WCBE 90.5 FM: "The World's Fastest Indian," "The White Countess," "Eight Below"

WCBE 90.5 FM: “The World's Fastest Indian,” “The White Countess,” “Eight Below”
It’s Movie Time co-hosts, writers, producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: 8:01 pm, February 17 & 1:01 pm, February 18, 2006
Streaming Live on the web and on-demand (iPod) at: www.wcbe.org

The Script

Clay

“The World's Fastest Indian” gets off to a slow start. . .

John

“The White Countess” is Ivory Gold . . .

Clay

“Eight Below” is a polar adventure that features dogs rather than penguins . . .

HIT MUSIC THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

“It’s Movie Time” in central Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe.’’

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER FOR

John

I’m John DeSando

Clay

And I’m Clay Lowe

John (“The World's Fastest Indian” - 126 words without interjection/139 with)

“I might be a bit deaf, but I'm not stupid.”

You could have said that on our trip to New Zealand.

Clay

I did but you didn’t hear me.

John (As usual ignores him) 

In The World’s Fastest Indian, Burt Munro’s challenge is to get himself and his 1920 Indian Motorcycle from down under to Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats for world land speed competition. 

Sir Anthony Hopkins is worth every million he makes by making us love his absent-minded, strong-willed racer. Only David Lynch’s “Straight Story” could compete for pulling a winner film out of an old man’s random encounters on a slow-moving road trip.

The film’s disadvantage is that this down home wisdom and eccentric behavior seem forced.

Overall the film successfully shows that breaking the rules should be on everyone’s to-do list, especially at your age, Dr.

Clay (“The World’s Fastest Indian” - 147 words)
At my age, folks, being able to break the rules is more fantasy than aspiration. But the real rule breaker in The World’s Fastest Indian was Burt Munro (played by Anthony Hopkins), a real life motorcycle speedster, who burned his way into the record books on the Salt Flats at Bonneville, Utah.

An eccentric old guy (is there any other kind in the movies?), he borrows carving knives to trim his tires . . . waters lemon trees with his bodily fluids . . . and makes all kinds of friends in his journey, by ship and by car, from New Zealand to L.A. to Utah.

Along the way he meets a friendly motel clerk, a friendly used car dealer, and even a friendly old gal who shares with him her bed, as well as her body. And, yep, you’ve got it. When he finally arrives, he takes home all of the gold.

John (“The White Countess” - 136 words)

"Between the erotic and the tragic"

So Ralph Fiennes describes both his “perfect little bar” and a perfect woman in 1936 Shanghai, with the Japanese preparing for invasion as part of another wearisome world war. 

This Merchant-Ivory classic has the right balance between Jackson’s Rick Blaine-like isolationism and Natasha Richardson’s former-Russian-countess elegance decidedly less erotic and more meretricious in these exile days, not unlike Ingrid Bergman.

It’s a world more Graham Greene than E.M. Forster, with intrigues floating in and out of the neutral White Countess bar as physically blinded Jackson in his figurative blindness tries to solve the world’s unrest through congenial neutrality, an  improvement over Bogart’s  self denials in his Café American.

Fiennes is no Bogie, but his gruff American naivete and rude attitude are reminders of just how great a film Casablanca is.

Clay (“Eight Below”- 144 words)

Well, folks, there is no White Countess in Eight Below but there are miles of frozen ice. Featuring the Antarctic landscape that backdropped the mating games in The March of the Penguins, Eight Below features a team of spirited sled dogs who are as clever as Lassie and as determined as Old Yeller.

But unlike The March of the Penguins, Eight Below also features real life humans. There’s Jerry, the resident guide. Charlie (Jason Biggs) his map making sidekick. Davis, an uptight and irritable scientist and finally Katie, the movie’s love interest, who also happens to be able to fly.

When asking the young 5 and 6 year neighbor friends who saw the movie with me what they thought about the film, they said they liked it, but asked me to warn kids about the scary scene with the leopard seal.

Consider it done.

But enough of eccentric old men, ivory women, and leaping angry seals, John, because it’s grading time . . .

MUSIC OUT, CUT TO DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

John

Holy Hypothermia, Hooray!

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

John

“The World's Fastest Indian” earns a “B” because the race doesn’t always BELONG to the BOYS . . .

Clay

“The World’s Fastest Indian” gets a “C” because CROCHETY old men just don’t CUT it for me any more . . .

John

“The White Countess” earns a B because BOGIE and BERGMAN are BORN  again . . .

Clay

“Eight Below” gets a “B” because dogs (too BAD) are still a man’s BEST friend . . .

DRUMS OUT

John

Clay, my Russian interpreter reminds me of Natasha Richardson.  I hope my blue eyes are as sexy as Ralph Fiennes’ blindness.

I’m outta here.

Clay

No, but your eyes do match the blue orbs of Disney’s handsome huskies. Arf. Arf.

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle

The award winning “It’s Movie Time” is co-hosted, written, and now produced by John DeSando and Clay for WCBE 90.5.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright John DeSando & Clay Lowe, 2006