makes it harder to catalog road films made prior to the 90s as so many movies that would fit that category are unrecognized. Not so with an older category like Western. We can generate a list of every Western ever made, including silent movies long ago lost, because the genre was recognized going back to 1903's The Great Train Robbery.  Another problem is, that as the category did not yet exist, no one specifically set out to make a Road Movie the way they specifically set out to make a Western. There was less of an opportunity to build upon previous Road Films the way Westerns built upon previous Westerns. And as such, there is no real definition of what a Road Movie is beyond "I'll know if I see it." Does the category require the characters to be in a car? Must it take place on an actual paved road? Should it specifically take place in the 20th Century or later? How much of actual traveling should the characters be doing in the film? Does the destination need to be set, or can the characters travel aimlessly from one place to another? This is a very hard to define category which branches out into several films that never intended to be Road Films.  The closest we can come to a definition is the series Route 66. And if that is the case, then the Road Movie's origin traces back to the novel On The Road.

But does that mean Jack Kerouac invented the road  genre?  Well no. I mentioned that The Grapes of Wrath was also a road movie, and that was based on the classic 1939 novel written by John Steinbeck. Travel stories date back to before the invention of the written word. Some travel epics, like Homer's The Odyssey survived for hundreds of years as a poem passed down from bard to bard who each had to memorize them word for word, before finally being committed to paper. Perhaps the oldest surviving travel story still existing in it's original text. Other travel stories were to follow worldwide, such as Book of Exodus, The Seven Voyages of Sinbad and Journey to the West. And then came the modern travel tales.

Perhaps the greatest difference between the travel stories of yore and the more modern novels is the shift from fantasy to social commentary.  The original intent of travelers tales was to thrill. And if that meant adding magic and fantastical creatures, then so be it.  But if Mark Twain wanted to comment on the evils of racism with Huckleberry Finn, then he could not dilute the message by introducing fantasy to his story. So by the time Steinbeck wrote Grapes of Wrath, there had been a president of novels with down to earth travel tales. One cant help but notice how the travel tale was flipped by television. It had gone from normal everyday people traveling to fantasy realms, to normal people traveling to normal places, to shows like The Hulk or The Phoenix where fantasy characters traveled to normal towns.

So Kerouac did not invent the road genre, but merely added his own spin to an already existing genre.  Much like how Star Wars was not the first space opera, but created a style of live action space opera which other movies copied, much of what could be found in On The Road pre existed in other works of literature, both fiction and non fiction. So while we can definitely say that Route 66 became the templet for the Road Movies to follow, and On The Road was the direct templet for Route 66, it was still just one of a  very long tradition of travel literature.

[stethacantus]

Of course, it wasn't pre existing literature that inspired Kerouac, but his own life experiences. Disillusioned with America, or at least Queens, he set out on a journey of discovery. This was not unique to him. Millions of Americans were doing the same. There had not been this much mass migration of Americans since the gold rushes of the 1800s, and the pioneer days that preceded it. The migrations of the 20th century were spurred by the Great Depression. Having no jobs in your home town, and being evicted from your house by your bank, spurred millions to pack up their belongings and try to find a new life out of state. Many as train hopping hobos. This forever changed our collective instinct to settle in your home town for generations. By the 1950s the Depression was long gone, and the post World War saw a brand new America filled with a newly created network of state and interstate highways, and freshly paved roads even in the smallest towns. Where most Americans owned a vehicle, or knew someone who owned one, because there was suddenly paved roads everywhere to drive on. Where the memories of migration from the 30s translated into something new. The car trip. For some, like Kerouac, a trip by car or motorcycle was a journey of discovery. But for most, it was just a fun vacation that the whole family could go on. An adventure of sorts that didn't involve monsters or danger. And when it was over, a return to the home town you came from. A migration to nowhere in particular and back. These road trips would be the inspiration for many a screen writer, who combined their memories of family trips with the Route 66 formula.

The road trip would remain popular until it was finally ruined by Disney and the airline industry. Disney, because it's theme parks, and the theme park industry it spawned, created destinations your family wanted to spend the maximum vacation time at. And the airline industry, which had just adopted jet technology,  for giving millions of Americans the ability to get there in hours instead of days.  The states that were once families crisscrossed on road trips becoming known as the flyover states. The interstate highways being purged of the middleclass, it soon became the domain of truckers and bikers who added their own spin on road movies. There was also the college students and young adults who held nostalgia for the family road trip, and surmised the one big improvement would be if it was just them with their friends and not their parents. They did their best to turn a car ride into a party, subverting the road trip from G rated to R rated. And once again, Hollywood screen writers were inspired.

