car chases in conteporary cinema – I SAW THAT http://urbanhonking.com/isawthat Mon, 10 Feb 2014 17:36:23 +0000 en-US hourly 1 DATE NIGHT & OTHERS http://urbanhonking.com/isawthat/2011/06/02/date-night-others/ http://urbanhonking.com/isawthat/2011/06/02/date-night-others/#comments Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:38:01 +0000 http://urbanhonking.com/isawthat/?p=171 Continue reading →]]> Reading her book has only served to further my fascination with Tina Fey–I just want more of her particular kind of funny. This is what led me to rent her 2010 film, Date Night which looked a little dumb in the previews and then got panned. I think Baby Mama might have led me to doubt Fey’s power, plus I am so tired of Steve Carrell, you have no idea. Nevertheless, I was mistaken, because Date Night was not even bad! YES–The plot was impossible and silly, but there are plenty of good lines, esp. if you think Tina Fey saying “there’s gonna be a lot of penis blood!” is a good line (I do.). The relationship between Tina Fey and Steve Carrell was straight out of a Savage Love letter about companionate marriage, what with the exhausted parenting, the sexless bond, the date to a steak restaurant. Same old depressing cliche, but then again so is the impossible star-crossed romance of every other movie ever made. Not every girl can be torn between a shirtless vaguely ethnic wolfman lover and an telepathic, old-fashioned vampire who can prefers to watch her sleep! There is also the mandated action scene cameo by a black dude who does a whole “whats up with you crazy white people!?” routine. I suppose that the humor of that is in the casual racist irony? Or is it more that the extreme “normalness” of white people is actually exotic? Or is it that everyone thinks black people are crazy, and so it’s funny that they think we are crazy? Anyhow, that happens in my favorite part: the super long ridiculous car chase scene. It is not as good as the trailer-liberation/cop care chase in Due Date–I laughed until I cried and then silent laughed over that–but it is quite funny and I would almost watch the movie again for it. This is my secret shame–I will love a stupid movie if the car chase is good enough. Perhaps this is owed to my mom renting me Herbie movies everytime I was home sick from school c. 1983-84? I can only wonder.

My all time favorite funny car chase is this:

I think Blues Brothers taught a valuable lesson, that any chase involving a cop car is automatically way funnier. Crashing into a cop car, or a chase where a cop car goes spiraling off a bridge–I think it sates America’s desire to see cops pay–which might explain it’s total ubiquity in action and comedy films.

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