Frame's Teyne

Children bicycling or tricycling by Monster House (Gil Kenan, dir., 2006) better beware. In this Dreamworks animated feature the soul of a carnival freak fuses with a spooky mansion. Any kids, occasionally adults, pets or toys who get too close are swallowed whole. Paperboy who tosses a roll onto lawn is knocked off his bike by roll slung back at him. Neighbor D.J. (Mitchell Musso), pal Chowder (Sam Lerner), and schoolmate Jenny (Spencer Locke), who Chowder and D.J. try to save when she tries to sell Halloween candy there, team to solve mystery. Although characters are a rip-off of Harry Potter cast, box office doubled budget, and film got nominated for an Academy Award.

Penicillin: The Magic Bullet (Gorden Glenn, dir., 2006) describes how Alexander Fleming took credit for the discovery of antibiotics after deeming this cheese mold spore unfit for use on humans. Oxford scientist Howard Florey teamed with biochemist refugee Ernst Chain and lab technician Norman Heatley to extract the first thimbleful of powder, which they injected into first human test subject, and transported urine samples back to lab by a relay race of bicyclists to produce more. Though injured bobby they treated died for lack of sufficient quantity, it proved penicillin wasn’t magical whimsy but medical cure. Took American war machine to ramp up production, which saved an estimated three hundred thousand troops after D-Day. Hitler also took credit out of petty jealousy and pure malice. Fleming has a crater named after him on the moon. Few remember Oxford pioneers whose dedicated efforts have alleviated suffering and extended millions of lives since. Isn’t that usually the case?

Adam (Michael Stasko) discovers Things To Do (Ted Bezaire, dir., 2006) whether or not he wants to after he leaves a big city job and retreats to small time family’s home. Mom insists he do some grocery shopping, so he breaks out his ten speed. There he runs into Mac (Daniel Wilson), who provokes all sorts of adventures.

Bicycling artist Piper (Elizabeth Harnois) begins a job at Beach City Grill making Ten Inch Hero (David Mackay, dir., 2007) sub sandwiches for hippie boss Trucker (John Doe). Her move to Santa Cruz has to do with stalking her presumed daughter Julia (Adair Tishler), who she gave up for adoption after becoming pregnant at 15 years old. Both dad Noah (Sean Patrick Flannery) and daughter ride their bikes to a nearby beach, where she secretly imposes on their lives. Northern California suits her better than western Pennsylvania. 

The Soloist (Joe Wright, dir. 2009) describes schizophrenic Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx, Academy Award for Best Actor) before his slide into homelessness. After a bicycling accident, LA Times reporter Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr., Iron Man) befriends Nate, and tries to improve his life. Downey does another bike dive in The Judge (David Dobkin dir., 2014), previously reviewed.

Another animated feature, Aardman big budget Arthur Christmas (Sarah Smith, dir., 2011) stars James McAvoy in title voiceover role. Arthur Claus, Father Christmas’ awkward grandson, answers letters to Santa. He takes his background role seriously, since Santa has a reputation to uphold: Coming through for kids and delivering to all who deserve gifts. He personally assures English girl Gwen she’ll get her heart’s desire: A shiny pink bicycle. His brother Steven (Hugh Laurie) manages vast corporate facility buried beneath North Pole that employs countless elves and manufactures a billion gifts distributed before daylight on Christmas Day. Steven hopes to inherit Santa’s role from his father Malcolm Claus, who is showing signs of slipping in his advanced years. Malcolm almost gets seen by children, which alerts an elven rescue and diverts bike’s dispatch. Wrapping elf Bryony Shelfley (Ashley Jensen) notices error. Arthur, Bryony, and Grandsanta set off to save Christmas but run into one disaster after the next. Arthur unwraps gift bike to race to final destination before sunup, while Bryony rewraps it on route. All four Clauses convene on scene to watch Gwen get her wish, which she immediately puts to use outdoors and surprisingly gets a glimpse of the new Santa, Arthur, just as he escapes. Film earned $50 million and won scores of minor awards.

Ciclovida Lifecycle (Loren & Matt Feinstein, dirs., 2011) follows Brazilian farmers Inacio and Ivania, who collect and distribute heirloom seeds and spread potent ideas throughout South America, without cash support or motor vehicles, by pedaling 6,000 miles by bicycle in a year. They expose monocultures of alcohol producing plants used in unsustainable motor fuels. Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman comes to mind as an inverse inspiration by hiking on foot and planting nonnative seeds around America’s mid-1800’s frontier.

