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Eat My Dust
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Pat Pilon (31st October 2007). |
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The Film
 This movie doesn't take long to get started. A pretty blonde tells Opie (or whatever Ron Howard's name might be in this movie) that she wants to ride in that car, which happens to belong to a racing star. Opie then steals the car and the chase is on as Opie, the blonde (Christopher Norris, who looks a lot like Melanie Griffith) and a couple of friends joyride through Southern California. Before you can say 'Didn't this director make 'Death Race 2000'?’, the police are shown to be stupid, incompetent and bad drivers. The locals don't seem to fare much better. They're all hicks or drunks or idiots. In fact, even Opie himself loses it and starts yelling for no real reason and his girlfriend seems like a shallow bubblehead. So, in the end, nobody comes off as pretty bright, and if any of the viewers actually believe anything that happens in this movie, then they shouldn't be considered very bright, either. Given the movie is one big race, how good is it? I've seen better (even 'The Driver' has better chase scenes), but for the budget and type of movie, I suppose everything is okay. There's nothing especially exciting or innovative about the chases, but it's a lot of fun to watch. I suppose the movie wanted to compete with 'Gone in Sixty Seconds' (the original movie), but unfortunately doesn't have the driving talent that movie did. The comedy you’ll find here is nothing great and not particularly funny, but the light tone makes things more palatable and pretty enjoyable. Talking about acting would be rather pointless, but the movie has an okay cast for the kind of movie. The movie is about a teenage motorhead that likes to drive fast, and I imagine that was the target audience. If you find yourself there, give this movie a shot, otherwise, go with 'The Junkman' or Ron Howard's own 'Grand Theft Auto'.
Video
1.33:1 full frame. The picture is pretty good considering the stock and the year. A few specks squeaked by the clean-up but for the most part, the picture is free of any and every print defect. There are no big colour fluctuations or jitter. The compression is also very good, with no noise and no edge enhancement. The colours are accurate and the contrast is good. The picture looks a bit used, but this is normal given the movie. It's a nice picture and if you watch it on a tube TV, it'll be really nice.
Audio
The movie only has an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track. The old track has been cleaned up and no hissing or popping left. The dialogue is heard, though a lot of it is yelling. That's all heard clearly, also. The crashes and crumples are all clear, though they do sound mighty tinny for what they're supposed to be. The goofy score comes clearly as well, and doesn't block anything out. Though the range is pretty stiff, the track is actually fairly decent. English, French and Spanish subtitles are available for the movie.
Extras
The movie starts off with a 47-second Introduction by Roger Corman where he talks about the money the movie made and the title, which was changed halfway through production. The 'How to Crash on a Dime' featurette (9:32) is second, and features the editor, the director of the photography and the pretty blonde from the movie reminiscing about the movie. They talk about how some of the shots were made (car flip near the beginning), how they got around some problems (the reversing car gag) and a few other things. These three had fun on the movie and you can tell they had a lot of fun. After that, there's only the Trailer (1:02). It's really cheesy. Given the movie made money, I suppose it did its job pretty well.
Overall
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