Popcorn. Halle! Eliza!
Finally a movie. It's been far too long. I love movies but I've been in a dry spell. In the first 54 days of the year, if I was to count, I'd only be around 20 movies, maybe 25 but that would be pushing it. Not many. Oh well.
Race The Sun (1996)
starring:
Halle Berry, Casey Affleck, Eliza Dushku, James Belushi, the Australian Outback
Based on a True Story, Race The Sun is about a group of kids in Hawai'i who join together for their high school science project -- a solar-powered car. If they win the Hawai'i regional solar car race, it's off to the World Solar Challenge from Darwin, on the northern coast of Australia, across the Outback to Adelaide on the southern coast, a race of over 2,000 kilometers.
It's a shame that much of the story seems to have been pieced together without a lot done by the writer and director to give us some real attachment to these characters. All we get is a swift moving chain of events with very little background. Predictable it surely is but the ride is worth it because in the end it's a feel good story that worked well enough for me to shed a few tears of joy.
One song in the soundtrack -- Send Me On My Way by Rusted Root -- gave me a smile so bright, ya know I coulda been a candle . . . it had me dancing in my seat, as well. It's been many years since I last heard the great album that that song is on so an extra treat it was to hear it. It brought me back to some really good times when I first heard it in 1995 in Sperryville, Virginia.
I was spending a few days there, picking up a friend whom I was driving out west with. There was a Super Bowl party at someone's old farm house and the next day we were southbound. Two brief stops included Columbia, South Carolina and New Orleans, each place to see some friends of hers. The wintertime miles cruised along -- Earth (Texas) and Albuquerque and a hostel one night in Flagstaff before breaking down in the one blinking stoplight-at-midnight, podunk, Mojave Desert town of Four Corners, California. After a 98 mile tow to Bakersfield, my old '67 bus was stranded there for a few days getting a new head put in. A cracked head? Oi, headache. During our first day there, Summer decided to go ahead to Sacramento via Greyhound. I'd meet her at her new place in nearby Fair Oaks in a few days. Seventy-two hours stranded in a dusty city in the desert where I had absolutely nothing to do was not my idea of fun so what a relief it was to get out of there. Finally I was cruisin' myself on up to Northern Cali.
It was a great few days there with Summer and her roommate and a Deadhead she met on the bus, a dude from Berlin who was backpacking around the U.S. hoping to get to Salt Lake City for the Dead's first three shows of the year. Hey, that's where I was headin'!
Before we left Fair Oaks, we spun a few shows including a copy of that Rusted Root CD then eastward on I-80 Matthias and I went, across the Sierra Nevadas and the Nevada desert onward to my best friend Chris' house back in a city I had once called home.
After three fun shows at the Delta Center that included bust-outs of Alabama Getaway and Visions of Johanna plus the first ever GD singing of Salt Lake City, twas time to head back westward, back across the desert to the Sacto area once again. I'm fairy sure it was between SLC and the upcoming Oakland Mardi Gras shows that Jerry was scheduled for 3 at the Warfield . . . three which were cancelled. I had gotten tix and driven down, parked near Market and Dang It, No Shows. That was sad but Oh Well. So there was more time in and around Fair Oaks complete with seeing some cool ska bands up in Auburn.
The days passed and soon enough it was time to head yet again back on down to the Bay Area for the first three Cali shows of the year -- Mardi Gras! Each night afterwards we headed to someone's house in the small funky Marin County town of Fairfax, right near San Anselmo. Apparently in Fairfax, a long time ago, there was a baseball game played at a downtown public field between two teams who just happened to be the Grateful Dead vs. the Jefferson Airplane. Such a cool town Fairfax was to me then. I hope today it still has that charm that it did twelve years ago.
Even with the cancelled JGB shows, what a great few weeks that was! Rusted Root was played at least a dozen times during all those great days of Trader Joes, Nag Champa, and the American River. Six Dead shows topped it all off. What a tremendous time and hearing that one song in Race The Sun brought all that back for me. Hallelujah!