Chinese dramas Drifters and 11 Flowers (Wang Xiaoshuai, dir., 2003 and 2011, respectively) cover what ordinary life was really like over the course of a lifetime during cultural revolution and in a contemporary small town. A drifter fathers a son while working illegally in America, is repatriated to China, then sorrowfully receives visiting son he’s not allowed to keep after riding him on his handlebars to meet grandfather.

When school boy of later film is selected to lead daily gymnastics, he must wear a new white shirt, which puts a strain on his struggling family's finances in a remote Guizhou village. He loses shirt in an encounter with a desperado, who keeps his promise to replace it from prison. Bike commuter dad and homemaker mom don’t approve.

Small town New Jersey brothers Eric (Nathan Varnson) and Tommy (Ryan Jones) are well advised to Hide Your Smiling Faces (Daniel Patrick Carbone, dir., 2013). Tommy rolls through a fast food takeout on his BMX, pays for a meal, then pal runs by and snatches it; Tommy smiles after food service girl replaces order, and they eat together as planned. But after finding Eric’s younger friend Ian dead at the base of an abandoned train bridge, summer no longer seems a school vacation to while away days casually exploring woods, painting graffitis, scamming townsfolk, and vandalizing vacancies. Audience is left to wonder: Homicide or suicide? Brothers go for a solemn BMX ride to muddle through in their varying stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. At 2020’s summer's end, millions of American families face the same and look for whom to blame.

The Hundred Foot Journey (Lasse Hallström, dir., 2014) lies between Madam Mallory’s (Helen Mirren) Michelin 5 star haute cuisine fixture favored by celebrities and heads of state and Papa Kadam (Om Puri) family’s Indian eatery just opened in an abandoned provincial building across the road. His chef son Hassan gradually grows interested in what Mallory offers as well as her head chef Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), with whom he takes bike spins into gorgeous Pyrennes hills. Cultures collide in this village gridrion. No wonder Tour de France always passes that way.

Sister of 34-year-old triathlete Nancy (Lake Bell) urges her to Man Up (Ben Palmer, dir., 2015) 4 years after her divorce. Mistaken identity has her on a blind date with 40 year old Jack (Simon Pegg), who thinks she is twentysomething Jessica (Ophelia Lovibond), which goes well until she runs into an acquaintance who calls her by her real name. After Jack's actual date with Jessica, he begins to pine for shapely cyclist Nancy. In recently cancelled sitcom Bless This Mess, Season 1, episode 5, one scene has Lake's character ride her bike into a lake after being sent on a goose chase by a jealous frenemy. Bell, automotive contributing editor for The Hollywood Reporter, used to write car column Test Drive, so wonder why she has become linked with cycling, as is Pegg. Bad influence?

The Book of Henry (Colin Trevorrow, dir., 2017) contains instructions from a son (Jaeden Martell) to his single mother Susan (Naomi Watts) on how to save girl next door, Christina (Maddie Ziegler), who is the abused stepdaughter of police commissioner. After gathering evidence by bicycle, Henry convinces mom to take covert action. Police generally get a bad rap, as do politicians, priests, and whoever is placed above civilians for everyone’s benefit, because a few betray trust bestowed, overstep bounds, or take personal advantage of power.

Veronica (Olivia Holt) gets the shock of her privileged Louisiana life when her high school Class Rank (Eric Stoltz, dir., 2017) comes out as only #2. Not taking it lying down, she masterminds a plan to get a bicycling classmate, bright but clumsy Bernard (Skyler Gisondo), to run for a seat on Livingston School Board and reverse any academic impediment to her getting into Yale. Critics liked this romantic comedy with scenes stolen by Bruce Dern and Kathleen Chalfant, but it got lost at box office and went quickly to DVD.

When Flemish cycling champion Thierry (Vincent Rottiers) takes a trip to Senegal to recoup after a crash, he meets prostitute Fae (Fatou N’Diaye), a fallen angel, Un Ange (Koen Mortier, dir., 2018). It’s love at first sight, but troubles over racial prejudice they face with dignity and hope. Based on a novella by Dimitri Verhulst that delves into suspicious death in 2009 of real life cycling star Frank Vandenbroucke, who won many European races and World Championship in 1990s, it reveals how famous athletes suffer under withering expectations of public fans and team leaders. Selling your body has multiple meanings, such as doping and pushing beyond all reason to perform and win. Family issues overwhelmed and knee surgery sidelined, following a 2004 suicide attempt Frank explained, “I put on my world champion's jersey, I injected myself [with 10 cc of Actrapid insulin]... then I went to lie on my bed and I waited to die. I was so happy.”

