Civil "Emanci-pain”

Never forget that roads are public space for all to share for which those who buy merchandise, earn paychecks, or own property fund by paying taxes. It's not motorists paying fuel excise fees who foot the bill, far from it. Asphalt paving comes as a byproduct from fractioning crude oil, so gasoline does now play an integral part. Yet ancient Romans slaves paved tens of thousands of miles with cut stones, segments still around after millennia. Asphalt is an ephemeral, ersatz and expensive substitute. Bicycling brought a byway boom, construction practicality which enabled motoring, but motorists betray benefactors by pushing bicyclists aside. No need to kiss butt; a modicum of civility would befit mutual benefit after or astride.

Roads resemble magic carpets that take you where you need to go and transport sustenance you can't forego. They link farms to towns, harms to clowns, qualms to frowns, whatever rolls down the pike that you do or don't like. Pandemics and polemics race along jet paths, sea channels, and transportation corridors. What makes them so deadly efficient is that segments are contiguous. Streets connect in such a way you can drive from here to there, portal to portal, and return from destinations to origins with no drama at all. Not so bike paths, which can end abruptly and just disappear annoyingly. Bikes are freedom machines except for pains to which you’re subjected. It all should flow together, each path exit onto a wide road shoulder, not steal so much time your liberty is imprisoned by detours for a year.

Republican regime currently in charge doesn’t care, prefers polling places where fewest constituents appear and voters from whom they never hear. Culpable for atrocity and hypocrisy, they generate fear and mistrust so they can take clear advantage of the fair and just with their shameless crust. None has any worthwhile goal in mind, simply derides opposition’s as recklessly blind, and nominated an impeached crime boss to run again and subjugate mankind. Gone are leaders who quoted facts and reacted in kind. Now you only feel cheated by rhetoric’s emptiness. The closer you study, the clearer you see who’s your adversary. News opinion conflates reported facts, fosters self fulfilling forecasts, goads criminal acts, pits parties at odds in order to profit and suit specific agendas. At what point does so-called news cross line into felonious sanction and sedition? When innocents perish, social inequality worsens, and vulnerable lament, time to oust those who were supposed to prevent. People should also flow together, in productive cooperation, not suffer intolerant division. Though the opposite describes what goes on today, evil should be punished and good rewarded, as movies usually portray, though most aren't more than feckless illusions anyway.

Drifter Jack McCloud (the late Patrick Swayze) travels with a dog, who’s really a genie who grants Three Wishes (Martha Coolidge, dir., 1995) to the Holman family: War widow Jeanne (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and her two sons, Tom (Joseph Mazzello) and Gunny (Seth Mumy). Jack, who may have been a major league ball player or medal of honor winner, becomes a father figure and sports coach for Tom after mom takes Jack in to heal from a broken leg for which she feels responsible. Set in 1955, kids all travel by bike between grade school and little league practice. Tom diligently oils his chain, but fails to chase down Jack, who leaves once cast comes off to resume his mission of finding folks who deserve granted wishes.

Biopic of 1960’s radicals Abbie and Anita Hoffman (Vincent D’Onofrio and Janeane Garofalo) Steal This Movie (Robert Greenwald, dir., 2000), a film half of critics hated, faithfully describes why Woodstock Nation evaporated. According to country’s founding father Thomas Jefferson, revolutions should reoccur every decade or so; otherwise, complacency ushers in tyranny. Critics serve establishment, so they better not legitimize counterculture. CIA, FBI, local police, and other agencies illegally and repeatedly targeted the Hoffmans to oppress them politically and suppress their ideas. Conservatives have zero tolerance for honesty or infamy. They forced Abbie into a 6 year, 63 town underground odyssey of bicycling from cheap tenements to temporary jobs to dodge bogus charges and cruel entrapments. You don’t need to prove your identity if you bike instead of drive. Codefendant Jerry Rubin is quoted from a speech, “We’re irrational and crazy because America destroyed our dreams.” Faced with precipitous arrest for his willingness to attest, Hoffman endured bouts of mental distress, but emerged a discredited but unrepentant activist, more altruistic in nation’s best interest than deserved by ambivalent liberals and apathetic rest. Nevertheless, Nixon Nazis never really left The White House, because too many citizens are still disposed to acquiesce.

Kind hearted but lonely young bicyclist Richard (Richard Vallejos) embarks on an uplighting 10-speed vacation from downtown San Francisco to forests and seaside. He takes along his dwarf hamster Etienne! (Jeff Mizushima, dir., 2008), who vet diagnosed to die shortly, so his only friend can live out his tiny life under towering redwoods. Along the way Richard collects souvenirs and encounters several nomads who enrich his experience. You are limited only by your endurance, imagination, and willingness to bear burdens for love.

