The desperation to get out, whether you live there, are stuck there, just passing through or desperate to leave. This is the place where you don't want to be stuck. It's the place where a petrified forest attracts murderous gangsters, where young wives scheme to kill their older husband to run away with their younger lover and where you don't dare pick up a hitchhiker because he or she might be a sociopath.
When suicide won't work for those who live there or someone with a flat tire and frustrated family has a sudden temper tantrum because they can't find someone to help them, it's obviously not a desert oasis or the song of the open road. The vista on the horizon may look pretty, but it's hundred miles away, and everything that happens before you get where the people are can possibly drive you over the edge.
This is the type of film that I'm first glance on the video store shelf I would have overlooked, but finding accidentally turns out to be an artistic surprise. It has nearly a dozen stories which unfold over a hundred minutes, some of course better than others, but the stories from this that you will remember will be based on the characters you either relate to or like.
An ensemble of familiar names and faces like Luke Perry, John Savage, Eric Roberts, Sam Jones, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Viterelli and Carol Kane (with a Swedish accent!) pop in and out of the story with Kane's roadside diner where a good percentage of the action takes place. This is funny in a semi bitter way with world weary people taking no guff, or hoping for the easy way out. The photography utilizes a lot of red and yellow filters for mood which works perfectly.
I've seen films going as far back as the early 30's (mainly from Warner Brothers) that utilizes this type of setting which could have taken place anywhere in a ten thousand square mile radius from where this is. It's a reminder that a good percentage of the country is like this, and anyone who has taken a long greyhound ride or car trip on their own will understand that feeling of painful solitude that takes over when you are far away from where you're from. I just never thought I'd find laughs like that in this, especially in the cynical way they fly out of you here.
When suicide won't work for those who live there or someone with a flat tire and frustrated family has a sudden temper tantrum because they can't find someone to help them, it's obviously not a desert oasis or the song of the open road. The vista on the horizon may look pretty, but it's hundred miles away, and everything that happens before you get where the people are can possibly drive you over the edge.
This is the type of film that I'm first glance on the video store shelf I would have overlooked, but finding accidentally turns out to be an artistic surprise. It has nearly a dozen stories which unfold over a hundred minutes, some of course better than others, but the stories from this that you will remember will be based on the characters you either relate to or like.
An ensemble of familiar names and faces like Luke Perry, John Savage, Eric Roberts, Sam Jones, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Viterelli and Carol Kane (with a Swedish accent!) pop in and out of the story with Kane's roadside diner where a good percentage of the action takes place. This is funny in a semi bitter way with world weary people taking no guff, or hoping for the easy way out. The photography utilizes a lot of red and yellow filters for mood which works perfectly.
I've seen films going as far back as the early 30's (mainly from Warner Brothers) that utilizes this type of setting which could have taken place anywhere in a ten thousand square mile radius from where this is. It's a reminder that a good percentage of the country is like this, and anyone who has taken a long greyhound ride or car trip on their own will understand that feeling of painful solitude that takes over when you are far away from where you're from. I just never thought I'd find laughs like that in this, especially in the cynical way they fly out of you here.