Flandrien hopeful Felix Vereecke (Niels Willaerts) grew up in an insular realm of professional racing surrounded by alcohol, cheats, drugs, egos, fisticuffs, obsessions, rivalry, and tunnel vision. But his own bid to become a Coureur (aka, The Racer, Kenneth Mercken, dir., 2018) doesn’t pan out. His body rejects EPO experiments, so his dad gives blood transfusions. Nothing, not even cancer, can stop him from competing in this dark and dirty world. In Dutch and Italian, it’s based on Mercken’s own life in the peloton.

Still from racial drama Blindspotting (Carlos López Estrada, dir., 2018) shows a fat tire BMX wheelie.

A fan maintains a page on IMDB.com  lists feature films, not documentaries, that depict cycling competitions. Some of its entries outdate Labann himself, who mentioned most of them already. You may find others among Krigogstoffer’s 3 dozen to consider viewing while knocking back a Fat Tire Belgian Ale or Samuel Adams Porch Rocker Radler, which was inspired by German cyclists who make something analogous to a British shandy when they mix 1 part lemonade and/or limeade with 2 parts lager, even better when served by bixi-babe wearing a Karen Scott designer bicycle tee. Why not? 

One title that stands out, psychological thriller Sombre (Philippe Grandrieux, dir., 1998), divulges an even darker current to Tour de France: Serial killer Jean (Marc Barbé) cruises route and dispatches prostitutes. He meets unstable virgin Claire (Elina Löwensohn) and her sister, whose car has broken down. Instead of murdering these new recruits too, he lets Claire escape their crepuscular rendezous, though he returns to his predatory prowl of spectators, disturbingly suggested by final scene [shown]. Critics found film’s blurry solemnity and remorseless menace offensive, but Labann seeks such bicycling culture examples within a nexus comprehensive.

Renewed Intuition (Thibaut Grevet, dir., 2020) is a short (or should it be called a brevet?) about Michelle Le Gaffric riding a bicyclette in Paris, while Yann Bean reads a poem by Dylan Cox. It is oh so French describing a vélo experiences and sensations while serving as product placement for Brooks Saddles of England. It begs, “Give us television and time; free us from freedom.” Bicycles, after all, exist as a response to city residence and modernity sufferance, so not exactly a freedom machines but navigational mechanism and pluralism redeemer among civilized society. Frame's teyne, i.e., surface plating, has little impact on intended purpose; bright or dull, all's well as long as you can propel. 

American Drain

Image from video trailer Girl & Bicycle (Jack Martin, dir., 2020)


Bicycling is trending, diseases boring. Nation’s ridership has risen 12.5% in 2020. Nearly fifty million Americans now commute or recreate by bike, especially in cities, where all are warned by health officials against using sidewalks and subways where safe distances can’t be maintained. Annual bike sales went up between 1.5 and 2.3 times normal until overseas shortages curtailed. But bicycling goes practically unnoticed, ridiculously underserved, and unrecognized intentionally by government agencies during conservative administrations. Venturing outside all you see on shop doors are pandemic protocols. Instills zero confidence. When sports were suspended and workers furloughed due to COVID, about the only things left to do beside aimless spins and household chores were literary projects and movie downloads. Multiple free sources carry many seldom seen titles that could depict bicycling culture, luckily, because economy is too weak for you to spend savings on pay-for-view. Used to be that films, football, or sitcoms relieved you from the daily grind of pleasing bosses and clients. With no job to go to, they keep you from going wacko while trying to replace ways of wrangling subsistence and watching American Dream wither. COVID has been a drain on both consumer savings and federal treasury. Who were its beneficiaries? China produces 80% of bikes sold. You can’t skip a credit card payment or tax bill, but you can trust that only a select few will profit, whose evil ways are more inscrutable and mysterious than even God’s holy writ.

Teen angst drama Growing Op (Michael Melski, dir., 2008) has home schooled bicyclist (Steven Yaffee) rebelling against pot growing dad (Wallace Langham) and mom (Rosanna Arquette) by wanting to attend high school and socialize with kids his own age. Kid sister (Katie Boland) is a street savvy dealer who criticizes his every move. But he’s the only one in family to evade sting by undercover narc girlfriend (Rachel Blanchard) from across street, go to college, and grow up free to run his own grow op. In current economy it’s good to have something to do that generates a livelihood. Government doesn’t give a damn if you die, squirm or starve.