Race The Sun (1996)
starring:
Halle Berry, Casey Affleck, Eliza Dushku, James Belushi, the Australian Outback
Based on a True Story, Race The Sun is about a group of kids in Hawai'i who join together for their high school science project -- a solar-powered car. If they win the Hawai'i regional solar car race, it's off to the World Solar Challenge from Darwin, on the northern coast of Australia, across the Outback to Adelaide on the southern coast, a race of over 2,000 kilometers.
It's a shame that much of the story seems to have been pieced together without a lot done by the writer and director to give us some real attachment to these characters. All we get is a swift moving chain of events with very little background. Predictable it surely is but the ride is worth it because in the end it's a feel good story that worked well enough for me to shed a few tears of joy.
One song in the soundtrack -- Send Me On My Way by Rusted Root -- gave me a smile so bright, ya know I coulda been a candle . . . it had me dancing in my seat, as well. It's been many years since I last heard the great album that that song is on so an extra treat it was to hear it. It brought me back to some really good times when I first heard it in 1995 in Sperryville, Virginia.
I was spending a few days there, picking up a friend whom I was driving out west with. There was a Super Bowl party at someone's old farm house and the next day we were southbound. Two brief stops included Columbia, South Carolina and New Orleans, each place to see some friends of hers. The wintertime miles cruised along -- Earth (Texas) and Albuquerque and a hostel one night in Flagstaff before breaking down in the one blinking stoplight-at-midnight, podunk, Mojave Desert town of Four Corners, California. After a 98 mile tow to Bakersfield, my old '67 bus was stranded there for a few days getting a new head put in. A cracked head? Oi, headache. During our first day there, Summer decided to go ahead to Sacramento via Greyhound. I'd meet her at her new place in nearby Fair Oaks in a few days. Seventy-two hours stranded in a dusty city in the desert where I had absolutely nothing to do was not my idea of fun so what a relief it was to get out of there. Finally I was cruisin' myself on up to Northern Cali.
It was a great few days there with Summer and her roommate and a Deadhead she met on the bus, a dude from Berlin who was backpacking around the U.S. hoping to get to Salt Lake City for the Dead's first three shows of the year. Hey, that's where I was headin'!
Before we left Fair Oaks, we spun a few shows including a copy of that Rusted Root CD then eastward on I-80 Matthias and I went, across the Sierra Nevadas and the Nevada desert onward to my best friend Chris' house back in a city I had once called home.
After three fun shows at the Delta Center that included bust-outs of Alabama Getaway and Visions of Johanna plus the first ever GD singing of Salt Lake City, twas time to head back westward, back across the desert to the Sacto area once again. I'm fairy sure it was between SLC and the upcoming Oakland Mardi Gras shows that Jerry was scheduled for 3 at the Warfield . . . three which were cancelled. I had gotten tix and driven down, parked near Market and Dang It, No Shows. That was sad but Oh Well. So there was more time in and around Fair Oaks complete with seeing some cool ska bands up in Auburn.
The days passed and soon enough it was time to head yet again back on down to the Bay Area for the first three Cali shows of the year -- Mardi Gras! Each night afterwards we headed to someone's house in the small funky Marin County town of Fairfax, right near San Anselmo. Apparently in Fairfax, a long time ago, there was a baseball game played at a downtown public field between two teams who just happened to be the Grateful Dead vs. the Jefferson Airplane. Such a cool town Fairfax was to me then. I hope today it still has that charm that it did twelve years ago.
Even with the cancelled JGB shows, what a great few weeks that was! Rusted Root was played at least a dozen times during all those great days of Trader Joes, Nag Champa, and the American River. Six Dead shows topped it all off. What a tremendous time and hearing that one song in Race The Sun brought all that back for me. Hallelujah!
filed under...
** Grateful Dead related,
~ Movies
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