Premium Rush (a bike movie in NYC)

[Dave (imported)]

Premium Rush is an exercise in non-linear storytelling with a broken timeline and lots of flashbacks.

It's all action and has friendly, likable characters as heroes and a rather Snidely Whiplash cardboard cutout as a villain.

But let's fact it - Bike Messengers exist only in New York City and that limits the world of Bike Messengers to a rather rarified landscape that is not the star of the movie.

It's fun to watch the bikes and cars dodge each other. It's fun to watch the crooked cop chase the money. It's fun to see the personal interplay between rather dumb characters. No one said characters must be bright but it's not compelling.

It's entertaining if you like fast action and tight plotting. It's fun when the characters act really dumb and get played for fools.

It's a sugar high.

[kristoff]

Premium Rush is an exercise in non-linear storytelling with a broken timeline and lots of flashbacks.

It's all action and has friendly, likable characters as heroes and a rather Snidely Whiplash cardboard cutout as a villain.

But let's fact it - Bike Messengers exist only in New York City and that limits the world of Bike Messengers to a rather rarified landscape that is not the star of the movie.

It's fun to watch the bikes and cars dodge each other. It's fun to watch the crooked cop chase the money. It's fun to see the personal interplay between rather dumb characters. No one said characters must be bright but it's not compelling.

It's entertaining if you like fast action and tight plotting. It's fun when the characters act really dumb and get played for fools.

It's a sugar high.

One of my old BFs was one of a hundred bicycle messengers in downtown Minneapolis, which can be dangerous for anyone, pedstrian, biker, or car. He would tell me of some of the harrowing encounters he'd have especially with cars, not that he didn't contribute to more than one of them. But boy, deliberately run him off, and he had this nice cable about 3 feet long, with a lead ball on the end. One could easily whip it out and smash a window in one streak, and escape while someone is examining damage. That came to an end one day when a cop was right behind him at occurence, and he spent 3 days in jail. It is a job I would be scared to do - I do it bad enough with a truck.

[Dave (imported)]

They have a couple truly spectacular crashes in the movie. And almost no broken bones. Talk about movie magic.

I have noticed around here that cars seem to hate bicycles and in some cases motorcycles. BIke messengers are crazy and it's all a game of "My dicks bigger than yours" between the cars and the clients who have to get some piece of paper delivered super-fast, quickie-like. My balls are bigger than yours by proxy (my messenger is faster and takes more chances than yours)... Of course, cars own the road with their drivers, don't they? Or is that just egotistic and psychotic sociopathy on the driver's part.

However, the weirdest horseshit of "my car is all powerful and I'm king of the road" is when the nut behind the wheel in a car beeps his horn at the horseback riders around here. Think about that one. Here's a half ton beast with screwed up eyes that can shy and bolt at loud noises. So they beep their car horn at it.

[fhunter]

However, the weirdest horseshit of "my car is all powerful and I'm king of the road" is when the nut behind the wheel in a car beeps his horn at the horseback riders around here. Think about that one. Here's a half ton beast with screwed up eyes that can shy and bolt at loud noises. So they beep their car horn at it.

Well, I wanted to write it to the epiphany thread, but this one is better:

Every big car comes from the shop with an integrated moron.

That is being said after witnessing more than enough cases of "I don't care, I'll overtake this traffic jam by roadside" (and slow it down even more while getting back in), "My car is too precious, and I can not cross this rail-road crossing faster than 10km/h" (Don't know, it felt worse while crossing it slow), "What, detour, road repairs? No, 500 meters more is too long, I'll go over the lawn".

Damn, sometimes I want an antitank gun. Unfortunately, with increase of car safety, those nuts do not darwin out fast enough.

PS. I would not go into rants about parking. I just want some big stickers for the windshield "I am a moron and I park where I want".