Hyper-creative middle aged author Richard Dunn (Jeff Daniels, Dumb and Dumber) has a supervisory superhero Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool, Green Lantern). Under pressure to produce by his surgeon wife Claire (Lisa Kudrow, Friends), this self loathing Paper Man (Kieran and Michele Mulroney, dirs., 2009) decamps to offseason Sag Harbor, Long Island to work on his second novel, but is seriously blocked. Refusing to rent a car, he uses a kid’s Schwinn Sting Ray left in garage to commute back and forth from town, where he somehow connects with seventeen year old Abby (Emma Stone, Zombieland), who, it turns out, also deals with a past tragedy through her own imaginary friend.

Also gone wrong, high school cub reporter Gonzo Gilman (Ezra Miller) gets frustrated working for principal’s lukewarm newsletter and toady editor Gavin Reilly (Jesse McCartney), so starts his own hard hitting exposé, taking after his dad (Campbell Scott), and uncovers academic fraud, administration hypocrisy, cafeteria health violations, classmate beat downs, personal plagiarism, sexual assaults, student extortion, and what most would call criminal conspiracies, which town’s prominent families consider business as usual. They ought to Beware The Gonzo (Bryan Goluboff, dir., 2010). Libeled and threatened as he bikes everywhere, he goes a bit too far, tosses allies under the bus by repeating secrets told in confidence, which unfortunately forfeits his supporters, results in suspension, and risks expulsion. You should expect to be abused and ostracized when you speak for freedom, responsibility or truth. Critics called Gonzo’s devotion to print media an anachronism although backed by capital and collaboration. Online social media is even more of a closed circuit echo chamber: cheap, free, infiltrated by bullies and idiots, and not to be trusted.

Arizona alcoholic salesman Nick Halsey (Will Ferrell) has a bad day, loses his career, missus moves out having left all his stuff on front lawn and locking him out, and vehicle owned by company gets repossessed. When neighbor kid Kenny (Christopher Jordan Wallace) happens by, Nick bribes him with snacks if he’ll watch his stuff while he borrows boy’s bicycle to buy beer and breakfast. Arcadia’s finest come to evict him, but his AA sponsor gets order extended for 3 days. Nick then enlists Kenny to help him with a yard sale in which Everything Must Go (Dan Rush, dir., 2011). Meanwhile, to further humiliate himself because nothing is as humbling as an adult bicycling about, Nick borrows bike again to visit an old flame, who’s now a middle aged single parent.

Timely bit of dark humor, Picture Paris (Brad Hall, dir., 2011) features Hall’s real life wife Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a francophile housewife who’s enchanted by the City of Light. Nest now empty, she moves there temporarily. She’s underwhelmed until a chance encounter helps her find friends and go native. Soon she’s shopping and using Vélib bike sharing to get around. When her husband back home in suburbia wants a divorce to run off with her former best friend, she escapes to Paris permanently, but paté is forever off the menu as she joins crowd to cheer on peloton on Les Champs-Élysées.

This Girl is Bad Ass (Petchtai Wongkamlao, dir., 2011) characterizes bicycle messenger Jukkalan (martial artist JeeJa Yanin, a Thai female comparable to Hong Kong’s Jackie Chan). She plays both sides of competing mobs, skimming on dope deliveries and stashing payments. When one boss gives her cash to complete a drop, he sends out ten henchmen to take it back. In response, she uses her fixie as a weapon to defend and extricate herself. Action comedy is augmented by bike gangs, impressive stunt work, midget boxers, a pervert on a penny-farthing, and ultra-exaggerated characters.

Free wheeling New Orleans ad executive Marley (Kate Hudson) bikes to work, has it all, and plays the field. She begins to feel run down, gets a checkup, and hears bad news: Terminal cancer. While anesthetized, she meets God (Whoopi Goldberg), who offers her 3 boons of her own choice. Learning to fly comes from winning a radio contest. Half a million flows in from a life insurance settlement. Third choice is left unsaid. When health deteriorates, a friend orders her a dwarf escort (Peter Dinklage), who calls himself A Little Bit Of Heaven (Nicole Kassell, dir., 2011), and instead of whoopee counsels her on how to accept death. After a bicycling accident, she meets God again, who advises her to maximize her short time left, which she does with unrealistic gusto for someone with inoperable stage 4 colon tumors. She admits she is in love with Julian (Gael Garcia Bernal), her doctor, which fulfills her third choice of being in a committed relationship for however briefly. What a tearjerker! Why is it someone else beside a healthy bicyclist isn't the one to die?

Sparrows Dance (Noah Buschel, dir., 2013) has agoraphobic actress Marin Ireland repeating same monotonous routine alone in her New York apartment for over a year, which includes pedaling in place on a stationary bike. Since onset of COVID, most people can relate to such a long term quarantine. When toilet overflows, she’s forced to let in plumber Wes (Paul Sparks) who through gentle kindness helps her expand her self imposed boundaries.

