Road Movies on DVD
There’s nothing like a road movie. Like the vast, never-ending horizon in the
distance, the possibilities for a good entertainment are also endless - with
the hands of the right filmmaker on the steering wheel of course. Plus they can
be great exercises for filmmakers just starting out, or a successful way to
make a low budget movie. All you need is a car, some well-written characters
with the road acting as a never-ending location. You can meet anyone along the
way and literally anything can happen in the story. What could be better… As in
any genre there have been some horrible car wrecks of road movies though,
(Vincent Gallo’s Brown
Bunny anyone?!), but today we’re going to take a brief journey through
the good ones…
One False Move (1992)
is often bypassed, but undeservedly so. Bill Paxton (Twister) and Billy Bob
Thornton (Bad Santa) face off as a small town sherriff and a murderous, big
city criminal respectively in this gem, co-written by Thornton and directed by
Carl Franklin (Devil
In A Blue Dress). Thornton plays one half of a savage crime duo who,
after murdering a gang of drug dealers, flee to a small town in Arkansas, via
Houston, where Chief “Hurricane” Dixon (Paxton) is nervously waiting for them.
This road movie possesses a disarming, dark sense of humour, and the tension
that builds as the crims travel to their destination is almost unbearable. One
of the films of the 90s…
There may not be a car in sight but
The Wizard Of Oz (1939) is a road movie fair and square, and one of the
most enduring and quintessential in film history, even if the journey at hand
is taken on foot (and paws). Young Dorothy (Judy Garland) sets out on a
adventure of self-discovery as she tries desperately to get back home to Kansas
and her “Anty Em” after a tornado seemingly blows her from the American
heartland all the way to the magical land of Oz. Resplendent with hitchhikers
galore (The Lion, Scarecrow and Tim Man), her “little dog” Toto and a wicked
witch who just won’t leave her alone, Dorothy’s journey is at often-times
harrowing but always joyful, all filmed in on a glorious, technicolour yellow
brick road. You can’t beat that, nor its Australian “remake”
Oz (1976), set in the world of glam rock…
And while we’re on Australian road movies, you can’t go past
Bondi Tsunami (2004), a self-funded, totally wild rock n’ roll road
film, featuring four Japanese students, who set out from Bondi in a 1961 EK
Holden to travel the East Coast in search of the perfect wave, the perfect beer
and the perfect big banana. It’s psychedelic, very funny and aimed squarely at
the post-MTV generation.
But no list of road movies would be complete without
Vanishing Point (1971) included. Although actor Barry Newman went on to
make his name playing a laid back lawyer in 70s TV show Petrocelli, he first
came to prominence in 70s cult movie
Vanishing Point. It’s a simple story with exciting results. Playing car
deliverer Kowalski, he takes a bet that he can make it across three US states
in half a day. He breaks speed records to do it, evades cops and picks up a few
hitchhikers along the way, which all adds up to one helluva ride and one
heluuva film…
- Megan
Megan Spencer has spent way too much of her life in the dark, all for a good
cause though - watching movies as a professional film critic. For the last six
and a half years she has been serving the ever-increasing hunger for film and
DVD reviews as radio triple j's resident film critic, and a year ago joined the
new line up of long-running SBS-TV film review program, The Movie Show.
Every now and then she pops up into the light to make her own films,
documentaries (her latest is 'Fantastic Brutality', a documentary about an
obsessed wrestling fan, to be released next year). She has also written about
film for many publications including J-Mag, Limelight, Inside Film Magazine and
the Age Green Guide.
And the impossible question to ask a film critic: what's her favourite film?
"Blue Velvet would be at the top of the list, so would Fight Club... But then
again American In Paris makes me cry every time."
Megan has also been part of the Foxtel's Project Greenlight Australia as an
on-air panelist and judge.
