After watching so many movies, have begun to question if filmmaking is such a benevolent enterprise. Trillions of dollars invested in mere entertainment certainly circulated cash, inspired audiences, provided diversity, and sectioned economy. But how much better might society be served if that amount was devoted toward curing issues of clean water, climate, energy, food, health, and housing? For example, average temperatures globally have increased for each of last 6 decades because of fossil fuel use and wars fought. Could it be that enough has already been wasted on what you’d deem responsible endeavors?
Giant broadcasting networks spend billions on shaping facts gathered by real journalists and scientists by spinning them into selfish narratives. What’s the point of confirming facts for liars and murderers to misuse? Fox News consistently shores up sinking GOP by conflating stories from other sources; in fact, now that control is slipping through rich Republican fingers it creates a lucrative opportunity for them to lie. It’s hard to see how many swallow such propaganda, but without truth anything goes. More voters are Independent (36%) and unrepresented than either Democrats (32%) or Republicans (30%), that is to say, fully aware other two deceive to exert influence and set policies that only suit their own agendas.
Macho possession, milk money extortion, and wedgie torment only describe classic bullies. Unfortunately, such social aberrations continue into adulthood, business management, parenting, political office, and presidency, where they become a horrid examples for youth and enable worse behaviors. Aryan nazis and supremacist tyrants were bound to rebound once a black individual was elected commander-in-chief, whose first thought wasn’t to pick a fight. Only a morally bankrupt poser would consider a war as a good way to consolidate power or get reelected. Even if you saw it coming, you’d probably assume you couldn’t do anything to prevent. Unless you take a personal stand against, bullies will create tragedies and ruin lives. Labann made up for neglecting to report emerging bicycle culture, particularly in films and songs, when other sources only enumerated not explained their relevance, and tied them into socio-political trends.
B&C described dramedy Rushmore (Wes Anderson, dir., 1998) in which eccentric teen Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) and industrial tycoon Herman Blume (Bill Murray) trade vengeful acts including Herman intentionally running over Max’s bike with his luxury sedan, and Max riding a beater replacement to his plant to cut car’s brake lines, for which he’s arrested but unrepentant. But a Youtube clip has since appeared that sums up these scenes. Lately herein tried to limit coverage to 21st Century.
Costume dramas, cowboy westerns, crime thrillers, romance fantasies, slasher romps, and space epics usually disappoint as sources of bicycling culture, but coming-of-age stories, family time tales, and human focus flicks often yield relevant references, though you should sometimes expect pabulum for plots. For example, The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens (Mark McNabb, dir., 2008) has an 11 year old protagonist biking about Spirit River, Alberta to fulfill his destiny as a third generation wizard. Critics rate it and sequel Billy Owns and the Secret of the Runes (2010) among the worst films ever made, schlocky ripoffs of Harry Potter franchise. Effects were not at all special.
In Cheney, WA, inventive paperboy Owen (Luke Benward) flings deliveries via a bespoke launcher mounted to back rack on his bike. Bullies and dogs attack, but he disengages using boobytraps and dog biscuits. Gem thieves roll into town and so commences the Diamond Dog Caper (Mark Stouffer, dir., 2008). Owen’s high pressure tennis ball cannon made out of bicycle scraps holds off their siege of his hilltop tree fort. Chief bully gets his comeuppance when thieves, racing out of control in a rowboat on wheels, inadvertently chase him on his bike off street into a dumpster.
Dawn (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Peter O’Neil, their daughter, and three sons live under The Tree (Julie Bertuccelli, dir., 2010) that towers over their home. Peter suffers a fatal heart attack and, while dying, crashes his pickup truck into it. While Dawn grieves, oldest son Tim (Christian Byers) takes charge. Neighborhood busybodies arrive, so Tim has to take bike to school. Crones urge Dawn to engrave family name on belongings, “Haven’t you noticed those boys riding bikes up and down the road lately?” as if evident they intended to steal TVs. Tim bikes to apply for a part time job. Daughter Simone (Morgana Davies) begins spending a lot of time up in tree’s branches, then convinces mom that the ghost of her dead dad can be heard high in its canopy. When Dawn begins to rebound with a new love interest, tree retaliates.
As did fictional news photographer Peter Parker and late street fashion photographer Bill Cunningham, Labann reports freelance. Cunningham advised, “If you don’t take money, they can’t tell you what to do, kid,” which is liberty at its supremely expensive essence. For decades freelancing to the New York Times, Bill only took a job with them in 1994 for health benefits after being struck by a truck while biking about, which is how he could perch at the no parking intersection of 5th Avenue and 57th Street and pursue insights into what real people wear. A documentary on his body of work, Bill Cunningham: New York (Richard Press, dir., 2011), doesn’t reveal the bulk of it, which has never been published. Nice to think a Boston born, mad hatter, vital octogenarian also biked, not just children who dominate this latest post’s reviews.