Woodbury pharmacist Doug (Sam Rockwell) and spin instructor Kara (Michelle Monaghan) are unhappily married. Doug lets everyone take advantage of his good nature. Kara emotionally emasculates him and thinks only of winning next bike race. Her contempt pushes him into an affair with pill popping trophy wife Elizabeth (Olivia Wilde), who seduces Doug as part of a plot to kill her husband Jack (Ray Liotta) by giving him an overdose of heart medication, thus secure for herself Better Living Through Chemistry (Geoff Moore & David Posamentier, dirs., 2014). Doug begins to join in, goes from cycling enthusiast to go along bike hater, then uses bike as a domestic weapon. He concocts a potent pick-me-up to outrace wife and put her in her place. Not even Jane Fonda (as herself, another store customer) narrating throughout was able to give this mean spirited DOA a shot in the arm. Truth is, more people die from legal drugs than outlawed narcotics, a humorless reality. Rotten Tomatoes rated it at just 22%. Its $5.5 million budget grossed only $120 thousand. Yet producers can’t resist the compulsion to fund a loser, probably because of some other agenda, like lifestyle persuasion, political statement, or tax write-off.

Foster child Destiny (Yara Shahidi) innocently rides her banana bike around cornfields of Johnson County, Iowa. Placed with supportive parents The Emmets (Alicia Silverstone and Rob Corddry), she gets to compete in a Butter (Jim Field Smith, dir., 2014) carving contest, having been inspired by Bob Pickler (Ty Burrell, Modern Family), an undefeated 15 times champion of this Iowa State Fair event. When organizers ask Bob to step aside, his ambitious wife Laura (Jennifer Garner) figures only a Pickler deserves to win, so enters contest herself. When 10 year old Destiny wins in qualifying round, Laura connives a rematch.

Meanwhile, Bob’s village bicycle paramour Brooke (Olivia Wilde mentioned above), a bisexual tattooed hustler from his favorite strip club, bikes to his home and claims he owes her $1,200. Since Laura holds purse strings, he can’t pay. Brooke rides again to beguile daughter Kaitlan (Ashley Greene) to settle his lap dance debt. Brooke so despises Laura she gives recovered money to Destiny, so she can beat Laura using best knives available. This juxtaposition of ingenuous child and promiscuous adult, each bicycling with her own dignity, is especially heartwarming. Blooper where Brooke bikes across football field, yelling, “Move it, bitches,” at marching band, then crashes is hilarious.

Not quite The 40 Year Old Virgin, Amelia (Christine Weatherup of soap General Hospital) has only ever been touched down there by a bicycle saddle and a private vibrator as she turns 30. Bread and Butter (Liz Manashil, dir., 2015) is more an awkward story than romantic comedy. Fearful of motoring, she pursues a healthier alternative in bicycling. but it likely boosts hormones and makes her hornier. Her life counselor boss tries repeatedly to set her up with doofus Daniel (SNL impressionist Bobby Moynihan), who, though also a virgin, at least has a job. She’s distracted by depressive amateur video artist Leonard (Michah Hauptman), whose days are chronically free. Under parental and peer pressure to get on with living, she makes more bad choices: Learns to drive a Volkswagen Beetle, though it offers a chance for her to meet more suitable mates outside her insular scope. Life will pass you by without a pinch of remorse. It’s up to you to get out and grab hold.

All We Had (Katie Holmes, who directs and stars, 2016) portrays single mother Rita (Holmes), who tows around her 15-year-old daughter Ruthie (Stefania LaVie Owen) as she runs yet again from another messy dalliance. They’re basically broke and homeless, sleeping in their car, tag team shoplifting to survive Bush’s recession in 2008. When they try to sneak off without paying for breakfast, car won't start. Stranded short of Boston destination in a small town, Rita is forced to admit their ruse to diner owner Marty (Richard Kind). Instead of turning them in to police, he offers Rita a job as a waitress and provides them a bunk in back room. Months pass, Rita finds a new suitor, slick real estate agent Vic (Mark Consuelos), who makes it easy for them to buy a house with payments they can’t afford. This bit of stability helps Ruthie get enrolled in high school. The one bright spot in Ruthie’s desperate existence is a teal one speed that she rides all over day and night. But she begins to notice all the businesses closed due to economic downturn. At an AA meeting Rita meets dentist widower Lee (Luke Wilson, Stargirl), who offers to fix her teeth and save their lives.