So defining a Road Movie is impossible. You have it in the imagined traditional sense, of the hero going on a journey, and finding friends and adventure on the way. Usually in a car, and usually on a paved road. And usually in the deserts of the Midwest, because, lets face it, it was cheaper for Hollywood studios to film in those nearby locations and pretend most of America looked like that. But plenty of movies only use bits and pieces of that formula. I decided to define the Road Movie as broadly as possible. Submissions didn't need to mimic Route 66. but could be any film the person submitting feels contains all the elements. Star Wars could have qualified, which has all the elements of a road movie sans the road. Not that anyone put any of the Star Wars films on their lists, nor any of the Lord of the Rings movies. Most of the submissions fell into the recognizable formula of a Road Movie, with a few that don't seem to be in any way connected to the genre. I did set the rule that any movie counts, leaving it up the person submitting the list to decide he or she could make the argument that all the films on their lists qualify. This not only prevented the usual reluctance to participate where a member feels they did not see enough qualifying films to make a list, but opened the door for a lot of unexpected submissions which makes this LoC more interesting.  It resulted in a lot of movies I didn't expect to show up in this LoC, but also in a few films that were snubbed, which I am shocked no one had on any of their lists.

I could have used a couple of more lists to break up the ties. 122 movies were submitted from the combined lists. This resulted in seven ties, some of which had as many as seven films tied for the same number. Out of those only a few ties could be broken via the usual method ( appearing on the most lists, had the highest individual ranking.... )  but almost all of the ties could not be broken, having appeared on only one list. So instead of going alphabetical, the ties were once again broken by their Rotten Tomatoes scores. In cases where films in the ties did not yet have a rotten tomato score, IMDb scores were used instead. I would have preferred all films submitted had their release date. Most of them didn't. For many, there were multiple films listed on the IMDb with the same title. In almost all cases I assumed that the person submitting the list meant the more popular, well known film with that title. For example, if someone submitted ]The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, I would assume he or she meant the well known Sergio Leone  Western, and not the obscure Bollywood film with the same name. Of course, if someone did mean an obscure arthouse and/or foreign film with the same name as a more popular film, then it is their fault for not making the distinction. If you knew it was the Bollywood musical and not the popular Clint Eastwood film, then you should not have assumed I would know that. I chose the better known film of the same title for each, and there is a good chance a mistake or two was made.  In instances where more than one of the film with the same title was just as popular ( or just as obscure ) and I could not be sure, I PMed the person sending in the list for clarification.

Oh, and BTW, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly did not make the LoC as not one person had it on their list. Even though it easily qualified. Just one of the many films everyone forgot about.

While this intro is novel length, the write ups for the  individual entries will most likely be brief. Most of this intro was written a paragraph at a time over the past couple of months in my spare time. The write ups will be written in real time, and I have 112 films to get through. Even as I write this last bit, I thought I would have most of the day free, but ended up doing a lot of work for a last minute planned barbecue.  And, it will be a lot easier to do a writeup for a film I have seen than one I need to look up the synopsis for. So it will be whatever I can write each day. My goal is to complete this by Labor Day.

So with no further ado, here is the Best Road Movie LoC. We have 112 miles to go before we reach #1. And we begin today with all the movies that only got one point.

[stethacantus]

Mile 112

Damnation Alley ( 1977 )

Studio: 20th Century Fox
Director: Jack Smight

1 Point, 1 list, #25 Stethacantus

TRAILER

Nothing says road trip like a 3,000 mile trek through an apocalyptic hellscape caused by a nuclear missile exchange with the Soviet Union.  Damn near everything on Earth has been nuked, and the explosions have even knocked the planet off it's axis. One of the Californian missile bases has survived, but about four years later is accidentally blown up by one of the soldiers. George Peppard, Jan-Michael Vincent and Paul Winfield are the lone soldiers to survive, and realizing the government had equipped them with futuristic Landmaster vehicles just before World War III, decide to make a cross country trek to Albany, New York, where maybe the nuclear missiles didn't hit.  Along the way the men will have to put up with mutant monsters, freak weather, and tons of radioactive clouds. Of course, being a black man in a 1970s film, Winfield ends up dead faster than a Star Trek redshirt. But he is soon replaced with two new survivors they pick up on the way, one being the obligatory love interest for Vincent.

