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Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Where The Hell Is Captain Chaos?
Now Playing: SPEED ZONE
By coincidence, I saw our pal Art Hindle pop up tonight as a Washington, D.C. cop in SPEED ZONE, which was conceived as CANNONBALL RUN III. Perhaps Orion had difficulties obtaining the rights to the title, but the participation of producer Albert S. Ruddy and co-star Jamie Farr as "The Sheik" practically guarantees that SPEED ZONE was intended to be a sequel to the Burt Reynolds moneymakers. The problem is that Burt and his band of merry pranksters aren't in it. Instead, it's an SCTV-ized version that features John Candy, Eugene Levy and Joe Flaherty, was written by Michael Short, and was directed by Jim Drake. It's an action/comedy with dull action and little comedy. And certainly lacking the star power of the CANNONBALL films, which sparkled with names like Roger Moore, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Shirley MacLaine, Farrah Fawcett, Peter Fonda and Jackie Chan. SPEED ZONE substitutes the Smothers Brothers, Matt Frewer, Alyssa Milano, Melody Anderson, Brooke Shields, Michael Spinks, Peter Boyle, Donna Dixon, Lee Van Cleef and Tim Matheson. And, of course, Art Hindle, who drives a Lambourghini, but does not win the big race.

Candy made a lot of mediocre movies, but I don't recall him ever giving a bad performance, and even the lack of funny material and the misguided romance with Dixon (who plays her character as a Marilyn Monroe impression) look somewhat reputable in his capable hands. Frewer, as an Englishman who teams up with hitman Flaherty (who resembles his Rocco n'er-do-well from the SCTV soap THE DAYS OF THE WEEK), wrestles with an appalling accent, but plays off Flaherty well, and their scenes are probably the film's liveliest. Dick and Tom Smothers look like they're having a good time, and Brooke Shields is surprisingly competent playing herself. Not acquitting themselves as well are Levy (who's wasted), Peter Boyle (struggling with a ridiculous character) and Shari Belafonte and Melody Anderson as beautiful Ph.D's who aren't allowed to be very sexy. SPEED ZONE is also missing the daring stunt work that might have made it worthwhile for action fans. There's a lot of fast driving and cars occasionally bumping each other, but the chases exhibit less energy than the bumper car party that rolls beneath the closing crawl.

Deep Discount DVD is having a massive 20% Off sale right now, so it's a good time to catch up on some titles you've been dying to have. I received my package in the mail this week--a great deal for $67.42...and free shipping! I purchased:

DANGER: DIABOLIK (2 copies--1 for my friend Salvatore, a fan of the Italian comic)
PRIME CUT (Lee Marvin/Gene Hackman)
BREAKER! BREAKER! (Chuck Norris' first film)
AVALANCHE (a Roger Corman disaster movie with Rock Hudson, Mia Farrow and Robert Forster)
THE HAUNTING OF MORELLA (Jim Wynorski does Poe with nude scenes by Nicole Eggert, Maria Ford and Lana Clarkson)
KOJAK: SEASON ONE (who loves ya, baby?)

Looks like a big movie weekend--LAND OF THE DEAD with some Horizonites tomorrow night and BATMAN BEGINS with Csiki on Saturday. Coming up in August is Wizard World, so I need to start saving money for that, especially since we're staying for the entire three-day convention again this year.

Posted by Marty at 11:24 PM CDT
Post Comment | View Comments (2) | Permalink

Friday, June 24, 2005 - 9:48 AM CDT

Name: moto105

Don't know if you've seen Batman Begins yet, but I was very impressed. The critics love Bale, Caine, Oldman and Freeman. And, hey, its got Ken Watanabe as (surprise) a ninja master! The common thread for bashing the film, however is Tom Cruise's overly proclaimed fiance Katie Holmes. In my opinion, the role she played was so vanilla not many actresses could shine with the above cast. However from the point in the story that her character--Rachel Dawson--is drugged, Holmes does her best to stand out for the rest of the movie. Either that or the temperatures on the set was dropped to around 50 degrees. I'm sure that Csiki will point it (them?) out to you.

Friday, June 24, 2005 - 9:06 PM CDT

Name: John Charles

When SPEED ZONE was shooting here in Ontario, it was indeed called CANNONBALL RUN III. Not sure why it was dropped as this awful movie needs all the help it can get!

While I wouldn't say John Candy was bad in SPEED ZONE, he did look rather ill.

John Charles

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