RV!: Drive (2011), 7) Modern Romance (1981)

RV!: Drive (2011) Dir: Nicolas Winding Refn Date Released: September 16, 2011 Date Seen: January 4, 2012 Rating: 3.5/5

7) Modern Romance (1981) Dir: Albert Brooks Date Released: March 13, 1981 Date Seen: January 6, 2012 Rating: 4.25/5

The former film has slightly diminished since I last saw it. But the latter film: wowee wow wow! See my piece on the future of Albert Brooks, then and now, for Capital New York.

23) Non-Stop (1996), 25) Postman Blues (1997), 26) Monday (2000) and 27) Drive (2002)

23) Non-Stop (1996) Dir: Sabu Date Released: November 2000 Date Seen: January 26, 2011 Rating: 3/5

25) Postman Blues (1997) Dir: Sabu Not Yet Released Date Seen: January 26, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

26) Monday (2000) Dir: Sabu Not Yet Released Date Seen: January 30, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

27) Drive (2002) Dir: Sabu Not Yet Released Date Seen: January 31, 2011 Rating: 3/5

I was planning on writing a lengthy piece on Sabu's blue-collar heroes and how his films' frantically kinetic pacing resembles Tony Scott's recent films (he even directed a short film that's directly inspired by Scott's The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 remake). But then I stopped writing for the New York Press. 

So that piece never happened and maybe never will happen. 

Still, with the exception of Drive, there's an image in each one of these films that encapsulated the film's mood or complicated it in ways that excited me in some way. In Monday, it's the elevator scene; in Postman Blues, it's the road-side denouement; in Non-Stop, it's the scene where the third man joins the chase. With Drive, Sabu rehashes a lot of familiar material but the film's amiable enough and features a slightly more refined meltdown-induced melodrama. All four films are exciting to varying to degrees. I may yet revisit these and write the piece I had wanted to. But for the moment, these singular images remain at the back of my mind.