This one is from my list, and I remember this movie being so dumb that it was loads of fun. When it was greenlit, Hollywood was in the midst of the 70s Disaster Movie fad. 20th Century Fox fully intended this to be their big blockbuster of 1977. They paid for the rights to the popular science fiction novel of the same name, had a decent cast of near A listers, had Jerry Goldsmith writing the score, and director Jack Smight who previously directed Airport 75. The special effects and visual effects were saved for last, which ultimately doomed this film. Another 20th Century Fox production was running into budgetary problems for that movie's special effects, and ultimately the head of the studio diverted the effects budget forDamnation Alley to Star Wars. To complete the film, Smight relied upon cheesy cheap effects and plenty of stock footage from previous 20th Century Fox films. What was supposed to be a two hour and fifteen minute epic disaster movie, ended up being a 90 minute film due to all the scenes that needed to be cut because the effects could not be completed. Post production was delayed, resulting in it getting a late October release instead of a summer release, which didn't matter because by then everything was being overshadowed by Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind

[stethacantus]

Mile 111

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure ( 1989 )

Studio: Orion Pictures
Director: Stephen Herek

1 Point, 1 list, #25 Pac-Man

TRAILER

The Road Movie as a time traveling sci-fi comedy variant.   Apparently two dim wits named Bill and Ted will some day cause world harmony through their garage band music. A man from the future named Rufus shows up with a time machine shaped like a phone booth ( they have those in the future? ) so he can make sure Bill and Ted pass their high school  history assignment. otherwise they will not graduate, Ted's father will send him to military school, and they will never write the music that brings world harmony. Teaching them how to use the time machine, Bill and Ted travel through time to collect historical persons for their assignment.

Okay, so this plot has a lot of holes in it, and the script rips a lot off from Doctor Who and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but became an instant hit with the MTV crowd, turning its two leads into major film stars...  well, turning one of it's leads into a star. It was directed by Stephen Herek who previously directed Critters, and would go on to direct The Mighty Ducks, Mr Holand's Opus and the live action 101 Dalmatians

[eegah]

Very interesting and informative writeup!

My OCD is bugged by edited photo. Not sure why someone would feel the need to edit out "LAND".

[stethacantus]

MILE 110

Near Dark ( 1987 )

Studio:  De Laurentiis Entertainment Group
Director:Katheryn Bigelow

1 point, 1 list,  #25 Charles Castle

TRAILER

Back in the 80s, there was something worse you could catch from having sex with a strange girl. And apparently that was vampirism. After an unfortunate night with a girl named Mael who turns out to be a vampire, Caleb Colton becomes infected by her bite, and becomes a vampire himself. She belongs to a traveling band of vampires who travel from town to town killing their prey, and moving on to the next town. Mae was supposed to suck Caleb dry, but instead just took enough blood to turn him, because apparently she has fallen in love with him. The other vampires in her band are not thrilled, but agree not to kill Caleb if he commits to becoming one of them. Which means that he has to learn to kill.

The plot is familiar. It has been done with quite a few films. Usually with a biker gang or bank robbers. Vampires was just the latest twist. It was the directorial debut of Kathryn Bigelow, four years before she directed Point Break, and two decades before The Hurt Locker. Her initial script for this film was a Western. But after every studio turned her down, friends in the movie business advised her to change the genre. Despite attempts to revive the Western with films like Silverado, the genre was seen as dead in the 80s. So Bigelow made a few changes to her script, resetting it in the modern west, and swapping out the gang of outlaws for a gang of vampires. The movie ended up flopping anyway, but in the years since has picked up a cult following.

[stethacantus]

MILE 109

Little Miss Sunshine ( 2006 )

Studio: Big Beach Films / Fox Searchlight
Director: Johnathan Dayton & Valerie Faris

1 point, 1 list, #25 Pastor of Muppets

TRAILER

Due to another contestant forced to drop out of a beauty pageant for eight year olds called  Little Miss Sunshine, the Hoover family gets a phone call from the pageant organizers telling them that their daughter has been selected as an alternate contestant. Which means they have two days to get from New Mexico to Los Angeles for the contest. So the entire dysfunctional family of misfits cram into their minivan to make the 800 mile journey.

This was the first script written by Michael Arndt, who would go on to write Toy Story 3 and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He had intended to direct the movie himself, and was even vowing to shoot the entire film on camcorder after several studios turned him down. Taking a friend's advice, he instead sold the script to a producer who could attach a professional director to the project. Which turned out to be two directors. The husband and wife team of Johnathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who had never shot a feature film before, but had directed many music videos, including Jane's Addiction's Been Caught Stealing.

