it's a summer friday nite & you want that drive-in feeling so you watch the opening credits & intro to escape from new york [1981]
i fucking love this movie. sheer cinema brilliance by the writer/director, & film composer, john carpenter. i so loved this flick that i convinced my parents to take me to see this movie at the Sac 6 Drive-Ins [still showing films to this day!] during that summer of 1981 as often as their sanity would allow. i loved this score so much i took my cheap ass tape recorder & recorded this opening theme by sticking my tape recorder under the drive-in speaker. you know that kind of speaker that you attached to your car window & had that very tinny sound? yeah! i wish i still had that tape for i am sure i also captured the ambient sounds of a summer night at the drive-ins. the crunch of the gravel under footfalls & rolling truck & car tires, that doppler effect of many speakers playing the same movie, people walking by going to & from the snack bar. a whole world of movie-going that is not quite lost in time but rarer today. for those were hot summer nites!
please allow me to introduce to you the always fabulous, brilliant poet alex gildzen, 'Aging Wildly,' interviewed on The Poet's Bench in Palm Springs, CA
three great speeches from fictive u.s. presidents for the 4th of july
it's been a quiet week. surprisingly. because usually the lighting of fireworks starts a week before this holiday. but tonight it seems everyone saved up to light them all off right now. as i type, with my window open to the warm july night, it sounds like the front line of a war. i noticed, today, the great many homes, in neighborhoods up & down & across my fair city, are proudly displaying an american flag. so are we. for america is an idea & an ideal. worthy of them too even if our present time seems to contraindicate the idea & ideal just so.
so in the spirit of this great american holiday here are three speeches from fictive u.s. presidents.
1. the west wing [1999 - 2006]. president bartlett's speech here is goosebumpery. martin sheen delivers this speech with great aplomb. aaron sorkin's writing is a balance of nobility, grace & pride. president bartlett may be the greatest u.s. president in american fiction.
2. independence day [1996]. i have come to love this flick. when i first watched it, 30 years ago, i agreed with the new yorker's summation that this was a work of 'spectacular nothing.' i've long since changed my mind. this flick is a summer movie deluxe. it's got a killer cast, fantastic FX, & the director, roland emmerich, delivers such goofball panache to what is, in essence, a summer popcorn movie. but when president whitmore, played by bill pullman, gives his st. crispin's day speech, oh wow! for again, this speech is evidence that america, & being american, is an idea & an ideal.
3. ioiocracy [2006]. now this is a movie. a satire of u.s. culture, political & popular, this flick is a bastion of hilarious counter moves against our own current culture, political & popular. but i will say that president dwyane elizondo mountain dew herbert camacho, played by the great terry crews, only wants what is best for his people. so he gets the smartest man in the world, not sure, wonderfully essayed by luke wilson, to create a three-point plan, to fix everything! president camacho's state of the union speech is a miracle of theater & persuasion.
there you have three fictive american presidents giving the speeches of their lives.
the fireworks are still lighting the Sac sky. i love it. i love the holiday. one of my favorites, behind halloween. because it is a summer holiday, & an american holiday. for whoso chooses to celebrate this day is american.
in the spirit of the 4th of july weekend let us celebrate a true american classic movie. based on stephen king's short story, trucks, motor vehicles become sentient & murdery. every car, truck, & vehicle in between, turn into serial killers. they want to take over the earth & kill every living human on it. why? well, it's been 40 years since i read king's story but in this flick our machines turn on a killing mood because a comet's tail engulfed our home planet. that tail alone is the cause of all the stabby, blunt force trauma to come.
i would be remiss to not point out the obvious detail of this movie. this is the only feature directed by the writer himself. & king was outta his mind on coke & booze when he helmed this masterpiece. did the chemicals help? well, let's just say that this movie is sui generis. it is flat out petal to the metal balls to the wall goofy gory fun. the tone is a balance of camp & scary. the direction is pretty solid. the editing & photography pretty cool. the score, by those great american patriots ACDC, is killer. hell, the opening set piece scored with the song 'who made who' is worth the price of a ticket. oh, & the cameo of king himself trying to get a few bucks from an ATM when it all goes haywire is an icon of american movies. i shit you not.
it must be clear by now that i fucking love this movie. starring emilio estevez as the young short order cook at a highway truck stop who becomes the de facto leader of the survivors, & pat hingle as his boss & owner of said truck stop, The Dixie Boy, who chews both the scenery & a cigar as he calls everyone, including the psycho trucks, 'bubba.' don't forget a young giancarlo esposito in the video arcade of The Dixie Boy too. i can't think of a better movie to watch on a long holiday summer weekend. this movie is easy to find both as a dollar bin DVD & on many streaming platforms. i cannot recommend this movie enough! happy 4th of july!
it's friday nite & you are zonked out from a long work week so you need a little electricity in the form of little richard performing, in 1963, 'whole lotta shakin' going on' which is one of the most electrifying performances you ever did see!
