greenexecutive (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} greenexecutive) wrote,@ 2009-03-17 17:13:00 |
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Stockholm Syndrome
I saw Cannonball Run (1981) and Point Break (1986).
Cannonball Run is a last hurrah to 1970s-style "assemble some famous people we know" ensemble movies. It's got some chuckles, but it's very slapdash and has some distasteful elements---Jackie Chan plays a Japanese(!) driver who is clearly speaking in Cantonese, and Farrah Faucett's character is a throwback to sexual-revolution era hippie sexpots who is treated like dirt. She Stockholm Syndromes into falling for Burt Reynolds (sort of). Blah. Roger Moore is actually quite funny pretending to be Roger Moore.
Still, the real Cannonball race was a real race that sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. It was also a protest of the 55mph speed limit which fell like an iron curtain across the midwest. I remember being very surprised upon coming to the Bay Area in the summers and discovering that doing 55 on 280 was liable to get you run over.
Point Break was the only film on Entertainment Weekly's Top 25 Action Films of All Time I hadn't seen, so I got it from Netflix. It's punch-drunk on adrenaline and stars a wooden Keanu Reeves as a cop Going. Over. The. Edge. Reeves Stockholm Syndromes into loving Patrick Swayze in a man-crush way. If this movie were made now, there would be a large yaoi community surrounding it.
It pops off the screen, though, with some amazing car and foot chases and gun battles that predate but anticipate the sort of insanity that John Woo would inject into 90s movies. It also has beautiful skydiving sequences in clear blue sky. It's not a mandatory movie---it's too silly and too 80s---but it's far better fare than I was expecting, and better than a whole host of other 80s action films (see also: non-Jim Cameron Schwartznegger films, later Steven Segal).
I saw Cannonball Run (1981) and Point Break (1986).
Cannonball Run is a last hurrah to 1970s-style "assemble some famous people we know" ensemble movies. It's got some chuckles, but it's very slapdash and has some distasteful elements---Jackie Chan plays a Japanese(!) driver who is clearly speaking in Cantonese, and Farrah Faucett's character is a throwback to sexual-revolution era hippie sexpots who is treated like dirt. She Stockholm Syndromes into falling for Burt Reynolds (sort of). Blah. Roger Moore is actually quite funny pretending to be Roger Moore.
Still, the real Cannonball race was a real race that sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. It was also a protest of the 55mph speed limit which fell like an iron curtain across the midwest. I remember being very surprised upon coming to the Bay Area in the summers and discovering that doing 55 on 280 was liable to get you run over.
Point Break was the only film on Entertainment Weekly's Top 25 Action Films of All Time I hadn't seen, so I got it from Netflix. It's punch-drunk on adrenaline and stars a wooden Keanu Reeves as a cop Going. Over. The. Edge. Reeves Stockholm Syndromes into loving Patrick Swayze in a man-crush way. If this movie were made now, there would be a large yaoi community surrounding it.
It pops off the screen, though, with some amazing car and foot chases and gun battles that predate but anticipate the sort of insanity that John Woo would inject into 90s movies. It also has beautiful skydiving sequences in clear blue sky. It's not a mandatory movie---it's too silly and too 80s---but it's far better fare than I was expecting, and better than a whole host of other 80s action films (see also: non-Jim Cameron Schwartznegger films, later Steven Segal).