[stethacantus]

MILE 108

Red Blooded 2

or

Red Blooded American Girl II

or

Red Blooded

or

Hot Blooded

or

Red Hot American Girl

or

Hit & Run

( 1997 )

Studio: SC Entertainment
Director: David Blyth

2 points, 1 list, #24 Stethacantus

TRAILER

I give up. I have no idea what the correct title of this film is. It varies depending on each website. For example, IMDb claims the title is Hit & Run, while Wikipedia claims it is Red-Blooded American Girl II, and Rotten Tomatoes calls it Red Blooded 2. You can find DVD listings for every title above on Amazon or EBay. Don't bother buying it because aside from bootleg copies, it is always out of print. Best you can do is rent it from a streaming site. The plot: A rich brat on his way home from college for Canadian  Thanksgiving picks up a gorgeous looking hooker ( Kari Wuhrer ) at a truck stop who is being harassed by  a maniac shirtless trucker ( Burt Young ) who is stalking her, and for a while chases the couple. Once we get to the second half of the film and the trucker is no longer in the picture, the hooker turns out to be a psychopath who refuses to leave the college boy alone, and ends up crashing his family celebration. So basically, a road movie version of Basic instinct. Not really much of a plot. The only reason why anyone seeks this garbage out is because of how hot Keri looks in it. Trying to find it by title is another story. My best guess is that this is periodically dumped on the home video market in a different title each time. Another one of those films dumb enough to be entertaining.

Trying to figure out where this film came from is no easy task. It appears to be a direct to video production with no known theatrical release. It was directed by David Blyth, a Canadian who's resume is entirely direct to video releases with a few mockbusters, but no stand out film. Which is why it seems strange that this is supposed to be a sequel to Red Blooded American Girl, which quite frankly, is a film barely anyone has seen, as opposed to a film so popular a sequel was warranted. Red Blooded American Girl was  written by Allan Moyle, a screen writer and director who directed the cult favorites  Empire Records, Pump up the Volume and my favorite film Times Square, although it seems as if he just wrote the script for the money. The film starred Andrew Stevens, Heather Thomas and Christopher Plummer, three actors known for doing any movie for the money. Having not seen the film, I can only assume their screen time is minor. According to IMDb, the plot is abut a woman who goes in for an experimental treatment at a hospital and is turned into a vampire. Which is nothing to do with the plot of it's so called sequel. The only thing both films have in common is the director, David Blyth. I am not sure if Blyth originally intended this to be a sequel and it changed during production, or if one of the home video distributors thought it would sell better as a sequel to something. As mentioned, it has Bert Young who's combined screen time is not a lot, and David Keith who only shows up at he very end of the film for a few minutes. The star of this movie should be Kari Wuhrer, who had a cult following and at the time had become a cast member in the series Sliders. But she is credited on most releases as Kari Salin for no explainable reason.

[stethacantus]

MILE 107

The Wizard ( 1989 )

Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Todd Holland

2 Points, 1 list, #24 Pac-Man

TRAILER

After a traumatic experience ( apparently watching his twin sister drown ) young Jimmy Woods spends his day walking around like a zombie and saying nothing but the word "California". His parents finally decide to have Jimmy committed to an asylum, which his 13 year old brother Corey ( Fred Savage ) disagrees with. So he decides to run away from home and take Jimmy with him. And since Jimmy says nothing but "California", then that's where they will go. At the bus station they run into future rock star Jenny Lewis, who decides to join them on their journey after she witnesses Jimmy score record points on Double Dragon. Jenny knows of a game tournament Nintendo is holding at Universal Studios, which Jimmy could win. After several misadventures and near captures by a bounty hunter their parents hired to bring them back home, they make it to the tournament where the final game is *gasp* Super Mario Bros 3! Wow! That game is not going to be in stores for another year. The family that wanted to lock Jimmy up in an asylum show up, and discover he is a finalist for a contest with a cash prize, cheer him on.  Confused by a game he has never seen before, Jimmy immediately kills Mario in the very first pitfall and loses the tournament. Disappointed, the parents hand Jimmy over to the bounty hunter to be taken immediately to the asylum, while Cory's step dad yanks down his pants, and in front of the entire crowd, gives him an epic spanking for taking his mentally challenged little brother on a dangerous cross country journey. THE END

....Okay, that's not exactly how the movie ends. But it is the way most of us wish it would have ended.

There is only one reason why this movie exists. And that is to promote Nintendo. In 1988 Nintendo North America had become so unexpectedly successful that they were selling game cartridges faster than they could make them. The problem was the U.S. manufacturer of ROM chips were not making them fast enough. And with the Commodore Home Computer picking up in sales, the sudden popularity of the NES, the approaching launch of the Game Boy, and both Sega and Atari releasing their own game consoles, there was a chip shortage. It would take about a year for silicon valley to increase the manufacturing of chips. Which meant Nintendo probably could not release any new NES games in 1989. Not wanting either Atari or Sega to get all the press, Nintendo looked for new ways to promote their existing products, as well as preview the games that they could not release for another year. Enter producer David Chisholm who wanted to do an update of the Who musical Tommy, but without The Who, without the music, and video games replacing pinball machines. Having been unable to get any game companies to license their games for the proposed movie, Chisholm turned to Nintendo, pitching them the idea of their games in a tournament film. "Sure" said Nintendo with the stipulation that most of the movie was spent promoting their games and the yet to be released Super Mario Bros. 3. "What studio will we be working with?" they asked. "Universal Pictures" Chisholm said.


