Poll Position: American Graffiti (1973)

Last week after the excitement of Fast Five we decided to fill up the poll with all car movies and American Graffiti came out on top. I was surprised to learn that this was directed by George Lucas and then not surprised to see Harrison Ford show up as the cocky upstart. I'll be honest with you, from the looks of this movie I didn't have high hopes going in. It really didn't look like the kind of movie I'd enjoy, mainly because I don't care at all for the 60's era, and this movie seems like a total nostalgia trip all about those days. Well lets hit the jump and we'll see how I felt about the whole thing.


So basically the story follows 4 guys, Curt, Steve, John, and Terry, over the course of one night before 2 of them are about to fly away to collage. Steve has a steady girlfriend, Curt is having doubts about going at all even though he's been given a $2000 scholarship. Of the other 2, Terry is a young skinny guy who has terrible luck with women, and the other is John, the town's aging champion racer who used to get any girl he wanted. We just follow them around and see the shenanigans they get into.

What's interesting, and I hope I'm not spoiling this for too many, is how so many of the initial starting points the of various characters flip-flop around by the end. Most of them end up with opposite opinions or experiences through the course of the night. The racer has a hard time getting a girl, and ends up stuck with a young teenager he has to look after. The skinny geek gets a gorgeous, if a little funny, girl to hang out with him, make out with, and have adventures with. The college guys also have experiences key to their futures which help them make up their minds on what to do about leaving. There's a lot going on and all four stories rarely cross each other, ultimately, in my opinion, weakening all four.

John's race car could only hold my attention for so long

Car culture of the 1960s is rampant throughout the movie, not just with the racer. My only problem? I don't care about 1960s car culture. Sure the racer's yellow beast is fun to see, but he just sorta wanders around the town with it trying to get girls unsuccessfully. And finally right at the end when they finally do race, it's only like 30 seconds and it's over.

One thing I didn't understand the point of was the "where are they now" blurbs at the end which seem to have nothing to do with what happened in the film. Oh, that's interesting, one of them died in the war. And yet war was never brought up as a theme or any kind of interest of any of the characters. Why was this even put in?

In my opinion American Graffiti holds nothing on Fast Five. I found it boring and uninteresting and far too long. I really didn't care about anything going on, although it had the rare scene that was entertaining for about 5 minutes. Oddly though, this movie is listed as a comedy, but you could have fooled me. It was interesting how all their original roles reversed as to what you'd expect, but ultimately I didn't like it. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless you LOVE 60's music and cars, in which case this might just bring back all kinds of memories.