BEFORE: From what I've heard, this is a true classic, and it will serve as my link between cop films and drug films.
While I'm on the subject of connections, and distributing things on the street, tonight I watched the first episode of "The Great Food Truck Race" on Food Network. Amy, a friend and former co-worker of mine, is appearing on the show as a member of the Austin Daily Press sandwich team. I suppose it was inevitable that I would have a friend on a food-based reality show, given the eclectic nature of my friends, our mutual love of food, and the proliferation of these shows. I'm just glad it's not me appearing on "The Biggest Loser"...
If you're like me, your DVR is already jammed with food-based competition shows, like Top Chef, Top Chef Masters, Iron Chef America, The Next Food Network Star, Hell's Kitchen, Chefs vs. City, Chopped, Food Network Challenge, MasterChef, and Cupcake Wars. (I was very disappointed to learn that no cupcakes are used as projectile weapons in the Cupcake Wars, but I'm continuing to watch the show anyway) But that's what great about food and food shows - they leave you hungry for more. If you've still got an appetite for them, please check out The Great Food Truck Race and root for the team from Texas. (Of course the show was taped months ago, but Amy was prohibited from telling me how far her team got.) It's almost not exactly like a combination of "The Amazing Race" and that VH1 show where people had to promote bands in different towns.
Full disclosure: Amy texted me during the taping of the first episode, asking for my advice on locations in San Diego, a city that I've been to many times - but I only really know the 5 blocks around the Convention Center, and which restaurants to eat at. I wish I could have been more help, but I'm guessing that food trucks are frowned upon in the Gaslamp District. Now, if she had needed to know where to get a beer float in San Diego, I'd definitely be the go-to guy - but where to PARK a food truck? I had to plead ignorance.
THE PLOT: A pair of NYC cops in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a drug smuggling job with a French connection.
AFTER: Yeah, it's a classic all right, but it's showing signs of age. It's so old-school, I'm not sure it holds up when compared to flashier films like "Live Free or Die Hard" and "Heat".
I will say it's interesting to see old-school police tactics, like your basic tailing suspects and busting small-time dealers for information on the big dealers. There's a lot of scenes of suspects in hats and overcoats dodging narcotics cops, also wearing hats and overcoats. And it's nice to see some of the NYC landmarks I'm familiar with, and what they looked like back in 1971. A custard stand right on the subway platform at Grand Central?
But man, they sure picked some crappy neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens to shoot in. I recognized the Williamsburg Bridge, but Williamsburg looksed like someone dropped a bomb on it - there was more pothole than actual street! There were huge vacant lots in Bed-Stuy, and the Rockaways just looked like swampland...
Of course there's a car chase here, almost as famous as the one in "Bullitt" - Popeye Doyle pursues a sniper who makes it on a subway car - so Doyle jacks a car and follows the elevated tracks, hitting countless cars along the way. Why there's no mission in "Grand Theft Auto" that references this scene is beyond me - it seems tailor-made for a videogame.
According to what I found on-line, while the train Popeye chases is a "D" train, which goes out through Bensonhurst to Coney Island, some of the scenes from the car chase were shot under some elevated "M"-line tracks very near to where I live now - I'll have to investigate this further...
This won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1971? Damn, maybe I should have saved it for film #600...
Starring Gene Hackman (last seen in "Get Shorty") and one of my favorite actors, Roy Scheider (last seen in "Jaws 2")
RATING: 5 out of 10 wiretaps
A classic of that cop movie genre in which our heroes aren't so much standing resolutely between Order and Chaos and insisting to the latter that None Shall Pass...but tired men whose goal is to put in their 20 years and then start drawing a pension while operating a small business.
ReplyDeleteI saw "Great Food Truck Race" and had the same flashback to "Bands On The Run" that you did.
It's the kind of reality format that fills me with enthusiasm, yes, but a greater amount of caution. If this is a very simple and transparent concept it'll be a great demonstration of talented people doing their best under trying and baffling circumstances, and a peek into the problems of operating that kind of a business.
BuuuUUUut if it turns out that the producers are manipulating events to make sure there's a "storyline" for each episode, it'll quickly fall apart. I liked it when one group was smart enough to start phoning around en route and quickly found a street fair, while others decided that "let's just drive around and stop at random street corners" was the way to go. If I get a sense that this happened because the producers tipped off the first crew, and then arranged for the others to get slots at the same event...I'm done.