...oooooooooooohhhhh....shit..

You see, only seven years earlier, when Nintendo was just getting started in the video game business, Universal Pictures sued them over Donkey Kong.  Five years before that, Universal, Paramount and the estate of King Kong's creator Merian Cooper were in a bitter three-way lawsuit over the rights to the giant ape. An executive for R.K.O. made a deal with Universal for that studio to do a remake of the 1933 King Kong. But a few days later a different R.K.O. executive made a deal with Paramount for a remake. And that executive signed a contract with Paramount. Universal sued, claiming they had a deal first. R.K.O. claimed the executive that made the deal with Universal did not have the authority to do so. The son of Cooper jumped into the fray, claiming R.K.O. didn't own King Hong and any remake deal should have been with him. And just when it looked like Parmount was going to win the case, the Universal lawyers submitted bombshell evidence. Cooper had published a novelization of King Kong a year before the movie was shot, as a way to promote the expensive effects film. The copyright on the novelization had lapsed, and it was now public domain. Ergo, Universal should be allowed to make a King Kong movie because the novel is public domain, their lawyers argued. Paramount won the right to remake the 1933 film. Universal won the right to base a film off of the public domain novel. And it was ruled that the Cooper estate owned the character King Kong, which meant anyone making sequels would need to get the rights from Cooper's son. Universal flat out offered Cooper millions to buy the rights to King Kong, and ended up owning it. Paramount talked them out of making a competing King Kong film by giving them a percentage of the profits from their King Kong film. And that should have been that.

Until Nintendo's Donkey Kong became a huge hit in the arcades, and Universal sued them because they owned the character. And Nintendo counter sued because a King Kong video game Universal had commissioned was identical to Donkey Kong. And then the Nintendo lawyers pointed out that these very Universal lawyers had argued that King Kong was public domain. And the judge threw Universal's lawsuit out, but then rewarded Nintendo on their countersuit, ruling that Universal  had plagiarized Donkey Kong.

So now it is seven years later, and this producer wants Nintendo to work with the studio that nearly ended them, and Universal to work with the video game company that publicly humiliated them. Yet somehow, bygones were bygones when it came to making money. Universal spent millions on a movie that promoted the mascot from Donkey Kong.

[stethacantus]

MILE 106

The Cannonball Run ( 1981 )

Studio: Golden Harvest
Director: Hal Needham

2 points, 1 list, #24 RVRII

TRAILER

The Cannonball Run is an illegal car race between Connecticut and California where teams in their own vehicles attempt to be the first to cross the country in the least amount of time. And that is pretty much the plot. Each team has their own strategy to avoid being puled over by  the police for speeding. Despite all teams having the ability to choose any route they want, they all end up stuck on the same highway a few miles from the finish line as construction workers are doing road repair. While every contestant is stuck in the same traffic jam, they wind up fighting a motorcycle gang, after which the road is cleared and every contestant sprints towards the finish line.

Not much of a plot there. It is a really bad film which, at least for the first film in the series, is still fun. There was some intelligence put into the script as each team came up with their own method of avoiding the police. For the stars Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise and Farrah Fawcett, their team has an ambulance as a vehicle.  The team of Jackie Chan and Michael Hui drive a futuristic car which can drive at night without headlights. Another team of two attractive woman use their good looks to get out of tickets. And another contestant who resembles Roger Moore ( played by Roger Moore ) has an Aston Martin which has the same gadgets a Bond car has, including smoke screens from the exhaust and emitting an oil slick. But that is as good as the script gets. The scripted comedy is abominable, and the film  is only saved by what is obviously improvised comedy from the cast. The screen writer was Brock Yates, the editor of Car and Driver Magazine.   He was also the founder of the real Cannonball Run car race.  After a failed attempt at a legitimate Cannonball Run movie in 1974, and two illegitimate Cannonball Run movies released in 1976 ( More on those films later ), Brock decided to write a script for a legitimate Cannonball Run movie which was to star Steve McQueen. However, McQueen had to drop out of the project when he was diagnosed with cancer. Hal Needham was attached as director. A stunt coordinator, Needham had directed a number of car chase films during the late 70s police chase boom ( more on that later as well ) and was currently in pre-production for a sequel to the successful Burt Reynolds comedy Smokey & the Bandit when Yates suggested Needham ask his friend Reynolds to star in The Cannonball Run as well. Reynold's tuned the offer down, as he had done nothing but car chase films for the past couple of years and was sick of them. Needham changed his mind by pointing out that the movie would have an ensemble cast, and Reynold would only need to work 15 days at the most. And he could shoot it concurrently with Smokey and the Bandit II as Reynolds was only needed to deliver a few lines, and his stuntman would do the rest. Reynolds told Needham to give him $5 million  and it was a deal.

