Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 140 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
WAMMY WOWWIE, we’re off to the races! It’s that infamous Roger Corman production, Death Race 2000! In the distant future of the year 2000, celebrity racers drive their wacky, weaponized cars across America, not only racing against each other, but racking up big points by killing as many pedestrians as they can along the way. Usually we have a mix of opinions, but as you’ll see in our thoughts below, Death Race 2000 has earned our unanimous praise. Director Paul Bartel, a frequent Corman collaborator, and a VERY dear friend of mine, took this bloodsport concept and ran it for all it was worth, creating a cartoonish, absurd — and maybe just a bit too honest — satire on American culture, slyly condemning our obsession with violence while also gleefully indulging it.
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
Next week we’re grabbing a hanky and a large carton of gelato and weeping softly to the beloved Italian coming-of-age drama Cinema Paradiso. I’ve never seen it before, but my heart’s ready to embrace it. I love movies, and I love movies about loving movies. Cinema Paradiso exists in several versions including the original 155-minute cut, a tighter 123-minute “international” cut (which is the one commonly available in the US), and an extended director’s cut that clocks in at a whopping 173 minutes. Grab any version you can (most of us will be watching the 2-hour version on Netflix Instant) and join us!
Would you like to be a featured guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your 140 word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
The Team
Austin:
I love this movie so much. A few years back, before I’d even seen it, I sought the rare DVD just to watch it, as renting it was impossible. I finally bought a copy, and of course that’s when they announced the Blu-ray. I can’t complain though, because I immediately fell in love with this wild, unhinged delight.
I take a special interest in films which are set in a future date which has now passed, and movies like this are the reason why. There’s an uncomfortable prescience to films like The Running Man predicting our obsession with degenerate reality television, or Escape From New York eerily forecasting echoes of 9–11. On the surface, Death Race 2000 is an action-packed bomb of blood and babes, but it quickly becomes apparent that it’s saying something very important as well, about a near-future in which America is even more bloodthirsty, shallow, totalitarian, and depraved. (@VforVashaw)
Brendan:
The original Robocop. The candy-colored camp surface masks a black-hearted screech against what the filmmakers perceived as America’s escalating fascination with bloodsport. While audiences will most remember signifiers like the points system or David Carradine swishing around in a fabulous cape and Gothic-gimp outfit, Death Race 2000 still manages the neat trick of eviscerating reality television and sports culture before either came into their modern form. There’s an anger to this film, an anger matched only by the straight-faced psychosis which carries through the entire film right up the ending in which the heroes triumph and absolutely nothing is won or gained. It’s a film of deceptive power, a satirical blowtorch that’s only picked up heat in the decades since. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
Liam:
You can’t really separate the shlock from the rage in this movie, and that to me is one of its strengths. Filled with ultra-violent slapstick and goofy one liners, the movie maybe doesn’t seem angry from afar. However, you don’t need to pay that much attention to see and hear it. I hesitate to say this film is “about” much, it almost feels disrespectful to the tone itself. Yet it is related to the anger of the time, the frustration with corruption and injustice and a populace cared about anything BUT the future. These are not two disparate poles brought together in the movie. Rather, it is in some of its goofiest moments that the film can’t help but make you actually think about something. Its tongue may be in its cheek but it is cutting all the same. (@liamrulz)
Ryan:
One of the greatest achievements in cult cinema, Paul Bartel’s film has a lot to offer. Though it spends most of its time getting into your blood, it devotes plenty of time to getting into your mind. Garish talking (well, screaming) heads spit endless pandering nonsense at us, like the thoughtless, inhumane event they are covering is the single most important thing you could experience. In our own world, we may not yet be lining up to hail sociopaths for killing both innocent strangers and their opponents, but nearly 40 years after the film’s release, its roaring satire seems just as unnerving. With increasingly sensational journalism, the abundant TLC-produced tales of extreme bodily dysfunction (not to mention the garbage piling up on the internet), our need for media exploiting true-life humiliation and suffering brings us closer to cheering for death. (@RyanUCM)
Our Guests
Justin Harlan:
Kung Fu vs. Rocky in the ultimate grudge match of dead civilians, road rage, and prosthetic hand grenades… how can this not be a fantastic film? In fact, how can this not be one of the great films of all time?
Until seeing this a few years back, I never quite got all the references in other films and TV shows about how running people over with a card scored you a certain number of points. I remember all types of references to scoring points by hitting people with cars from the Little Rascals movie from the 90s to the Hanks/Akroyd Dragnet to my aunt telling me that she’d score 100 points if she hit the old lady crossing the street… and I always laughed, even often joined in on the joke, but I really never got it.
But now I get it. Blood and guts and 70s Sci-Fi… oh… I get it. (@thepaintedman)
Luke Tipton:
Man that was fun. Pure Roger Corman pulp of the highest order, fully committed to its absurd premise, gonzo mayhem, gratuitous boobs, and filled with visually inventive flourishes by director Paul Bartel and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto. Why settle for realism when unrealism is more fun? Out of that question the filmmakers build a prescient satire of mass media messaging, showing a world given over to the worship of violence, dictated by a media that manufactures news more than it reports.
If I do have a complaint it’s with Carradine’s anti-hero Frankenstein, a character largely motivated by the needs of the plot. He’s meant to come off as mysterious and menacing, but he struck me as uneven, without a well defined arc. However, it’s a minor quibble for a film that gleefully rides an absurd premise to its logical, chilling conclusion. (@stipton82)
Did you all get a chance to watch along with us? Share your thoughts with us here in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!
Get it at Amazon:
Death Race 2000 [Blu-Ray] | [DVD] | [Instant]