Flicks

So the bank robbery goes bad -- you know that if there's a bank-job in the first five minutes, it's going to go bad -- and Luke has to shoot a guy.  He regrets it, of course.  He wants to get in and out with no trouble, but things get out of hand.  His boys are a little over-zealous, and don't you know, one of the guards tries to play hero.  Luke turns and fires on instinct.  The clips are still spinning in the air and you can see it on his face: remorse in slow-motion.  The guard falls.   A splash of blood.  Cut back to Luke, horrified.  This so we know that he doesn't want to, but he will kill if he has to.  After his spent clips clink on the floor, we're whipped forward into adrenaline-pumping, electric guitar-infused action.  

There's a good eight minute car chase with lots of close-ups on Luke's cool-under-fire face, cuts to spinning tires, and ariel shots of drifting cars.  Luke lets his guys out, and they melt into the streets, presumably headed back to an extra-mean bossman, Markus, played by Sean Bean who will later put a bounty on Luke's head in prison for extra-super intensity.  After plenty more tire-squealing, Luke is caught at the edge of an unfinished highway, onramps-to-nowhere seemingly abundant in these types of situations.

So Luke heads to prison, "Terminal Island" in this case.  Here, the usual just-got-to-jail establishing action/ritual stand-off violence is followed by the usual befriending of the super bad-ass guy (Danny Trejo, who is just awesome); the sidekick's sidekick, a wrench-man named Rocco; and an effeminate bookish guy named Lists (in the joint for embezzling or something, of course) whom Luke will later have to defend (of course).  We soon find that this particular prison stages gladiator-style death-matches.  And these matches are pay-per-view televised.  The more excessive the violence, the bigger the audience share -- and we see the producers amp it up.  It doesn't take long at all for the Death Matches to get video game-ish and bloody.

I turn to the three-year old in the seat across the aisle from me: "Good movie, huh?"   He's too absorbed in the plot twists to answer.  So is his mother.  One seat up, a woman nurses a small child -- she is also engrossed.  The bus is full of elderly Kichwa couples, a few families, and various odds and ends like me.

Death Race 2 happens to be one of the better movies I've seen on the busses that run between Otavalo and Quito.  There are some good actors in the movie.  Sean Bean, for example, has played Hamlet among other good roles.  So if this is good, then what's bad?

The return trip feature was Deep Blue Sea.  Not to be confused with the 2011 drama The Deep Blue Sea with Rachel Weisz, Deep Blue Sea a 1999 flick which features super-intelligent sharks stalking the scientists who created them on a remote floating research station.  Among others, Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Rappaport (who have both had great roles despite this stinker), end up snacks for these sentient sharks.  (One wonders whether sharks ever get full.)  My favorite character, however, is Preacher, the base chef played by LL Cool J, who at one point stabs a shark in the eye with his crucifix.

"Yeah Cool J!" I say.  The woman next to me gives me the shut-up-I'm-watching eye.  Which is what kills me -- she's taking it seriously.  

Another great moment occurs when Cool J tries to take refuge in a big industrial oven.  The whole kitchen is flooded, and the shark comes a'stalkin' through the halls (we even get alternating shots from the shark's point of view).  What happens next must be in the Hollywood hall-of-fame for impossible plot details: the shark turns the oven on to literally smoke Cool J out.  I love that the shark actually sets the thermometer.

"Oh Please… this is so funny, eh?"  The woman in the next seat is steel-faced, gripped by the action.  (On screen Cool J is hacking his way out of the oven with a hatchet.)

Because I'd hopped a bus to Ibarra, another 30 minutes past Otavalo, there was time for another shark flick after Deep Blue Sea: Swamp Shark.  Incredibly, Wade Boggs plays a sheriff.  By this time, I'd had enough shark action, so I stared out the window for awhile.

On another trip I'd seen a zombie-alien space shoot 'em up.  I've seen 2/5 Fast and Furious-es which see totaled cars in triple digits...  But my favorite story line by far comes from Pete.  He told me of seeing a gang of West Virginia Hillbilly undead necrophiliacs preying on some college kids on spring break.  Lots of intestine splattering at max volume.  Pete asked the co-pilot to change the movie, who did so only when Pete threatened to go to the owner of the bus company.   

I'm tempted as usual to make some sweeping cultural generalization or to read too much into the eclectic movie tastes of guys -- usually young men -- who ride shotgun on busses.  There seem to be a disproportionate amount of violent apocalyptic flicks on Northern Ecuadorian busses.  So?  Most of them are imported versions of the end of the world from another end of the world.  For kicks I did a google search on "Incan Apocalypse" and one of the first hits was a Grateful Dead illustrated and matted prints for $37.82.  After that I didn't feel the need to pursue the question any further.