Another slice of reevaluating nice living arrives via Lost Cat Corona (Anthony Tarsitano, dir., 2017). When his wife’s pet black cat roams off, Dominic (Karate Kid grown up Ralph Macchio) borrows his sister’s bicycle to scour Corona, Queens, but it turns out to be much more of an adventure than he bargained for. Dangerous situations with criminal neighbors has him facing fears he never realized existed just outside his door, as if mean streets from Martin Scorsese’s childhood (who once in fact resided there), when a few years later it’s an invisible killer that crowns area deadlier than elsewhere among New York’s boroughs, maybe nation as well.

Routine averse man-child Rodney (Steve Olson), about to turn 30, has no job or ambition, only a dysfunctional car and a goldfish in a bowl that he’s too lazy to name. He meets dying widow June (Katherine Cortez) when she catches him squatting in his sedan in front of her home and stealing electricity from her to charge his phone in Fishbowl California (Michael A. MacRae, dir., 2018). They strike a bargain: He’ll tend to her yard for power he stole, but then gradually becomes her live-in assistant and verbal sparring partner. He figures for health she needs to ride her old bike, so restores it. After staging her own “living funeral”, with plans to migrate permanently to Hawaii, she sets him up with convenience store ownership and takes a last fling pedaling that thing. Great to see elderly enjoying spinning along street like a carefree youngling.

Korean star Rain plays champion cyclist Uhm Bok-Dong in full length feature Race to Freedom (Kim Yoo-sung, dir., 2019). Set during the Japanese colonization of Korea prior to WWII, lots of side plots about political assassinations and revolutionary uprisings overwhelm furious racing action. Overlooked cheating and taking out race leader with underhanded tactics typifies times of totalitarian oppression. Though a big budget production, is lumped among South Korea’s worst movie failures returning less than 10% of investment in worldwide distribution. One supposes that a biopic about all but forgotten Bicycle King of Korea needed historical context to bulk up story. A true pioneer was Marshall “Major” Taylor, who broke the sports color barrier a century ago on what was once white only events. Wonder what happened to biopic Major Taylor: Relentless, still listed as “in development”.

La Bore, de Tour, la Bane

“Good news in today’s world is like a fugitive, treated like a hoodlum, and put on the run. Castigated. All we see is good-for-nothing news. And we have to thank the media industry for that. It stirs people up. Gossip and dirty laundry. Dark news that depresses and horrifies you.” - Bob Dylan, Nobel Laureate for being a Protest Poet, New York Times 2020 interview. Protesters he influenced shown cycling to convene recently for BLM in Oakland, CA. 

Labann interlaces facts, fancy terms, fantasies, rhymes and rhythms. Takes an insane amount of labor every day to be such a bane and bore, to lead readers into such a repulsive detour. Poetry and vocabulary can be off-putting, yet truths send people recoiling and screaming. Journalism can be a mirror that shows blemishes, cracks and wrinkles, and who wants that? Have lately, however, reported in line with B&C’s primary mission, to explore bicycling culture, not necessarily to advocate participation but embrace all aspects, minus and plus. Doesn’t misery love company? How you react is your own business. Feature films always seem to personalize pedaling to individual circumstances; viewers could claim they were entertained or complain they were cheated. If you can soon die alone by an invisible and vicious disease from an unmasked sneeze, you let a horrid lampoon fly, never question why, before you say your last goodbye.

Swan family’s three daughters, fetching fiancée Anna (Gretchen Mol), fierce feminist Karen (Martha Plimpton) and fully blind Nina (Jennifer Tilly), named after Tolstoy’s novel, all heed Music from Another Room (Charlie Peters, dir., 1998), which is how Danny (Jude Law) describes being in love in this romantic farce. Supposedly, if you are in love, no amount of noise can keep you from singing along in sync even when you can’t hear song during an extended distraction. After Danny loses his apartment, he elects to move into a flat over a bakery, where he delivers pastries by bicycle to defray rent while awaiting a gig as a mosaic artist. Danny’s personal association with the Swans goes back to when he was 6 years old and had to help his doctor dad deliver Anna. Fate had them meet again 25 years later, having crashed his bike when doored by a Mercedes driver, who turns out to be Anna’s brother Billy attending same party at parent’s home. Danny imposes on their lives, influences sisters, and introduces chronically fearful Nina to dancing, where she meets a Latin lover, Jesus (Vincent Laresca), who awkwardly buys her a bicycle. Remarkably, Jesus gets Nina to actually ride it by putting cards in his spokes and telling her to follow his clacking sound. He should have bought her a tandem, but, no matter. Anna Karenina, by the way, wasn’t a love story, rather Tolstoy’s warning against delusions of romance.