Supermarket greengrocer with Downs Syndrome nicknamed Produce (David DeSanctis) spreads his uplifting attitude among Louisville townsfolk not so challenged but who’ve created own demons in alcoholism (is set in Kentucky) and despair. Produce rides his bicycle to work, but gets knocked down later by vindictive coworker Colt who he turned in for shoplifting. Major League ex-player Cal Campbell (Kristofer Polaha) tries to take Produce under his broken wing, but instigates more trouble for him than encouragement or recognition. A bourbon soaked texter collides with and nearly kills him, but a hospital ICU is Where Hope Grows (Chris Dowling, dir., 2014) for those who survive. Kudos to Dowling for casting someone actually developmentally challenged in a starring role, the first in an English speaking feature film, who nevertheless does an award worthy job.
Set in Taiwan (what aggressive, imperial PRC bizarrely believes still belongs to them), To the Fore (Dante Lam, dir., 2015) stars bike team leader Eddie Peng and love interest Wang Luodan. Admit to not having actually viewed this Hong Kong Cinema film with an actual story, great racing footage, and lovely scenery dramatizing vicious cycling competitions. Was submitted but not nominated for an Academy Award, which usually depends upon many westerners having viewed. YouTube trailer had less than 50,000 hits after 5 years online, which suggest insufficient interest.
Quentin Jacobsen (Josiah Cerio as a boy, Nat Wolff as a young adult) has hots for miss across his street Margo Spiegelman (Hannah Alligood as a girl, Cara Delevingne as a young adult). Kids instantly bond and inseparably ride bikes, but grow increasingly distant through high school. One night Margo surprises “Q” for a night of pranks against betrayers. Then Margo disappears leaving a clue about where she may be, in one of several Paper Towns (Jake Schreier, dir., 2015) that cartographers add to maps to curtail copyright infringements but remain undeveloped and unpopulated. Q and pals decide to embrace adventure and solve mystery.
All for One (Dan Jones & Marcus Cobbledick, dirs., 2017) documents building Orica GreenEdge, an Australian international peloton team, from 2011 to 2016. Emotional and insightful coverage of major European races probe what decisions, efforts and sacrifices riders and teams must make to ever hope to stand on a winner’s podium. Features inevitable Phil Liggett commentary, and jumps between cheerful and cringeworthy.
India Hair plays a stubborn Quality Assurance Specialist at a French automaker in Crash Test Aglae (Eric Gravel, dir., 2017). When operations are off-shored for labor savings in country of India, employees are given Hobson’s choice of moving for less pay, own relocation costs, and worse conditions, or taking a lousy severance package. Compulsive about her contributions, Algae heads to India with two sympathetic coworkers. Their puttering subcompact gets passed by a group of geriatric cyclists. Companions give up on journey before they even leave Europe. She forges on alone, hitchhiking after car dies, sneaking into Ukraine, then stealing a bicycle in Kazakhstan and a motorcycle in Tibet. She collapses, and two tykes on bikes with a junkyard trailer cart her unconscious body to a dump on Indian border, where she’s miraculously rescued. Company, embarrassed by her ghastly ordeal and lost finger, decide to keep French plant open after all. Although broke and pregnant, she quits after realizing how this quest has freed her from limiting herself to a disposable cog in someone else’s greed machine.
Supposedly grown up friends still chase martial arts sensei Jeremy Renner (Marvel Avengers’ Hawkeye) in a 30 year game of TAG (Jeff Tomsic, dir., 2018), which occurs the last weekend of every.May. Not even suave Jon Hamm can lay on finger on Renner, who has always evaded his four rivals, never been “it”, and outran them on foot when they chased on bikes. Recalls famous Forest Gump scene. Sounds so ridiculous it could only be based on an actual case.
Gamble (Aaron Bartlett & Joe Bowman dirs., 2018) portrays dramatic mountain biking clips in rapid succession as top X-sports talents speed down single track slaloms specially prepared to kick up dust and look super dangerous. Narrated by cockney actor Alan Ford over heavy metal and punk soundtrack including Arctic Monkeys’ From the Ritz to the Rubble, Adverts’ One Chord Wonders, and Black Lips’ Raw Meat, all of which sort of describe how abused and advertised Mongoose and Santa Cruz bikes beat riders back. Klunkerz riders who invented mountain bikes did all this without disk brakes and shock absorbers, though they had to repack bearings after each downhill run.