Unable to find financing, Brock suggested they go to Hong  Kong's Shaw Brothers Studios who had financed one of the illegitimate Cannonball films. Shaw Brothers was not interested, but their rival Golden Harvest was. As long as they added their newest star Jackie Chan to the cast. Once Golden Harvest was financing and Burt Reynolds was on board, Needham was able to fill out the cast with other famous celebrities, all promised a payday and a brief shooting schedule. 20th Century Fox was interested in distributing the picture in North America, but only if it was a comedy. So Yates began rewriting the script as a comedy. Meanwhile, he also began contributing to the script for Smokey and the Bandit II. As promised, both films were shot at the same time, as much of both would be second unit shoots with stunt drivers, allowing Reynolds and Needham to switch back and fourth between sets.  The Cannonball Run was a huge success, and Golden Harvest decided to do a sequel. Needham was able to convince his friends Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise to return. Original cast members Deam Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Jamie Farr also returned, and Golden Harvest once again provided Jackie Chan. Yates was not involved in the sequel other than licensing the Cannonball Run name.  One of the worst comedies ever made, the script had very little of the actual race, with the cast getting caught up in rescuing Jamie Farr's character from kidnappers, and then the entire race being a short Ralph Bakshi cartoon as Menudo sang the theme song "Like A Cannonball" before switching back to live action for the final gag. Jackie Chan was grossly underutilized, forced to sit in the back seat of his car behind driver Richard Kiel, and not present during most of the final fight scene between the racers and the kidnappers. Golden Harvest financed a third movie. Burt Reynolds and the rest of the original cast refused to do it. Jamie Farr only agreed to be in a small cameo. And they were unable to get the license to use the name Cannonball Run, so it was released as Speed Zone instead. Ultimately Golden Harvest removed their company name from the third film before it was released.

[stethacantus]

MILE 105

Sex Drive ( 2008 )

Studio: Summit Entertainment
Director: Sean Anders

2 points, 1 list, #24 Pastor of Muppets

TRAILER

Ian, a 16 year old teenager, goes onto an online dating site and finds "Ms Tasty", who's profile picture is of a hot girl. She invites Ian to her house to hook up. One problem. He lives in Illinois and she lives in Tennessee. So he steals his older brother's sports car, and along with two of his friends, make the 500 mile journey, not knowing if the girl is for real, or some guy catfishing him.

Not really much information about this film. It was written and directed by Sean Anders, who followed this film up with the script for Hot Tub Time Machine, and would later write and direct Daddy's Home and it's sequel.

[stethacantus]

MILE 104

My Own Private Idaho ( 1991 )

Studio: Fine Line Features
Director: Gus Van Sant

2 points, 1 list, #24 Charles Castle

TRAILER

Male prostitute Mike suffers from narcolepsy, a medical condition that causes him to fall asleep at any time. He meets up with another prostitute named Scott who is a close friend, and together they go on a trip to Idaho so Mike can find his estranged mother. During the journey, Mike confesses to Scott that he is in love with him, but Scott tells him that he only has sex with male clients for the money, and has no other interest in men. Scott's father is wealthy, and as soon as Scott inherits his fathers fortune, he will retire from prostitution. Once in Idaho they find out Mike's mother has moved to Italy to work as a maid. Mike and Scott travel to Italy to find her, but once there, discover she had returned to America. Scott falls in love with the woman Mike's mother worked for, and they decide to return to Portland together. Once back in America, Scott learns his father has died and he will inherit his fortune, allowing him to retire from prostitution. Mike returns to Idaho, and due to his medical condition, falls asleep on a roadside, where someone pulls up in a car and drives off with the sleeping Mike.

This movie is supposed to be an adaption of the Shakespear  plays Henry IV[ Part 1, Hery IV Part 2 and Henry V. the play with the famous St Crispin's Day Speech ? I could not see from the synopsis how this tied into those plays. But apparently, the two main character's pimp in this film is supposed to be a modern day version of the character Falstaff. The original script was to have two separate stories about male prostitutes. Mike's story where he searches for his mother, and then Scott's story which was originally the adaption of the Shakespear plays, including Elizabethan English. However, Van Sant was asked to tone down the Shakespear references in his script, to have the characters talk in modern English, and eventually combined both stories by making Scott and Mike friends. Also inspiring the film was the B-52's song Private Idaho, although tat song does not appear to be listed as in the soundtrack.