Monella (Tinto Brass, dir., 1998), aka Frivolous Lola (Anna Ammirati), is a teenager living with her widow mom in 1950’s rural Northern Italy. Lola is already engaged to Masetto (Max Parodi) but has an intense libidinousness to begin conjugal bliss, and torments town by riding her bicycle around incessantly in an immodest skirt and lace panties. This strains her Catholic relationship with Masetto, who insists upon virginity before their nuptials. Muslims believe likewise. Religions blame pandemic patients, interpret as God’s sign that they should die or suffer for their sins, particularly the one where they don’t tithe sufficiently. Primitive pagans professed something akin, sacrificed virgins to ensure successful harvests and hunts. Science shows zero correlation between earthly rewards and spiritual rituals. Doesn’t negate prayer as a positive influence or self improvement.

House of D (David Duchovny, dir., 2004) has Tom Warshaw (director Duchovny) on his son's 13th birthday recalling his own in 1973. Back then, young Tom (the late Anton Yelchin) has a friend in developmentally challenged Pappas (the late Robin Williams), and they pedal together on an ice cream vendor cart pranking pedestrians. For some reason this film was ticket bane, lost over $5.5 million. Although Duchovny's directorial debut, acting was good and New York location sets did show vehicles appropriate to period.

Dutch tragicomic adventure Ventoux (Nicole van Kilsdonk, dir., 2015) recalls 30 years earlier when five high school buddies climbed the infamous, practically sacred mountain repeatedly included on Tour de France stages. Upon descent, one dies. When remaining four meet again in middle age, they resolve to repeat this challenge in memory of their lost friend, though no longer in teenage shape, as have millions of cyclists from all over the world out of love for this sport. Old flame Maruschka Detmers shows up to complicate matters and resurrect jealousies. Ventoux is sort of a male sequel to Zadelpijn (Nicole van Kilsdonk, dir., 2007) in which seven females survive each others petty barbs on a week long bicycling tour of Normandy. Happiest woman in group is one who’s worse off, who has cancer and is likely delighted just to be able to belong on tour.

Brothers Hussin, Noah and Timothy, inspired by Dylan, Kerouac, and Thoreau, build bicycles from recycled components for themselves, then spend next 2 years tracing Southern border of USA for 5,000 miles from North Carolina to Los Angeles making a DIY crowdfunded documentary, America Recycled (Hussins, 2015). It answers question about where nation’s anarchists, commune dreamers, dumpster divers, freaks, hippies and libertines who’ve survived disappeared to: Homesteading and squatting off the grid, the only place where The American Dream isn’t yet dead.

Prizefight biopic Bleed for This (Ben Younger, dir., 2016) opens with a scene of light welterweight Vinny Pazienza (Miles Teller) riding a stationary bike in his bedroom while trainers enclose him in a saran wrap cocoon. Paz is desperately trying to loose a few pounds to qualify for his 1988 fight against Roger Mayweather (Peter Quillin), while organizers are on phone threatening default for not showing up for mandatory weigh-in. Bicycling is often associated with boxing, usually trainers riding alongside contender’s roadwork used to build leg muscles and overall stamina. They call a peloton racer who attacks solo and builds a sustained lead a baroudeur, meaning brawler or fighter, though term originated with foreign legionaries who settled differences with fisticuffs. 

An unrealistic Christian indie film called Baroudeur (Frans Cronjé, dir., 2012), aka Breakaway (not to be confused with classic often cited Breaking Away) has a laid-off family man taking up bike messengering, then, with encouragement of a local shop owner, ne’er-do-well brother, and professional cyclist, enters some races for prize money.

In seriocomic feature Baked in Brooklyn (Rory Rooney, dir., 2016), inept bicyclist David (Josh Brener) loses his consultant job, so resorts to pedaling around his New York neighborhood selling weed for a livelihood. He meet love interest Kate (Alexandra Daddario), who worries about him as demand proliferates and paranoia overtakes. More about cannabis sales later...

Ingrid Goes West (Matt Spicer, dir., 2017) to impose on beautiful bicyclist and Instagram friend Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), “the coolest and most interesting person she ever met”. Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza) is an insane internet stalker that Taylor permits to become a constant confidante and mutual admiration companion. How can this end well?

Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town (Christian Papierniak, dir., 2017) when she (Mackenzie Davis) finds out her ex-boyfriend Roger (Alex Russell) is having an engagement party to announce nuptials with her ex-best girlfriend. But her journey from Santa Monica across LA in a day requires several modes of borrowed transportation, one exasperating segment by bicycle. Izzy intends to cause havoc and crash bash, maybe get back boyfriend she trashed. Fact that she spends so much time riding sidewalks attests to LA’s lack of cycling infrastructure. As a gig worker Izzy would be eligible for unemployment, but free COVID handouts prove no good comes from redistributing treasury revenue. It's just a way to funnel taxes into creditors, insurers, mortgage holders, and tax assessors who send bills you can’t avoid due to extreme consequences including homelessness and starvation.

