Gas Food Lodging
by Allison Anders
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Brooke Adams, Fairuza Balk, Ione Skye, James Brolin, Robert KnepperDirector: Allison Anders
Writer: Allison Anders
Producer: Albert T. Dickerson III
Producer: Carl Colpaert
Producer: Christoph Henkel
Producer: Daniel Hassid
Producer: Gregor von Bismarck
Writer: Richard Peck
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 101 minutes
Published: 2003-09-01
DVD Release Date: 2003-09-23
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Gas Food Lodging
Movie Review: Dirt Road Reality May Be Too Real For Some
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie reminded me of those drive-in classics I used to see just when I was old enough to drive and hear curse words in a movie. The story here is about a woman and her two teenage daughters living in trailer along the freeway, henceforth the title. They argue and fight a lot and say f... a lot but always seem to end up sort of stuck with each other. I agree with most of the other reviews here...you can almost feel the dirt road under the wheels of you tires or the screen door slamming and people yelling and cursing each other.
The younger characters herein sound like they're at about the same age except I was that age about 15 years before this was made. The idea of being stuck in a small town, bored to death and convinced that no matter what you'll still be there tomorrow.
Pretty raw dialogue in lots of places. No cinderella, fairy tales or teen comedies here either. I want to warn those who look for any of those that it ain't here.
The movie takes place in Mew Mexico and has some racial overtones to it as well. The reason that I've mentioned that is that I felt like I'd seen something similar to it with but set in another state and also in case my title might mislead someone into thinking that this is some redneck movie about growing up in the south but it ain't that either. This is also not really a chick movie in the sense that I've always understoood the term.
The characters both males and females are pretty raw and uncultured and unrefined and again seems to avoid the ususal movie cliches that I think I've covered in full above. No teen comedy, redneck comedy, soap opera, or love story here.
I could actually live without hearing an actual argument over who took the last tampon. That seems to be what everybody herein does real well is to argue about mom working at the diner to the neighbor installing his satellite dish to the idiot at the movies who can't focus the projector or the guy that's heard bout the girl who likes to swallow. (It isn't porn either) Argue and fight and then life goes on. No one ever seems to apologize to each other but no one seems to care.
If you grew up under these circumstances you may not be shocked at the language but I felt that for some who were expecting something lighter to be forewarned. Most of us from small towns pretended to be shocked in front of our parents but in reality we hear thesame language everyday.
Fairuza Balk's narration makes it somewhat more interesting as she seems to be trying to find a new husband for her mother whose first one vanished or something and she's dated a bunch of losers so her daughter figures that finding mom a new husband will free them all of their restrictions.
I passed through New Mexico once in lifetime and as well as I remember it looked a lot ilke this movie. I give credit for avoiding all the usual movie cliches that I could think of anyway. This is slow moving, dirt roads, pick up trucks, trailer parks and truckstops. I like the realism of it and It seems to accurately capture the feeling of frustration of being trapped in a hick town in the middle of nowhere, the only way out if you're a woman is to get married and hope to escape. It's that this sort of doesn't always happen in reality either which is another point that this movie makes real well. Life is unfair.
It's definitely not something I want to sit through everyday of the week. But once in a while, I could see myself watching this just for the hell of it.
Summary of Gas Food Lodging
American independent director Allison Anders made her name with this keenly observed tale of a single mother and her two daughters stuck in the truck-stop town of Laramie, New Mexico, barely a fly speck on the never-ending desert horizon. Ione Skye and Fairuza Balk star as sisters Trudi and Shade, who couldn't be more different. Trudi rebels against her mother and her soul-numbing life through sex and develops a reputation among the boys for being easy. Shade is the "good girl" who escapes through the overripe Mexican melodramas in the town's largely vacant theater. Brooke Adams, a loving mother hardened by rejection and a demanding job as a truck-stop waitress, tries to hide her loneliness and disappointment and set Trudi on a better path, but as with so many relationships in this film, conflict brings out the worst in them. Anders, a single mother herself, drew on her own experiences to enrich her adaptation of Richard Peck's novel "Don't Look and It Won't Hurt", and she brings a haggard understanding to the strained relations between mother and daughter and the bleak desolation to the lives of three women trapped by circumstance, economics, and landscape, but she also reaches deep into the characters to expose their yearnings and steel their resolve. No knight in shining armor for these women, but Anders allows them to make their way through the emotional landscape with pluck and determination. "--Sean Axmaker"Similar DVD Movies
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