| credits containing: christopher lloyd years: 1890-2010 |
2.Interstate 60 (2002,USA,116mins) uncommon good:YesYES - Drama, Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Romance • A young man named Neal Oliver is having a 22nd birthday dinner with his family. His sister is supportive of his dream to be an artist, his shallow girlfriend less so, and his father pushes law school and a red BMW convertible on him. Neal's favorite color is blue, and this is just another example of how he gets overruled. So when he makes a birthday wish, he declares he wants an answer to his life. This open-ended wish intrigues the red-headed waiter with the red bow tie, who is none other than O. W. Grant, short for One Wish Grant, the mythical immortal son of a Cheyenne maiden and an immigrant Leprechaun who likes to mess with people's heads. Be careful what you wish for. Neal thus gets hit on the head, ends up in a hospital, and gets a lecture from Grant's cousin Ray masquerading as a doctor in a green coat, about taking the road less traveled and seeing life anew. Neal had been painting a woman he sees in his dreams, and after his release he begins to hallucinate her on empty billboards. The doctor hires Neal to deliver a package before Neal commits to law school, and with Grant's help Neal finds the best route by mythical highway Interstate 60, Grant's favorite hangout. Neal encounters the strangest people and places on Interstate 60, many having to do with abuses of law, such as a town of legalized drug use that enslaves, a museum of art fraud, and a town where rampant lawyers have imprisoned none other than Lynn the girl from Neal's dreams. With more weird luck and help, Neal frees the girl, escapes a future self who became sociopathic after law school, and delivers the package to the pleasure of O. W. Grant. Having passed all tests, Neal is sent back in time to a pivotal art show that he had not entered, this time to meet the girl of his dreams in normal reality, where she is an art publisher who loves his work. Finally armed with right livelihood and true love, Neal stands up to his father and takes the road less traveled. • If you ever thought that Hollywood might be a reasonable filter for good filmmaking (okay so crap gets through the machine, but maybe all those b-movies and foreign obscurities were unreleased for a reason?), then submitted for your approval is the curious case of "Interstate 60". It took me years to stumble across this movie, and it's instantly one of my all-time favorites. A brilliant all-star cast, hilarious endearing characters, fantastic tall-tale imagination, timeless journeying to adulthood, profoundly clever script, high production values, all from the makers of the wildly successful "Back to the Future" films. So why would Hollywood ignore this gem? Because the machine couldn't compute the non-formulaic complexity which makes this film so richly satisfying. Much credit is due to the writer/director, obviously a master storyteller who knows his classical mythology. The screenplay flirts with cliches but turns sharply at every corner, and to such delight that the speed with which great actors signed onto the project was unprecedented. Symbols are wise and multi-layered: O. W. puffs a monkey pipe with green smoke, evoking Middle-Eastern genies, Hindu/Buddhist Monkey gods, and Irish fairies, as he sends Neal between states of being that are by turns horrific and hysterical. Tragic-comic characters overindulge in food, money, and sex. The town of addiction is a land of lotus eaters that is every bit the terrifying warning that it should be to a civilization built on superficial progress and pleasure. A philosophical businessman becomes a chillingly likeable suicide bomber for truth in advertising, foreshadowing violent confrontations for both Neal and his world (it is unclear if this scene was conceived before 9/11). Who'd have thought such serious stuff could be so entertaining? As with the best dreams, place names pun endlessly in this American bardo== the magical journey ends at the Rainbow Club of course. I've never before seen such a successful updating of coming-of-age archetypes, and my suspicions of assistance from higher powers seem confirmed in the dvd extras which mention synchronicities of weather and scheduling that ensured the movie got made in spite of Hollywood. The budget was modest, but if the future is smart then Interstate 60 will become in reruns the "Wizard of Oz" for the new century, because concepts not eye candy are the real special effects. Dir./writer Bob Gale, James Marsden (Neal), Gary Oldman (O.W. Grant), Christopher Lloyd (Ray), Amy Smart (Lynn), Chris Cooper, Amy Jo Johnson, Michael J. Fox, Kurt Russell, aka "Interstate 60: Episodes of the Road", for more myth-making journeying compare with "Big Fish" (2003) - Themes: Altered States, Contact, Creativity, Dreaming, Evolution, Growth/Healing, Higher Friends, Immortality, Incarnations, Journeying, Mind, Myth/Religion, Powers of Spirit, Reality, Soulmates, Synchronicities www.MysticalMoveGuide.com - All Original Writings Copyright © Carl J. Schroeder, All Rights Reserved. Images Are The Copyright Property Of The Respective Owners/Studios And Were Obtained Through Public Channels And Are Not Intended to Infringe On Any Copyrights