Greetings, loyal airmen.  Well here we are, full into the Labor Day weekend and the unofficial end of summer.  Signs of which we've been seeing all too soon.  Kids here in Somersworth were back in school this past week, the old fleet of buses once again making their early morning rounds.  In two days we'll be closing up the swimming pool out back, draining the water level, adding the anti-freeze and putting the cover back over it.  All too fast, that's how summers fly around here.  Still, Valerie and I went to see a movie matinee a few days ago which totally brought back lots of fun, summer memories for your Old Air Chief.

DEATH RACE is a B-Movie action flick starring one of my favorite actors, Jason Statham.  I've been a fan of his since he popped up on the cinema scene with his first TRANSPORTER movie.  Ergo, when I first saw the trailers for this, his latest feature, it was a done deal I would go and see it.   And enjoy it to the max.  B-Movies are the fun flicks people make for no other reason than to entertain their audiences.  When I was a kid growing up in the late fifties and sixties, small Hollywood studios woulp pump out these kind of popcorn movies by the hundred; especially for the summer drive-in season.

For those of you under thirty, drive-ins were actually outdoor movie theaters.  Imagine a huge, empty, paved parking lot in the middle of nowhere.  Now at one end put up a giant wooden wall, painted a non-reflective white and there's your giant screen.  The concept of drive-ins became successful during the late fifties as more and more American families owned cars, and their teen-age kids owned cars.  What better way to go see a movie than in your own car.  Families would pack up, the kids dressed in their pajamas and off they would go to watch a movie under the night skies.  I loved drive-ins as a kid.   Of course these kind of loose, informal viewings were not conducive to seeing “serious” melodramas.  Those were fine for the art-house crowd and the folks who wanted to win Oscars.  Nope, drive-ins catered to exploitation movies, horror, sci-fi and goof-ball comedies.  The stuff the average American family could enjoy.  See, there's that word again, entertainment.

And during the heyday of the drive-ins, nobody produced more entertaining B-Movies then producer Roger Corman.  Corman became a legend in Hollywood by having the genius to recruit young movie makers coming out of all the famous liberal arts colleges in California.  All these would-be filmmakers were eager-beavers looking for a place to learn their craft and Corman gave them that stage.  He hired up and coming young stars as well and kept everything on the cheap.  Cheap movies made fast and delivered to distributors on time.  Corman's movies were among the finest B-Movies ever made.  One of them was in fact DEATH RACE 2000, which was the original version of this new Statham flick.

Made in 1975, this Roger Corman cult classic starred David Carradine, Simone Griffith and a young actor named Sylvester Stallone.  It was written by Robert Thom and Charles Griffith and directed by Paul Bartel.  The plot told us that in the future of 2000, the world economic stability collapsed and to keep the masses happy, the government instuted the Transcontinental Road Race, a gory gladitorial contest wherein death and mayhem were the rules and victory meant freedom to the winner.  As a drive-in B-Movie, it was absolutely perfect and I've fond memories of seeing it up there on that giant white screen.  Happily the Statham remake, directed by W.S. Anderson is just as much shlock and silliness as the original, only instead of a cross-country race, the criminal drivers in this new version are all confined to an off-shore island where the race (more in-line with Nascar track style) is held.  Like the original, all cars are armored and loaded with guns and rockets, all better to wipe out the competition…permanently.   It's just plain, mindless fun with truly incredible action sequences.  Neither Val or I were disappointed. 

So if you too miss those old days of the drive-ins, go see DEATH RACE.  It might bring back a few of those wonderful memories.  Now I'm just waiting for someone to put DEATH RACE 2000 on DVD.  Please.

And there you have it, loyal airmen.  Next week we'll be kicking off the Fall season, bombarded by political ads on TV every five minutes and praying the Red Sox can make it to the play-offs.  Never a dull moment at the old Hangar 27.

Ron – Over & Out.