[stethacantus]

MILE 103

Cannonball ( 1976 )

Studio: Shaw Brothers
Director: Paul Bartel

3 Points, 1 List, #23 RVRII

TRAILER

Former race car driver Cody the Cannonball Buckman has just been paroled from prison for killing a girl while drunk driving. His only option is to participate in the Trans-America Grand Prix, an annual illegal car race between Los Angeles and New York City. Contestants drive from the Santa Monica Pier to the finish line in New York City, the first to cross the country in the least amount of time the winner. Cody's parole officer Linda, who he had been having an affair with, finds out he is about to violate his parole by crossing the state line and tries to stop him, only to end up stuck in his car for the race. Things get violent as the contestants attempt to run each other off the road.

And back to the origin of the Cannonball Run. It began with motorist Erwin Baker, who beginning in 1914 made a name for himself by setting various land records on a motorcycle.  The first was a journey from Los Angeles to New York City which took him 11 days and 7 hours. A reporter in New York compared his run to the speed of the Cannonball Express, a train that ran between Chicago and Los Angeles and was claimed to be the fastest transportation on Earth by the Illinois Central Railroad. He immediately picked up the nickname "Cannon Ball". Constantly beating his own record, he soon switched to automobiles. As more and more paved highways were built and the technology of automobiles improved, Baker was able to set his record at two days and five hours, which would not be broken until 1972.  Baker died of a heart attack in 1960 at age 78.

In 1970, with the federal government proposing a mandatory 55mph speed limit on federal highways, editors of Car and Driver Magazine Brock Yates and Steve Smith proposed breaking the cross country record as  a protest. Called The Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, it was attempted by Smith, Brock's son Brock Yates Jr., and Jim Williams in a Dodge van, each taking turns driving to allow another to sleep. Baker's record was easily broken, but this was mostly due to the interstate highways built long after Baker had retired. The event had caused enough of a sensation that a second  Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash was held a few months later with multiple contestants. Three more races would be held, with the final one in 1979, the event by then known as The Cannonball Run.

In 1973 a book written about the first dash written by Yates called The Sunday Driver was optioned to be turned into a movie to be directed by John G Avidson. That film never materialized. In 1975 Roger Corman hired Paul Bartel to direct a Sci-fi film called Death Race 2000. Corman was inspired by the trailers of another sci-fi film, Rollerball, about a violent sport in the future. He wanted his own futuristic violent sport movie, so commissioned a script about a road race where contestants are encouraged to run over pedestrians for points. Corman intended for Peter Fonda to play the lead, but he thought he script was ridiculous. David Carradine had just given ABC notice that he would be doing no more seasons of his hit show Kung Fu, and agreed to do Death Race 2000 just so he would not be typecast as a martial arts star.  Production of the film had to wait until Carradine shot his final Kung Fu episodes. This forced the film to be shot on a tight schedule, forcing Bartlet to scrap most of the ideas he had for the film. After only getting paid $5,000 for directing Death Race 2000, Bartel decided to take his ideas he didn't get to use in that film and use them in another car race film. Carradine was interested in working for Bartel again if the film could be financed. With Carradine attached, Bartel began shopping the film to production companies. He found out that Shaw Brothers, the Hong Kong studio behind the hit film Five Fingers of Death, was looking to produce films for the United States market using actors from this country. Bartel pitched his movie, and once Shaw Brothers learned David Carradine was to star, agreed to finance it. Supposedly Run Run Shaw mistakenly thought Carradine would be doing martial arts fights during the movie. Bartel had intended his film to be based on the Cannonball Run, but was unable to get the licensing from Yates, who at the time was hoping to make his own Cannonball Run film. Instead, Bartel gave Carradine's character the nickname of "Cannonball" and came up with a different fictional illegal cross country race. Bartel wasn't the only one with the idea of making a film based on the Cannonball Run.  That same year producer/director Charles Bail wanted to make his own Cannonball Run film, was also turned down by Yates, and instead renamed his movie The Gumball Rally about a fictional race of the same name.

