Interstate 60
Here’s the next movie in my series of comments/reviews on movies and tv series I’ve seen recently. I’d never heard of Interstate 60 until a friend recommended it to me.
It’s about a guy who’s got a birthday coming up. He happens to run into a creature who’s a real, genuine trickster – one of the few all American creatures who grant wishes. Not a genie, a human-type guy who calls himself O W Grant (One Wish Grant).
Just like all tricksters, Grant is unreliable. His wishes are often tainted and contains a trap. Many who have had a wish granted get killed or are tricked one way or another. A man that we get to see, gets run over by a car, immediately after having his thoughtless wish granted. Another one wanted to eat as much as he wanted, but hadn’t taken into consideration that he’d be constantly hungry and that it would get incredibly expensive.
The main character of the movie, Neal Oliver, wants an answer to what he’s going to do with his life. For once, this makes O W Grant take an interest, so he sends the guy off on a long trip through an America he doesn’t really know. You might say it’s an alternate universe.
Here Neal finds a town where drugs are legal – at least one – and it turns everyone into zombies who live for dancing in clubs and during the day they walk around like robots, sweeping floors or emptying garbage cans around the town. One difference between this town and the real world is that kids become adults at 16. A desperate mother hitches a ride with Neal to get her 16-year-old son back, but when she realizes she can’t, against his will, she uses the drug too and after that she’s happy again, but her mind’s a blank.
You also get to see a girl who has become obsessed with finding the perfect sex. She tries to get Neal first, but when he realizes that he’s only going to be a number in her notebook, he refuses, and claims that he’ll be the one she remembers because she couldn’t get him.
That makes her have a go at seducing Grant, but gets a nasty shock.. I won’t go into exactly what that is. The movie is full of crazy, drastic jokes, but there’s an underlying theme.
When Neal wakes up – because he seems to have dreamt it all, yet not – he has his answer. He knows what to do with his life. (Lucky guy!).
The movie is quite fragmented, but it’s all connected somehow, and besides, most of it’s fun and interesting. I can really recommend this movie, though I don’t know for sure that you’ll all like it as much as I did. At least try it and see what you think.
Heroes
Heroes is an American science fiction series. To tell the truth, after seeing the trailer with the blonde cheerleader jumping from a bridge or whatever it was, dislocating her shoulder, then popping it back again, I had no intention of watching the series.
I thought ‘just another Buffy’. Yawn. Then I discovered that practically all the guys in the show are totally hot, or at least cute or funny and charming. (Guess who’s who. LOL)
Of course the plot is great too. Much more interesting than I thought. I love most of the guys – Mohinder, Peter, Isaac and naturally Hiro. Even the cheerleader’s pal is quite sweet in his geeky way.
I don’t like the females though. They’re just too – I don’t know – yucky. But that’s just me. I’m sure most guys and plenty of female viewers will like them. Even if you don’t, it’s still a good series.
In case you haven’t seen it yet, it’s about a group of people, young for the most part, who suddenly discover they have unusual abilities (‘superpowers’). They try to come to terms with how their lives have changed, and will soon be forced to decide if they want to be a force for good or evil. If that sounds interesting, watch the series when it comes on in your country or on your channel. I think you’ll like it.
Dr Who
Dr Who is a British science fiction series, which is quite new. If you haven’t seen it yet, you might be curious about what it’s about. First of all: it’s quite different from the American tv series. The English have a pretty unusual sense of humor, and it takes a while to get used to it.
Because I’m not completely in tune with it, not just the humor but the style in general, I think the quality is a little mixed. Some episodes are scary and sad, others are a little lame. A few are actually pretty creepy. Now that I’ve seen (almost) the whole series, I’ve grown used to it.
If you get a chance to watch this series, and you’re not sure you want to follow it, I suggest you give it a chance. Watch a few episodes before you make up your mind.
Here’s a brief description of what the series is about:
In the first episode, you get to know an English girl, Rose. She finds out that something odd is gong on at the store where she’s working. The dummies from the window displays are acting a bit out of character, not to mention in a menacing way.
Suddenly, a man in his forties shows up, at least that’s the way he looks. He helps her get away from the scary dummies. She soon learns that the dummies are just a part of a bigger problem.
The man introduces himself as the Doctor. She finds out that he tends to show up when the population of the Earth is in danger. When everything’s ok for the time being, he invites Rose to go away with him on his phone booth-like space ship, the TARDIS. It can travel in space and in time, so Rose accepts. She ends up in many dangerous situations with the Doctor.
I won’t say anything more about the plot. Just remember, give the series a chance. Like all British tv series it’s good quality, like the humor or not.
The series has a cult following in its home country, at least the ‘old’ series, which began in the 1960’s and kept on going all the way until the late 1980’s. For some reason, maybe because the Doctor is pretty ‘gay’, it’s particulary popular with gay men.
Storm
For me, who lives in a small town, being able to watch all the movies I want is not something I can take for granted. Now I’ve taken care of that. That’s why I’ve seen more movies in the past couple of years, than I have for ages. Nice. It’s always fun to get a little variety. Otherwise it’s usually mainly tv (besides books, music and so on).
This time, I’d like to comment on a Swedish movie, Storm. The main characters are played by Eric Ericson (The Befallen/De drabbade), Eva Röse (The Befallen/De drabbade) and Jonas Karlsson (Once in a lifetime/Livet är en schlager). Since I live in the west of Sweden, I recognize some of the places the movie were shot in, and of course that’s fun. By chance, I walked by when the scene in the town square was shot (the one with the merry-go-rounds and so on). At the time, I had no idea what it was about.
The plot is centered around Donny (“DD”). He’s a pretty slimy guy, who slides around the trendy, cool places in Stockholm. Life and people around him are merely props and background for his constant chase after easy, quick experiences like free drinks and shared cocaine. He doesn’t date, because he considers that too expensive. Instead he studies hot women, so he can recall them later, when, as he puts it, he wants ‘a cozy moment’.
Suddenly, his comfortable, shallow life is turned upside down when a mysterious woman more or less lands on his cab. By then, Donny’s already seen her lower herself from a passageway crossing his street, down to his level. Since he doesn’t want to get involved with anyone else, Donny’s more concerned with his own safety, but despite that, he gets drawn into the mystery woman – Lova’s (pronounced Lor-vah) – adventures.
At times things get really menacing. An ominous man in dark clothes follows Lova everywhere she goes, and seems intent on silencing her for good. Now that Donny is involved too, he too has to run from the dark man.
After a while, Donny begins to realize that it’s far from a coincidence that he’s been pulled into the dramatic and mysterious incidents. Everything seems to be connected to his past. Eventually he needs to choose between trusting the dark man or Lova. The choice will have major consequences for his future.
I won’t say more about the plot, but the movie is really exciting and interesting. It does look a bit like a computer game, but I think it’s rather well done. Some people who have seen the movie complain about the dialogue, but I think you get a reasonable explanation as to why it sounds like it does. Watch the movie and you’ll find what it’s about.
When I rated the movie at some movie sites, I gave it a four, out of five. You might not agree, but I think you’ll find the movie worth watching.
