How excited am I about the new movie Drive opening today? So friggin over the top excited, I couldn’t stop making lists inspired by it…
Five Reasons for you to be excited about Drive
1) The Cast: Ryan Gosling, Ron Perlman, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Carey Mulligan, and need I underscore how excited I am to see Albert Brooks as the heavy? No. I thought not.
2) The Director: Nicolas Winding Refn is one of a very few directors whose name alone breaks their current project – sight unseen – into my illustrious ‘most anticipated’ list. Nic, meet David Lynch and John Carpenter. Oh, those are the Coens in the corner, Marty is around here somewhere and I believe you know Neil Marshall – (ssss, did it just get frosty in here? Oh, right, Marshall was attached to Drive first… ooh, this is awkward)
3) The source material: James Sallis’s short, punchy, rocknrolla of a crime tale first appeared in the most excellent Dennis McMillan edited antho Measures of Poison and deserves every reprint it gets.
4) The buzz: Refn took home the best director honors from this year’s Cannes Film Festival. That’s right, they gave the award for an unabashedly genre film… love it.
5) Because I am: Doesn’t my track record speak for itself? Drop everything and go see it, now.
Favorite Fictional Wheelmen in no particular order
1) Lennon, the crafty, mute, Irishman steering the dangerous streets of Philly in The Wheelman by Duane Swierczynski
2) Eddie, the hardluck kid-cum-standup guy from The Getaway Man by Andrew Vachss
3) Dennis Haysbert and Danny Trejo from Heat. Up for anything, down for the count.
4) Elwood Blues in The Blues Brothers – Illinois Nazis, cops (caps), The Good Ol’ Boys, Princess Leia with a bazooka, man, they all want a piece of him, but the sunglasses never slip.
5) Driver from James Sallis’s Drive. Saw that one coming didn’t you?
Favorite Auto movies in no particular order
1) Mad Max
2) Highwaymen
4) Duel
5) Joy Ride
Favorite Nicolas Winding Refn films
5) Bronson – based on the story of Michael Peterson, Britain’s most dangerous inmate, re-christened Charlie Bronson inside. Tom Hardy’s performance – you gotta see it.
4) Valhalla Rising – Norse warriors losing their way, their religion and their minds veeeery slowly. Probably the greatest heavy-metal video ever.
3) Fear X – A paranoia thriller co-written with Hubert Selby Jr. The first time I ever saw the influence of David Lynch so clearly at work in a completely self-possessed style – that worked!
2) Pusher II – The pseudo-sequel to Pusher follows Tonny, just out of prison as he tries to reconnect with his family and gain the RESPECT he so desperately craves. Of course, he gets anything but and as humiliations pile up, his downward spiral is riveting.
1) Pusher III – The final chapter in the thematically-linked trilogy is a single bad day in the life of Milo – now a recovering addict, but still dealing. It’s his daughter’s wedding day and he’s cooking for thirty people, his heroin shipment turns out to be ecstasy and he’s got to sell it all pronto to pay back his international business partners. A frustrating day turns into a long and terrifying night of the soul.
So, lemme know what you think of Drive.
Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
