| Ford Fairlane When whoever invented motion pictures way back during the days off, I doubt they had in mind the usage of the medium as we experience it today. Back then the actual use of cinema was to document exciting things like the movements a horse makes while in trot. Later on, when celluloid became cheaper, people started documenting matters of interest as wide spread from city scenes to wars, burlesque to vaudeville. As time went by and inventions were made, so did the cinema move from big cities to towns and villages. Nickelodeons sprang up like mushrooms in dark and moist fields, exposing more and more people each day to the wonders of the flickering images on white screens being accompanied by some piano playing entertainer. As a medium it soon flourished. Artists, journalist, entertainers found it an easy means to reach a wider audience, and so did propagandists. Of the later most notably would be Mrs. Riefenstahl with her images of the German athletes professing their superiority via stylized takes of their performances. Images speak a thousand words at 24 frames a second in cinematography. A fair guess would be to assume that over the moderately short time that cinema has been with us, more works have been produced then any other creative medium in history. Far exceeding poetry or basket weaving, people have been exposed to a constant supply of grainy images. And with this supply tastes have been molded. Hitchcok delving into the psyche of suspense, Kurusawa giving us a new take on classic literature. And who could forget Chaplin during the silent era, before talkies were the talk of the town? Sometime during the 1910’s some studios, that started spinning out products like a factory, inhabited a partially populated suburbia of Los Angeles. The main reason for the location was the annual hours of sunlight being recorded there, great light-settings not having been invented. The name of the town; Hollywood. Modern cinema had been invented. Just last week Citizen Kane was voted best movie in the history of movie making, Orson Welles at his best. But who or what was Rosebud? This history making feat did not go well with many fanatics. A large collection of cinemafiles would have liked to see Boogie get the honors with Casablanca. Others probably had a favorable attitude towards Gone with the Wind, others again with Usual Suspects or Serpico… When it comes to tastes, movies have created for a wide variety of hungry customers. And so, my proud three readers who are left, we finally reach what I wanted to write about in the first place, a movie that left a taint on history the size of a gnat on an elephants ass. A piece of history that will vanish in time, only to be revived by fans like myself who feel that this film should not be forgotten. I am talking about a gem in B-movieland history that aspired to be more. I call it The Little Engine That Could, you might know it as [i]The Adventures of Ford Fairlane[/i]. There are times in your life when you want nothing but to be entertained. You want to be pleased by sights and sounds that will put a smile on your face. You want to giggle for the sake of silliness. You want to tune out your mind and think thoughts that remain blank. FF will give you that, and more. The early 90’s can be described as the wake of Reaganomics. A time when people still thought they had money to spend. During this epoch the radio played a selection of hair metal that desperately wanted to be void of spray. Bleach blond was the color of choice, Hip-Hop-ers wore baggy pants that hung around their ankles, everything was painted bright neon colors… Opening shot, a metal concert. Vince Neill (of Motley Crue fame) prances around like a sissy while his nasal squealing tries to burst our cochlea. Thank Mahatma Gandhi he dies within the following 3 minutes. Teeny boppers bop, the crowd roars, pyrotechnics are set aflame. The theme of the movie has been set; this is a Rock & Roll movie, with Rock & Roll people doing Rock & Roll things. We have models, we have psychotic killers, we have femme fattalle, we have murder and intrigue and someone was sick enough to string up a koala! Synopsis of the movie; Rock & Roll detective is hired to find missing daughter, singer gets killed, ultra cheesy one-liners are voiced, cigarettes are lit to be doused so that another can be lit again, loud-mouthed DJ gets killed, femme fattale gets killed, koala is strung up, a precious Ford Fairlane (the car, not the detective) gets blown up, a Flamin Sambuca shake causes havoc, a beach front property is blown up, more one-liners, some necrophilia jokes, a ’62 Fender Strat meets the pavement, a mystery is solved and a boss is romantically re-united with his assistant… and the koala –we find out – has been resurrected cause nobody in their right mind would kill a koala, right? So what makes this movie a gem? Bad taste does, and so does too much time on ones hand. The acting is all but amateuristic, the dialogue none existing. The cast line-up reads like a “we are trying to revive our careers so we signed-on for the sake of exposure” list, but the simple fact of seeing Ed O’Neill singing and dancing to Bootie Time makes up for everything. And there is plenty of eye candy via screen time given to Priscilla Presley, Lauren Holley, Kari Wuhrer, and several models. We have Wayne Newton, nuff said. To add to the music we have cameos by Tone Loc, Sheila E. Sadly Morris Day is unable to give a repeat performance off a verbally pretentious womanizer like he did in Purple Rain. Did I mention one-liners? For those of you who have never heard of the DiceMan, he is a poet (and he doesn’t even know it). Classics like; “Jack and Jill went up the hill, both with a buck and a quarter. Jill came down with 2 fifty… oohhhwww what a slut.” is but one example of many nursery rhymes he has raised to rated NC-17 status. Setting a name for himself on the comedy circuit, Andrew Clay molded the character of DiceMan by creating this persona with a hate for all that wasn’t Brooklyn or Italian. Gays, Lesbians, Puerto Ricans, Japanese, all had to bear the brunt of his jokes. He hated women, as long as they weren’t performing sexual favors for him. This character got him systematically banned from MTV and ostracized by the movie industry all together. Did he care? Hell no, he just up and started touring again making his shows even more raunchy. [br] -I could have been anything. I could have been a fisherman. Fishermen, they get up in the morning, they fish, they sell fish, they smell fish. Reminds me of a girl I used to go with, Yvonne. She smelled like fish. -Have a Twinkee, snapperhead. -What are your names? Neil and Bob, or is that, like, what you do? -You see what I'm saying to you? That's what I'm saying. What am I saying? I don’t know! [/br] With lines like these how can anything go wrong? Gold I tell ya, pure gold! In my humble opinion it is movies like this that make coughing up dollars to add too the cash flow of a rotten industry all worth while. Ford Fairlane is a must see for anybody who likes comedy, bad acting, lousy text, all wrapped up in a nice visual blanket. So go out to your local video store and rent this puppy now, and in case that you have it in your private collection then I say kudos to you sir, or madam… ---- |