You know why there’s never been a decent British road film? I’ll tell you why. ’Cause there’s nothing remotely exhilarating about having to eat a rancid chicken salad sandwich from the BP station at the Bolton West Services on the M61, that’s why. Rich Hall’s Continental Drifters, BBC 2011
You ever been to a Happy Eater? No-one’s happy. ibid.
Badlands – Sugarland Express – Thelma and Louise – The Straight Story – Bonnie & Clyde – Five Easy Pieces: As a rule Road Movies end badly. ibid.
Is a road movie about characters getting from Point A to Point B? ibid.
A character or set of characters that have become disenfranchised from society. ibid.
The road movie has always been there. ibid.
That message is go home or die. ibid.
The Grapes of Wrath ultimately romanticising wandering. ibid.
Little Miss Sunshine won the Academy Award for best screenplay: it was a road film. ibid.
Highways transformed America’s landscape. ibid.
Detour made in 1945 shows a cynical view of post-World War II America. ibid.
50,000 people a year were dying on its highways. ibid.
They were the beaten down generation – The Beats ... Jack Kerouac’s novel On The Road was its manifesto. ibid.
Bonnie & Clyde elevated vehicles to star status. ibid.
Easy Rider ... Because they’re bikers they’re outsiders. ibid.
Two Lane Bricktop is full of revving motors and grinding gears. ibid.
The perfect car to use was the muscle car. ibid.
Vanishing Point is a vision of post-hippy anxiety. ibid.
They were about the journey itself. ibid.
Five Easy Pieces invokes pictures of dehumanisation by machinery in its very opening scene. ibid.
Badlands is what Bonnie & Clyde would have been if it had been made strictly for adults ... It’s about the banality of evil. ibid.
By the 1950s there were more than 100,000 motel rooms along US highways. ibid.
Early motels were a mix of kitsch and convenience ...an architectural sub-genre. ibid.
No-one would have given a shit about Psycho if it was filmed on the 23rd floor of the Marriott. ibid.
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) ... Alice’s road isn’t paved with yellow bricks, it’s paved with dingy motels and diners. ibid.
In Paris, Texas we first encounter Harry Dean Stanton’s character Travis wandering with no apparent aim through the desert of south-west Texas. ibid.
Paris, Texas was instrumental in reviving the road-film genre. ibid.
Thelma & Louise is the best ... because it’s a well-made film. ibid.
Wild at Heart takes the road movie to its post-modern period. ibid.
The film subverts the whole idea of speed and momentum ... The Straight Story is about going somewhere slow. ibid.
A drug person can learn to cope with things like seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth, but nobody should be asked to handle this trip. Bazooko’s Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing every Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This was the Sixth Reich. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 1998 starring Johnny Depp & Benicio del Toro & Tobey Maguire & Ellen Barkin & Gary Busey & Christina Ricci & Mark Harmon & Cameron Diaz & Katherine Helmond & Michael Jeter & Penn Jillette et al, director Terry Gilliam, Raoul
Jesus! Bad waves of paranoia, madness, fear and loathing, intolerable vibrations in this place. Get out! The weasels were closing in. I could smell the ugly brutes. ibid.
The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. ibid.
This is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. ibid.
Clearly I was a victim of the drug explosion. ibid.
Ah, devil ether. It makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel. Total loss of all basic motor function. Blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue. The mind recoils in horror, unable to communicate with the spinal column. Which is interesting because you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can't control it. ibid.
We’d abused every rule Las Vegas lived by. ibid.
Will you take care of this gun? Thelma & Louise 1991 starring Susan Sarandon & Geena Davis & Brad Pitt & Harvey Keitel & Michael Madsen & Christopher McDonald & Stephen Tobolowsky & Timothy Carhart et al, director Ridley Scott, Thelma to Louise
We’re fugitives now; let’s start behaving like that. ibid. Louise
Oh you bitches from Hell! ibid. oil tanker driver
No I mean it. You got a nice place. It’s not every man that can live off the land, you know. Do your own thing in your own time. You should be proud. Easy Rider 1969 starring Peter Fonda & Dennis Hopper & Jack Nicholson & Luke Askew & Phil Spector & Bridget Fonda & Karen Black & Warren Finnerty & Luana Anders & Robert Walker junior & Carrie Snodgress & Dan Haggerty et al, director Dennis Hopper, Wyatt to farmer
It’s a long way to Mardi Gras, baby. ibid. Billy
I think I’m gonna crash. ibid. Wyatt
I’m hip about time. But I just gotta go. ibid. Wyatt
Well erm, that’s got a real nice taste to it, though. I don’t suppose it’ll do me much good though. I’m so used to the booze and everything. ibid. Nicholson smokes doofer
That was a UFO beaming back at cha. Me and Eric Heisman was down in Mexico two weeks ago. We seen forty of ’em flying in formation. They’ve got places all over the world now, you know. They’ve been coming here ever since 1946 when the scientists first started bouncing radar beams offa the moon. And they have been living and working among us in vast quantities ever since. The government knows all about it ... They are people just like us. ibid. Nicholson
If they’re so smart, why don’t they just reveal themselves to us and get it over with? ibid. Billy
What’s wrong with freedom? That’s what it’s all about. ibid.
I’m running out of time. Nebraska 2013 starring Bruce Dern & Will Forte & June Squibb & Stacy Keach & Bob Odenkirk & Mary Louise Wilson & Missy Doty & Angela McEwan & Rance Howard & Devin Ratray et al, director Alexander Payne, father to son
You’d drink too if you were married to your mother. ibid.
What a whore. No, I liked Rose, but my God she was a slut. ibid. mum
All roads lead to Rome. Late 14th century proverb
Mrs Weston is clearly liable for damage to the lamp-post. In the civil law if a driver goes off the road on the pavement and injures a pedestrian, or damages property, he is prima facie liable. Likewise if he goes on the wrong side of the road. It is no answer for him to say, ‘I was a learner-driver under instruction. I was doing my best and could not help it.’ The civil law permits no such excuse. It requires of him the same standing of care as any driver. Lord Denning MR, Nettleship v Weston [1971] 2 QB 691 (CA)
If parking tickets make you angry, then prepare to get very angry. And a ticket might cost you more than you think. Britain’s parking companies are charging you like never before. Dispatches: Secrets of the Parking Wardens, Channel 4 2015
Why did Joseph Smith cross the road? To get to the other bride. Runtu, board post 7th September 2012 'Mormon Jokes'
58% of commuting workers experience road rage. Numbers Game: What Drives You Crazy? National Geographic 2013
I want you to come on the road with me. The Hustler 1961 starring Paul Newman & Jackie Gleason & Piper Laurie & George C Scott & Myron McCormick & Murray Hamilton & Stefan Gierasch et al, director Robert Rossen, Charlie to Fast Eddie
When’s the last time you did the road – 1960? The Color of Money 1986 starring Paul Newman & Tom Cruise & Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio & Helen Shaver & John Turturro & Bill Cobbs & Robert Agins & Alvin Anastasia & Iggy Popp & Forest Whitaker et al, director Martin Scorsese, chump at bar