Drive Not So Angrily

I'm sorry, how rude of me. I should introduce my genitals to your genitals.

Usually I don’t get into the whole movie festival scene even though I’ve always wanted to go to Sundance.  Cannes especially seems like a good idea in theory and all, but really it’s an excuse for the movie industry to hang out in the South of France every year and compare the size of their villas.  This year though, something good might actually come out of Cannes and it’s name is Drive.  I know that Pete and I have thoroughly enjoyed dissecting Fast Five, but Drive appears to be what that series could have been if it was taken seriously by a writer/director and cast with some talent.  Drive is the story of a wheelman by night, stunt driver by day played by Ryan Gosling.  First off, I have to say that I enjoy Gosling in a lot of things that are not named The Notebook.  Fracture is a movie that nobody has seen and that everybody NEEDS to see.  Seriously, stop reading this and go rent Fracture.  It’s a 90% rating in my book and something that everybody should see.  Gosling and Anthony Hopkins are great in it to boot.  Lars and the Real Girl and Half-Nelson are two other Gosling movies that are criminally underrated and even worse, under-seen.  Let’s just say that he has some acting chops and leave it at that.  Drive also stars Carey Mulligan as his neighbor/presumed love interest.  Carey Mulligan is also somebody that does not normally ruin movies and case in point, she is currently attached to star in about 46 of them in the next three years.  Well, not really, but it seems as though every movie that comes up nowadays is rumored to be after Mulligan for the female lead and who can blame them?  I mean, she is the daughter of the late, great Richard Mulligan and . . . wait, what?  She’s not Richard Mulligan’s daughter?  No, I guess Richard Mulligan wasn’t British now that you mention it.  Oh well.  The point is that Mulligan is an excellent addition to any movie.  The final piece of the puzzle that makes this movie so special is the appearance of Albert Brooks as the villain.  Now, Albert Brooks is a Hall-of-Fame caliber actor (why isn’t there a Hollywood Hall of Fame by the way?) that again is not fully appreciated nowadays.  Defending Your Life alone is a masterpiece that should be involved in any film-making class.  No, it’s not the Farrelly Brothers type of movie, and yes, I am extremely thankful for that.  Brooks is criminally under-used nowadays, but that is what makes it that much more enjoyable when he does appear on screen.  From everything I’ve heard, his role here is as a straight gangster with very little comedy infused into it.  I am very much looking forward to it.

Needless to say, Drive sounds like a movie with a lot of potential.  By all accounts it killed at Cannes and hopefully by it’s release in September (shit, we have to wait that long, really?) it will have built up enough buzz that it gets the viewership that it deserves.  If they can string together an ad campaign for a piece of shit like Priest, then they better be able to scrounge up that much money for an actually well-made film like Drive.  From what I can tell, there is unfortunately no trailer as of yet, so we will just have to look forward to that and of course presumably when Drive hits far too few theaters in September.