Hey look! Currently for the price of free we can all watch MATTHEW BRIGHT's hilariously off the wall and endearingly offensive ode to little Red Riding Hood, 1996's FREEWAY on HULU. Yay and aw, I'll never forget that one time I was working at a video store and we got in a VHS screener and it had a double feature of AMITYVILLE DOLLHOUSE and FREEWAY on it. Of course I brought it home exclusively for AMITYVILLE DOLLHOUSE because the title promised both AMITYVILLE and a DOLLHOUSE and those are both places I want to live in. Luckily, I gave FREEWAY a chance too, even though I'm sure it was more out of laziness regarding turning the VCR off than it was about my having an open and inquisitive mind. As I recall I was in love not long after the opening credits were done.
In any case I think this is a perfect pick for Sunday Streaming as one can certainly get the wrong idea about this movie by its title, cover art and the two main leads. I know the idea of watching SUTHERLAND and WITHERSPOON drive around in a car seems like some kind of torture but SUTHERLAND is creepily menacing enough and WITHERSPOON is effervescently kick-ass cuckoo enough to make you forget all of their future, seemingly smitten with themselves baggage- I swear!
It certainly doesn't hurt that they are accompanied by what may be the greatest cast ever assembled. Holy crap, you get the stupendously squirrelly AMANDA PLUMMER (SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER), the terrifically tarantulan DAN HEDAYA (ALIEN 3), the horrendously underappreciated chameleon ALANNA UBACH (THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE), America's skyscraping sweetheart BROOKE SHIELDS (ALICE SWEET ALICE), the legendary SYDNEY LASSICK (THE UNSEEN) and most importantly, an early antsy and unhinged performance by the late great BRITTANY MURPHY (CHERRY FALLS) among others. Buckle up and pack a lunch, this is a must see for anyone who enjoys movies that are not afraid to go off the beaten path to reach their destination.
I saw Freeway at the cinema with zero idea of what I was in for. What a delightful afternoon that was! We both came running out of the screening telling everyone we knew to see it immediately.
Pearce,
How great it must have been to see this with an unprepared crowd. Good on you for spreading the word!
Back then (pre- Imdb), I had no idea that FREEWAY came from the same guy who wrote a movie I fell in love with a couple years earlier, GUNCRAZY (1992)
It’s a bit more grounded but the two flicks definitely share DNA. GUN CRAZY also brings another favorite to mind, BADLANDS (1973) which seemed to be on late night TV every few months when I was growing up.
Hey, it looks like GUNCRAZY is on YouTube and looking better than my tattered VHS tape. I must highly recommend this one too….
I saw this at the Roxie in SF in '96! I think they gave free posters too! Reese was pretty much unknown at the time, so ever since that movie, I've paid attention to her impressive career!
Great point! I love Guncrazy as well. "Here lies a pig. May he roast in Hell for all eternity!"
It's a shame Matthew Bright's career seems to have been killed by Tiptoes, the movie with Gary Oldman as a little person, because he wrote some of the coolest, ballsiest roles for young women in the '90s.
Tomb,
This was the first movie I ever saw Witherspoon in and I thought (and think )she’s incredible in it. She’s mind bogglingly good in ELECTION too. It always killed me a little when she did bad rom-coms or that Christmas movie I was forced to watch in an airplane. I’m glad she is respected and appreciated now but I keep my fingers crossed that one day she’ll get to be as freely wacked-out on screen again.
Pearse,
Right on, as fucked up as Vanessa ostensibly comes across in FREEWAY, it’s clear from her conversation with Bob in the car that she has a better sense of right and wrong than anybody else in the movie and after she is arrested she sticks to the truth because “it's eternalâ€. She’s heroic in that she does not allow herself to be defined by “the system†and she never sways even when it would be easier to do so. Plus I’m always kinda moved by how she is open enough to allow her enemy Mesquita to become a trusted ally- it’s so Flash Gordon.
I have never seen TIPTOES and only because the box was all white and green and unappealing. We had that screener at work too much later and even though at that point I knew who BRIGHT was, it looked way too fluffy. Now I really want to watch it. I didn’t realize Peter Dinklage was in it and the fact that it’s so reviled makes me so curious about seeing it. Next time I see it at a used place I’m picking it up.
The little avalanche of porn was hilarious enough but the EHHHHH! look on Brooke's face was worth the price of admission.
http://www.morethings.com/fan/freeway/still_image_captures/13brooke_shields08.jpg