Victorian psychologist Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) suspects when women don’t reach orgasm it causes Hysteria (Tanya Wexler, dir., 2011). His manual treatments have frustrated ladies lining up. He engages hunky young Dr. Mortimer Granville (Hugh Darcy) to assist, whereupon he augments patient list and meets Dalrymple’s two daughters, Charlotte and Emily. Bicycling feminist Charlotte runs a settlement house for London’s poor. When a hand cramp gets Mortimer fired, he co-develops world’s first electrical vibrator, makes a fortune, and marries Charlotte after saving her from a court ordered hysterectomy. Just because she punched a policeman doesn’t mean she’s disturbed. Pedaling goddesses don’t need a vibrator, do they?

Not to be confused, Hysterical (Chris Bearde, dir., 1983), deemed one of the worst films ever, does have its moments. Throughout Crazy Ralph (Robert Donner) rides his bicycle into dangers he shouldn’t while telling everyone, “You’re doomed!” It’s he who narrowly escapes such harrowing predicaments as being nearly mowed down by a tractor trailer.

The Giant Mechanical Man (Lee Kirk, dir., 2012), played in shiny loose suit, silver face paint, and strap on stilts by Chris Messina, owns a bicycle but never appears to ride it, akin to Jerry Seinfeld’s Klein MTB (or was it a silver Cannondale?) hanging in his apartment. Insecurities plague men and women alike. It’s a wonder anyone ever leaves home, never mind rides amidst merciless traffic vulnerable on a bicycle. Blame insurance company, who sells motorists permission to operate irresponsibly, though vehicular negligence still carries a prison sentence.

Boyhood (Richard Linklater, dir., 2014) made cinematic history by filming the same cast over a period of 12 years. Mason (Ellar Coltrane) grows up, learns to ride a bike, and reaches marrying, motoring and voting ages. Participants collected over a dozen top awards: Academy, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and New York Film Critics.

Griffin Cleveland and his foursome of zeroes ride their bikes around Santa Clarita in Southern California, back and forth from middle school, and straight into adventure. In their meanderings they come across a suitcase of incredible Time Toys (Mark Rosman, dir., 2016) from the future. With them they foil Zircon CEO Greg Germann, whose conservative bent and theft of futuristic weapons threatens all life on earth decades hence. High tech shoes enable one boy to pedal up to 80 mph to outrun corporate henchmen chasing by car. Feckless new CEO Ed Begley, Jr. pulls up in a limo to ask children to bail him out and follow on their bikes. Plot devices appear to be purloined from recently reviewed P.U.N.K.S. (1999).

Dear Zindagi (Gauri Shinde dir., 2016) translates to Dear Life. This Hindi drama has novice cinematographer Keira (Alia Bhatt) returning home to live with her overbearing parents and seeking counseling for her insomnia from offbeat Goa psychologist Dr. Jehangir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), whose treatment methods include riding bicycles. She promptly crashes, but he refuses to help her up, since session time concluded and she needs to learn self reliance.

Hundreds of features, film shorts, and television episodes bear a title of bicycle, though not all have something to do with a two wheeled lifestyle. Outstanding among them, short drama La Biciclette (Sara Glaoua, dir., 2017) stars young Tony (George Missalilidis) who, alone among his cycling posse rides a razor scooter, has a crush on adult Alice (Leschelle Hewett), who’s already in a meaningful relationship. Despite fact that he vandalizes her bike out of spite, they invite him to an age appropriate party.

One Percent More Humid (Liz Garcia, dir., 2017) has Iris (Juno Temple) hooking up with childhood friend Charlotte (Julia Garner), both on summer break from college, after traffic death of their threesome’s third member. Iris grieves, rides around her New England hometown, and skinny dips in nearby swimming hole. Any wetter, everyone will drown.

Paris, post Charlie Hebdo massacre, another jihadist attack kills sister of odd job guy Vincent Lacoste, who barely gets by but nevertheless must take custody of her young daughter, his niece Amanda (Mikhaël Hers, dir., 2017). They deal with their grief and get around The City of Lights by riding their bikes. Survivors move on, but must differentiate between inalienable free speech and intolerable hate crimes.

