Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Bicycle movie reviews

Bicycle as a symbol of impotence

Everybody seems to be writing about bicycles in movies. Fixedgear discusses why the 40 year old virgin rides a bicycle. The bike is a symbol of his childishness. Only social outcast losers ride bikes. "Real men" drive cars.

Sleek bodies but no bikes

Cycledog reviews the vampire flick "Underworld." Although it features Kate Beckinsale wearing a skin tight suit, CycleDog writes "it was a fairly bad movie with nary a bicycle to be seen."

Wax on, wax off

When actor Pat Morita died last November, I put The Karate Kid on my NetFlix queue. It arrived last week. I've heard some people talk about how timeless this film is, but I don't think it has aged well over the last 20 years. I guess the whole coming-of-age thing just doesn't speak to me anymore.

The protagonist, Daniel-san, is a skinny, social outcast, loser, new kid at the school. He rides a bike to school. He's bullied by tough kids with fancy cars and motorbikes. MINOR SPOILER: The writers tried to teach the lesson that wealth and social class are not important, but then prior to the climax of the story Daniel-san gets a car. He's hot stuff now. He gets the girl and he can do the Crane and kick some bootie. END SPOILER.

Bicycles are of the devil

The most awesome horror flick ever is John Carpenter's Prince Of Darkness. Alice Cooper plays a demon-possessed homeless man who stabs people to death with a bicycle. As this reviewer writes, "When's the last time you got to see a guy get stabbed with a bicycle?"

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