[stethacantus]

MILE 102

Bride of Chucky ( 1998 )

Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Ronny Yu

3 Points, 1 List, #23 Stethacantus

TRAILER

Serial killer Tiffany Valentine ( Jennifer Tilly ), a former lover of fellow serial killer Charles Lee Ray, has discovered that he had used a voodoo ritual to transfer his soul into a Good-Guy doll  when he was fatally shot by a cop. And had been on a killing spree as the doll Chucky for he past couple of years. Currently Chucky is in a police evidence locker, having been chopped to bits in a fan ( see Child's Play 3 ). Bribing a cop to bring her the Chucky doll, and then subsequently slashing that cop's throat, Tiffany sews Chucky back together and then does a voodoo ceremony to put Ray's soul back into the doll. When the revived Chucky refuses to marry her, she throws him into a baby playpen, and torments him by buying him a female doll of the same size as him, wearing a bridal gown. Chucky escapes from the playpen and murders Tiffany. Then repeating the voodoo ritual, transfers her soul into the bride doll. He tells her that he had been wearing a pendant when his human body died, which could be used to transfer their souls into human bodies. They choose Tiffany's next door neighbor Jesse and his girlfriend Jade, who are both about to elope, as hosts. Tiffany calls Jesse up, and saying she can pay him latter, asks him to deliver two dolls to an address in Hackensack New Jersey, which happens to be near the graveyard where Charles Lee Ray was buried with the pendant. Needing the money for the elopement, Jesse agrees. They then go on a cross country road trip, not suspecting the two dolls they are transporting are secretly killing everyone they meet.

After Child's Play 3, it seemed as if the franchise had come to an end. Inspired by The Bride of Frankenstein, Producer David Kirschner  had decided to revive the series by having Child's Play 4 introduce a female Chucky doll. But they could not get financing for the film. The 80s slasher movie craze had run it's course, and the Child's Play series was more expensive than the average Jason film because of the elaborate puppets used to bring Chucky to life. However, after the success of Scream in 1996, Universal was once again interested in financing a new Chucky film. Kirschner decided he wanted to hire Ronnie Yu as a director. At the time, several Hong Kong directors were attempting a new career in Hollywood. John Woo had done so successfully with Broken Arrow and Face/Off. Jean Claud Van Damme had hired him to direct Hard Target, as well as hired Ringo Lam to direct Maximum Risk, and Tsui Hark to direct both Double Team and Knock Off. Ronnie Yu was another one of Hong Kong's top directors, having directed the superb fantasy epic The Bride With White Hair. Yu had previously directed the forgettable American film Warriors of Virtue, which was a rip-off of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but with Kangaroos, which was supposed to lead to a toy line and film franchise. It didn't. In the cast as the girlfriend Jade was still unknown actress Katherine Heigl who was a year away from being cast as Isabel Evans in the hit CW series Roswell.  Bride of Chucky did well at the box office, earning $50 million, double it's $25 million budget. But it did nothing for Ronnie Yu's career. He would not have an American success until 2003's Freddie vs Jason. Shortly after he decided to return to Hong Kong where he directed Jet Li's Fearless. Three more Chucky film would be made in the original franchise before the 2019 reboot. Seed of Chucky in 2004, Curse of Chucky in 2013 and Cult of Chucky in 2017. All would be directed by the series writer Don Mancini.

[stethacantus]

MILE 101

Dutch ( 1991 )

Studio: 20th Century Fox
Director: Peter Faiman

3 Points, 1 list, #23 Pastor of Muppets

TRAILER

Working slob Dutch Dooley has become the boyfriend of Natalie Standish, who was recently divorced from her rich husband. Just before Thanksgiving, the husband calls to say that he has to go on a last minute business trip, despite plans that their son Doyle who is at boarding school would spend the holiday with his father. Dutch volunteers to pick Doley up and drive him to Natalie's house, as the long drive will give him and Doley the chance to get to know each other. However, Doley does not like his mother as he blames her for the divorce, and certainly does not like her new lower class boyfriend. So the long journey from the boarding school to Natalie's house becomes the trip from hell.

There were a lot of high hopes for this film, as it was written by John Hughes who had just written Home Alone, and Uncle Buck before that, not to mention Mr. Mom, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the National Lampoon Vacation franchise and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It was directed by Peter Faiman who had a huge hit with Crocodile Dundee and would be the first lead actor role for Ed O'Neil, who's previous film work was small roles, mostly as police detectives. O'Neil had become popular in the role of Al Bundy, the father on the FOX sitcom Married With Children, and this movie was to launch his career as the leading man in screen comedies. However, this film unexpectantly bombed, and all attempts to make Ed O'Neil a leading man faded. Despite Ethan Embry playing the belligerent son who makes Dutch's road trip a living hell, he and O'Neil got along well, and in 2003 when Dragnet was rebooted with Ed O'Neil as Joe Friday, he requested that Ethan Embry be cast as his sidekick Frank Smith.