Macho bully Ivan (Diego Delpiano) terrorizes schoolyard and whoever even talks to Sveva (Clòe Romagnoli), who he calls his girlfriend despite her adamant denials. Teacher Paola (Paola Cortellesi) breaks up his fight with Riccardo (Francesco Mura). Ivan’s gang later ambushes Riccardo, but he eludes and outrides them, only to witness Miss Paolo being kidnapped. After Riccardo summons urchins to crime scene, they discover that teacher is secretly 500 year old Befana of the Legend of the Christmas Witch (Michele Soavi, dir., 2018). After supper, these three and three more set out on their bikes to save her and holiday of epiphany. Having damaged some on Italian Alps terrain, these tiny heroes tie bikes together into a sailing ship. Villains dump bikes and them into a compactor, which they narrowly escape.
“Did anyone disclose to anyone where we’re going?” “It’s only five miles. We’ll be back before lunch.” So begins a group bicycle quest for Alex and two new friends trying to decipher what The Mysterious Note (Richard Aguilera, dir., 2019) means that they found in basement of hardware store which Alex’s dad is auditing before foreclosure. Nice new mountain bikes are left behind when road only slightly bars traffic. Just as well; they get trapped in an abandoned fallout shelter and have to be rescued by luck and prayers. Characteristic of these Christian based, low budget homilies, bad dialogue, heavy handed plot, and poor acting chase away audiences and raise critics’ hackles.
Popular comedy Good Boys (Gene Stupnitsky, dir., 2019) got 80% from Rotten Tomatoes, further evidence that saintly isn’t human and venial amuses more effectively. Max (Jacob Tremblay) and his naughty friends get ready for their first teen party, where they expect to kiss girls but don’t know how. So he uses his dad’s drone to spy on girl next door when not riding bikes with his best buddies on other preparatory capers.
Northern artist Harry Spence (Brad Worch II) ventures down to Charleston, SC on business, welcomed by belle Betty Lane (Lauren Swickard) offering Southern Comfort (Ryan Gregory Phillips, dir., 2016). Fairy tale romance turns into a nightmare. At one point, helping a friend’s son to get home, riding along a quiet road, a jealous suitor in a monster truck runs Harry off and tacos kid’s front wheel. He carries busted MTB through a cornfield and encounters a Ku Klux Klan scarecrow, but later repairs ride so kid can again deliver newspapers. Prejudice damns him as metrosexual Yankee scum, but he’s really popular Academy Award winning child actor Spencer Hayes grown up, who’s trying to research a potential movie role. His big shot news reporter brother interviews him throughout to capitalize on his adventure, but Spencer is actually secretly exposing him as a Pulitzer plagiarist.
Giant broadcasting networks spend billions on shaping facts gathered by real journalists and scientists by spinning them into selfish narratives. What’s the point of confirming facts for liars and murderers to misuse? Fox News consistently shores up sinking GOP by conflating stories from other sources; in fact, now that control is slipping through rich Republican fingers it creates a lucrative opportunity for them to lie. It’s hard to see how many swallow such propaganda, but without truth anything goes. More voters are Independent (36%) and unrepresented than either Democrats (32%) or Republicans (30%), that is to say, fully aware other two deceive to exert influence and set policies that only suit their own agendas.
Macho possession, milk money extortion, and wedgie torment only describe classic bullies. Unfortunately, such social aberrations continue into adulthood, business management, parenting, political office, and presidency, where they become a horrid examples for youth and enable worse behaviors. Aryan nazis and supremacist tyrants were bound to rebound once a black individual was elected commander-in-chief, whose first thought wasn’t to pick a fight. Only a morally bankrupt poser would consider a war as a good way to consolidate power or get reelected. Even if you saw it coming, you’d probably assume you couldn’t do anything to prevent. Unless you take a personal stand against, bullies will create tragedies and ruin lives. Labann made up for neglecting to report emerging bicycle culture, particularly in films and songs, when other sources only enumerated not explained their relevance, and tied them into socio-political trends.
B&C described dramedy Rushmore (Wes Anderson, dir., 1998) in which eccentric teen Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) and industrial tycoon Herman Blume (Bill Murray) trade vengeful acts including Herman intentionally running over Max’s bike with his luxury sedan, and Max riding a beater replacement to his plant to cut car’s brake lines, for which he’s arrested but unrepentant. But a Youtube clip has since appeared that sums up these scenes. Lately herein tried to limit coverage to 21st Century.
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