Low budget Irish comedy The Young Offenders (Peter Foote, dir., 2017) has Cork teens Connor (Alex Murphy) and Jock (Chris Walley) stealing bicycles to ride on a quest to find a bale of cocaine worth €7 million lost after trafficker’s boat capsized. Unknown to them, bike on which Jock, a bike theft suspect, is riding has had a tracking device planted by Sergeant Healey, an obsessed local sheriff out to trap him in a sting. Soon old rivals and provoked smugglers join chase along the Wild Atlantic Way. Film, based on actual events, earned 20 times its investment and won several festival awards. As a feature filmed on location amidst emerald fields of Cork, joins The Runway (Ian Power, dir., 2011) recently reviewed.

Indian comedy Tripping on a Bicycle (Subbiah Nallamuthu, dir., 2018) has two Buddhist monks, Dorje (James Keenan) and Jamyang (Sikandar Bhana) aiding a neighbor by taking title trek. Haven’t viewed this hard-to-find film; no trailer was readily available, either.

Hedonistic poet Moondog (Matthew McConaughey) parties hearty in the Florida Keys while slowly composing a memoir, The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine, dir., 2019). He cheats on his wife Minnie (Isla Fisher), neglects daughter Heather (Stefania LaVie Owen), and sends wife into arms of his R&B singer friend Lingerie (Snoop Dogg). Acting inappropriately, bicycling in a bong mask and nought but a thong, drinking beer, and smoking ganja fill his parrothead, playboy lifestyle that fans so admire though fraught with continual tragedies. Exploit others, go with greed, and satisfy self in the moment seems its empty message. While Labann looks for instances of adults enjoying bikes, this isn’t an ideal example to show tykes.

Millie Bobby Brown plays bicycling sleuth Enola Holmes (Harry Bradbeer, dir., 2020), who enlists her older brother, famous consulting detective Sherlock, to help unravel a mystery in which her feminist mother (Helena Bonham-Carter) disappears. Patriarchs never want women to have any say. Oligarchs never want anyone to vote. Just about every evil that befalls society somehow descends from the top. While it’s myopic to rely on familiarity of World’s best known literary character, sounds like a fun story of female emancipation, which was so associated with 1890’s bicycling.

Feature film Viena and the Fantomes (Gerardo Naranjo, dir., 2020) has occasional bicyclist and punk roadie Viena (Dakota Fanning) on the tour bus traveling across 1980’s America. Self absorbed band members are broke, attract no audiences, perform at empty venues, and take advantage of entourage. Meanwhile, in another feature, bicycling teen Violet (kid sister Elle Fanning shown on her Schwinn) teams with on-probation classmate Theodore (Justice Smith) to report on All The Bright Places (Brett Haley, dir., 2020) around Indiana. Taboos are challenged as romance ensues. 

These known bicyclist, modern feminist sisters will appear together on screen for the first time in WWII drama The Nightingale (Mélanie Laurent, dir., 2021), another film in production slowed by COVID-19. Surprises that Dakota Fanning’s character Sara Howard isn’t seen pedaling in The Alienist miniseries, although she already raises male hackles for owning her own detective business. TV mystery series Home Before Dark, favorably compared to The Alienist, concerns bicycling sleuth and budding journalist Hilde Lisko (Brooklyn Prince) exposing a cold case involving her own father in the Pennsylvania lake town where he once lived. Filming of Season 2 is also in pandemic hiatus. Prospects for decent entertainment soon manifesting seem as grim as these storylines.

Nilou Hemat is tired of being stuck in a traffic jam every day on her way to grade school. Together with equally precocious Belgian friend Tuur De Baere, she invents a game, Cyclomax (Daniel Lambo, dir., 2020), that aims to change Brussels into a bicycling friendly city and get everyone on their bikes, which would relieve traffic gridlock.

German sports movie to be released next month, Madison: A Fast Friendship (Kim Strobl, dir., 2020) stars Felice Ahrens in title role of a teen racer trying to live up to champion dad’s legacy, but gets sidelined by a track crash. While on a healing vacation she meets Emilia Warenski, who introduces her to mountain bike racing despite mom’s reservations.

Out this Fall, social documentary Sex, Drugs & Bicycles (Jonathan Blank, dir., 2020) will try to correlate a high standard of living with Netherlands’s permissive, semi-socialist, supportive government. USA, which has been covertly ruled by anal retentive repressive conservatives for decades, rates much lower, 15th or so, than top 5 countries in order: Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, Australia and Netherlands. To be clear, with a population exceeded by only China and India, USA is distinctly regional; some locations have less crime and more amenities. And SOL describes an amalgam of all sorts of livability and longevity issues. You might feel safe, sated and serene where you reside, while a mile away whenever races collide unarmed people are being tragically shot by nervous patrolmen. Apathy explains why corruption flourishes and inequality exists.