6B -The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 28, 2006

FILM
Continued from page 1B
book, and the underappreciated film
versions of it, is that this is essen-
tially a story of two people on a fit-
fully clandestine road trip, dodging
an unnamed watcher along the way.
Get the notorious 1997 version by
Adrian Lyne, starring Jeremy Irons
and a young Dominique Swain in
the title role. Kubrick's earlier adap-
tation may have raised eyebrows, but
Lyne - the king of sexual melodra-
ma ("Unfaithful," "9 1/2 Weeks")
- rendered his version so explicitly
that no American distributor would
touch it, and here more than ever the
open road is the bearer of Humbert
Humbert aberrant deeds. The wind-
ing highways are the film's play-
ground, the characters' hide-out and
ultimately their witness.
"Thelma & Louise" (1991)
Ridley Scott's post-feminist
chronicle of the enduring bond
between two women on the run from
the police is the poster child of the
modern road movie, a filmic photo
essay of the American southwest.
With Susan Sarandon and Geena
Davis in the leads and the scenery
filling out the supporting roles (sorry
Brad Pitt), the film is a love letter to
the rustic beauty of a less-known
America and friendship as few ever
come to know it. The last scene, a
jaw-dropping descent into the Grand
Canyon, is among the great cinemat-
ic finales ever filmed.
"My Own Private Idaho" (1991)
On their most superficial level,
road movies are about escape, and
no one needs to escape more than
the sorry heroes.of Gus Van Sant's
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wandering masterpiece of disil-
lusioned youth, "My Own Private
Idaho." River Phoenix (in his best
screen role) and Keanu Reeves star
as Pacific Northwest hustlers look-
ing for everything and nothing all
at once. They travel against majes-
tic backdrops quoting Shakespeare
and occasionally having sex, the end
of the road and perhaps the end of
their lives the only thing that could
stopthem. The filmexists, and never
quite finds its way out of it. The final
line: "I'm a connoisseur of roads.
I've been tasting roads my whole life.
This road will never end. It probably
goes all around the world."
"Everything is illuminated"
(2005)
A sweet-natured fable that hijacks
the conventions of the road movie
and groups people who don't know
each other,"Everything is Illuminat-
ed" has its destination in mind by has
no idea how to get there. Directed by
Liev Schreiber and starring Elijah
Wood, the modest-minded film is a
tale of self-discovery as vibrant as it
is thematically understated.
"Y tu mama tambien" (2002)
The intensely, undeniably sexual
air of Alfonso Cuardn's "Y t mamd
tambien" is a singularity that in
itself sets it apart from other road
movies, but this story of two teenage
boys (Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego
Luna, international stars because
of this movie) and a beautiful older
woman (Ana Lopez Mercad) on
their way to a beach that doesn't exist
hardly stops there. The Academy
Award-nominated screenplay (rare
for a foreign-language film) at once
fearlessly cuts into two boys' sexual
awakenings, provides a sweeping
commentary on the modern Mexi-
can landscape and has a well-hidden
undertow of innocence lost in the
harshest way.
"Dumb and Dumber" (1994)
If you had a car like the Shag-
gin' Wagon, would you ever take
it off the road? Harry and Lloyd
(Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey) tra-
verse the nation to return a woman's
briefcase, unaware that she had pur-
posely dropped it as payment to her
husband's kidnappers. Then again,
they're pretty oblivious to practi-
cally everything. Watch as they
sing the classics a cappella, pair
hot sauce with rat poison, sport the
snazziest suits this side of 1980 and
finally ascend the wintry Rockies on
a scooter. Snot mustaches, laxatives

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and a straight-faced hooters joke? five-and-dimes with a few well-
No one ever said top-grade funny oiled Bible-salesman routines. Add
had to be classy. the ever-hilarious Madeline Kahn
("Blazing Saddles") as an aging car-

"It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad
World" (1963)
When an old thief dies in a car
crash, his last words reveal the secret
location of his lifetime loot to a ran-
dom assembly of sympathetic motor-
ists. They see dollar signs - it's off
to the races. 2001's "Rat Race" may
be the modern equivalent, but any
cinematic endeavor with Smash-
mouth as a climatic ending pales
in comparison to a cast of Spencer
Tracy, Milton Berle, Ethel Merman,
Sid Caesar and Jonathon Winters,
all at their hambone best. "Madcap"
doesn't even begin to cover it -
when that old thief kicks the bucket,
he, well, actually kicks a bucket. Yep
- it's that kind of comedy.
"Paper Moon" (1973)
The plotmay haveayoung girland
a con man hitting the road together,
but this "Lolita" this ain't. Real life
father-daughter Ryan and Tatum
O'Neal pair up for a far less violent
take on the classic Bonnie and Clyde
life of traveling criminals, swindling
vulnerable new widows and small

nie, and it's a winning little movie,
sweet and sharp.
"Easy Rider" (1969)
Dennis Hopper's directorial debut
is the road-trip movie at its very
essence: "A man went looking for
America and couldn't find it any-
where." More accurately, there are
two men, and what they do find is
a very young Jack Nicholson, some
mind-expanding drugs and the sweet-
est motorcycle helmet to ever grace a
movie screen. The stark ending will
shake you, but you'll have already
sworn to grow Hopper's mustache or
Peter Fonda's chops by then anyway.
"The Blues Brothers" (1980)
Two men embark on a mission
from God and encounter a waitress
named Aretha and a backflipping
preacher named James Brown. But
how could you not have caught this
one yet? Comedy Central replays it
at least twice a week.
- Complied by Kristin
MacDonald and Jeffrey Bloomer.

1

Courtesy of Wamner Bros., Guild
TOP: Elijah Wood gets lost in American heartland, finds self.
BOTTOM: Dominique Swain, as the titular character of "Lolita," rubs up on
Jeremy irons's Humbert Humbert.

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