TRAVEL AND MOVIES

 A few postings ago, I was musing on how travel and movies are related.  For example:

• I enjoy those films that occur in places I have visited.
• Sometimes, those movies allow me to live vicariously, that is, transpose myself into certain settings.
• Then, too, there are places I will never visit because they are too physically challenging or dangerous or not within my current need for luxury.
• So here are a few films that allow me to enjoy them as a safe watcher, for I would not ever want to in that location or situation.

To start, I noticed there were free films from SLING on my Roku site, so I thought I'd give them a try.  I hate cold and will never again go to Russia.  Transsiberean appeared to be just about right.  Rotten Tomatoes gave ratings of 91 by reviewers and 65 by audiences.  When there is a huge discrepancy between the two, I usually like audience over reviewers.  However, the awfulness factor seemed attractive so I watched this 2008 movie.

Was about married American Christian young missionaries, played by Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer, returning home from Beijing after a training session.  Big mistake, but they decided to be adventurous, and caught a train from China to Russia.  Something about the Trans-Siberian Railway gives me shudders, but about that later.   

They began interacting with a Spanish Man (Eduardo Noriega, who I thought was the best actor of the lot) and his girlfriend (Kate Mara).  SM is trying to smuggle heroin and uses this innocent American two as unknowing mules.  Into the train comes a Russian inspector (Ben Kingsley), who himself is not all that innocent, and messes things up for everyone, including himself.  Film was shot in Lithuania, where the government loaned the production 40 kilometers of track.

The movie was okay, with several twists.  However, turned out that another overwhelming factor was my association of this film to the book, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, written by Paul Theroux in 2008.

This is a travel book that goes through various cities, but focuses on Theroux's Trans-Siberian Railway portion.  He was 33 when he first made a similar visit, for which he wrote The Great Railway Bazaar, but double that age for this sequel of sorts around the time of America's invasion of Iraq.  He realizes that not only have the countries changed, but he himself.  He writes about dysfunction, poverty, over-crowding, dictators and oppression.

While GTttES also included his visits with Orhan Pamuk of Istanbul, Arthur Clarke in Sri Lanka and Haruki Murakami in Japan, what sticks in my mind was the grimy, dangerous train ride.  I love trains, but I like the Japanese Shinkansen and similar train rides providing safety and posh doings.  But further, sometimes movies such as this one, provides such a contrast to my lifestyle, that I better can appreciate what I have.  So in my search for films, I find menace, jeopardy and uncertainty as pluses to provide this dissimilitude.

Thus, this success led to a film I watched on Prime, Driveways. about a recluse who lived in a home for years without really unpacking.  I despise this kind of messiness.   Rotten Tomatoes bestowed scores of 99/84, so I thought, why not.   Poignant, and a good farewell to Brian Dennehy, but utterly boring and uneventful.  A mistake for me.

Next, on Neflix, was not really in the context of the subject-matter today, but the cast was enough, so on to the 2019 The Highwaymen, with Kevin Coster as maybe the most famous Texas Ranger (nothing to do with baseball), and his partner, played by Woody Harrelson.  Only got 59/76 from Rotten Tomatoes, which was about right.  You might have seen the 1967 Bonnie and Clyde, with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  This one got 90/88 ratings from Rotten Tomatoes.  Well, TH is from the law-enforcement point of view.  Interestingly enough, you don't see the faces of Bonnie and Clyde until the very end when the Highwaymen and their troops gun them down.  Gory.  Not bad, but not terrific.

Moving along, I'll report on a relatively new film, which is a re-make of the original 1996 Twister, which was written and produced by Michael Crichton.  Steven Spielberg co-produced, and the stars were Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton.  Had some production problems with weather, personnel and equipment, then the Oklahoma City bombing occurred on 19April1995.  Poor Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 67/58.  Got two Oscar nominations for sound and visual effects.  Grossed $495 million worldwide.  

The 2024 Twisters (with an s) is pretty much the same film.  Both had a novel science feature, the first about being able to better measure a twister, and this second on using some modern technology to kill the beast.  Rotten Tomatoes reviewers gave it a 78 rating, but audiences said 92%.

I think I might have previously shown this, but Uniquely Madison has good stuff on You Tube.  This video provides 100 years of music.  From L17, the evolution of music from 2100 BC to 2023 AD.  Going back a bit earlier in time, here is the evolution of music from 40,000 BC to 2021, by William Halfmann.  Also, from GeoPro, 40,000 BC, to today. 

Having just visited there, the evolution of New York City from 1524 to 2023, in 3D animation by InfoGeek. Another one by nexplore.  Finally, from Mr. Future, Future of New York City Overtime, from 2025-10,000.

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