Marlo (Charlize Theron, Academy Award Best Actress) is an imperfect mom who births her third child and suffers from postpartum depression. Her brother-in-law and husband urge her to consider a night nanny, which she considers an extravagance. When things turn for the worst, she hires Tully (Jason Reitman, dir., 2018). Initially awkward, Marlo and Tully (Mackenzie Davis, who starred as Izzy, above) grow friendly, share intimacies, work through issues; they even plan to meet at a bar in Marlo’s old Brooklyn neighborhood. One night Marlo rides with her favorite barista (Emily Haine) though Bushwick, just the thing to shed 35 pounds the former model and 100 times nominated actress gained for this role. Wonderful how imagination can play a part in healing, isn’t it?

Postponed Tour de France finally underway, recall how HBO’s mockumentary Tour de Pharmacy (Jake Szymanski, dir., 2017) ridicules UCI racing in general and world’s premier race as tainted by unnatural biochemistry. Not about Amgen’s Tour of California despite name, a crew of celebrities, fans of cycling, join in, including avid riders Andy Samberg and Jeff Goldblum. Austrian cyclist Gustav Ditters (WWE champion John Cena) has a bit of a problem with ‘roid rage when reporters accuse five remaining competitors including him of “dogging it” during 1982’s race. TdF’s 69th edition was in fact won by Bernard Hinault, his 4th of 5 TdF victories, and 35 years ago last Frenchman to win a TdF. Ditters can ride faster, but gets disqualified just like rest of field, who were caught bribing UCI President Ditmer Klerken (Kevin Bacon). Americans are unaware that Tour de France, by virtue of being free for spectators, is the best attended sporting event ever, fifteen million in a typical year, with one billion television viewers, 10 times as many who tune in NFL’s Superbowl. Stamina to ascend mountains and endure 2,800 miles in 21 stages averaging 30 mph seems impossible to summon without special help. Top teams earn millions of euros, so profit motives push riders past sensible limits.

Argentine family of sensitive teen Lorenzo (Angelo Mutti Spinetta), who’ve decamped city for barren Patagonia, take in older, troubled teen Caíto (Lautaro Rodríguez), who hides secrets too delicate to reveal. For LoLo, Caíto becomes My Best Friend (Martin Dues, dir., 2018). Both learns things from each other on a bicycling/camping trek, while a same sex crush develops. In Spanish with subtitles, appeals mostly to LGBTQ crowd.

Callow bicyclist and comic book artist Enn, short for Henry (Alex Sharp), thinks he’s learning How to Talk to Girls at Parties (John Cameron Mitchell, dir, 2018), but Zan (recently mentioned Elle Fanning) is actually an extraterrestrial landed in 1977 Croydon, South London, for a conformity ritual. She admires Enn’s punk attitude and forms an alien bond. He’s grateful for a smidgen of physical stimulation.

Punk rebellion also stands out in The House of Tomorrow (Peter Livolsi, dir., 2018). Home schooled and socially isolated, geeky bicyclist Sebastian (Asa Butterfield) lives with his grandmother (Ellen Burstyn) in their aging Minnesota geodesic museum designed by futuristic architect Buckminster Fuller. In one visiting group, he encounters brother and sister Jared (Alex Wolff) and Meredith (Maude Apatow). A friendship grows and they form a punk band. As youth comes of age, it’s normal that they find their own way and overthrow past conventions, though this instinct seems to skip satisfied generations who place little value on individual innovations. That’s when fascism reappears, freedoms start to disappear, and some civil disobedience becomes de rigueur.

The Gentlemen (Guy Ritchie, dir., 2020) involves Mickey Pearson (Mathew McConnaughey), who’s an American pot grower operating in London trying to divest himself of that business, which triggers turf takeover by rival gangsters. When a bunch of hooligan bicyclists use cell phones to video a murder, Raymond (Charlie Hunman) and his proper gangsters confront them. Can’t come prepared for a knife fight when misjudged gentleman you want to intimidate pulls out a machine gun. Street scum scatter. Raymond’s crew chase them down on foot, as if decent riders could be caught by joggers, and convince them to turn phones over, in one case by dooring a fleeing loose end. Movie’s box office success derives from its vicarious appeal to criminally inclined minds. Economic downturns inspire renegade behaviors that conveniently overlook how they harm innocents.