Frazz by Jef Mallett for August 21, 2018

I think I prefer the car chase in the Blues Brothers movie.

Remember the old movies where a guy would hop into a cab and say “Follow that car”. I’d like to see how that would play out with an autonomous cab.

The kid is right. It IS coming.

What kind of plot would include autonomous vehicles chasing each other? Why; and how would that be better than any of the car chase scenes we discussed yesterday?

“Ram that car off the road!”

“I am sorry, my programming stops me from creating an accident.”

End of the film.

Could autonomous vehicles ever be programmed to intuit sudden changes and select alternative moves at high speed? Maybe in the movies, but then sci-fi artists usually introduce designs and techniques that are well ahead of existing technology. Look how many current space designs look remarkably like comic book drawings from decades ago. Caulfield is prescient, i.e., life imitates art

Didn’t they do that in I Robot.

Go watch “Baby Driver” – all real cars driven down real streets. Outstanding cinematography!! The opening ten minutes sets the pace for the whole movie.

What about Kitt? Autonomous in it important stuff!

Wilt’s 100 pt. game and Joe’s 56 game hitting streak may be unbreakable.

Somebody needs to watch the Mad Max series.

Total Recall Arnold had his own way of handling the Autonomous jiffy cab.

Ronin, Mad Max Fury Road. Also for those who have seen Bullet look for the green Volkswagen. It kind of screws up the illusion when you notice it.

research… Remember “Christine” – “Herbie”(the love bug)" and “The CAR” possibly others as well (My Mother the Car) all autonomous vehicles

Am I the only one surprised to hear that Frazz has an opinion on movie car chases?

Underground chase scene in I Robot.

Death Race 2000!

The common thread with the great scenes is the GENIUS that was Bill Hickman. He choreographed the chases in Bullit, the French Connection, and The Seven-Ups. (He was also the driver of both pursuit cars in Bullit and The Seven-Ups)

“Freebie and the Bean”: not a great movie, but if you’re in the mood for lots of car chases/crashes, it’s worth a look.

No one’s filmed a car chase like Bullitt since because no one could get away with it. No permits, on a public street at full speed. A director who tried that today would get bum rushed off the set before he could say “CUT!”

Off car chases, onto Caulfield’s first clause: Around 1976 I saw a film in which Buster Crabbe talked (favorably) about teenage girls breaking his 1930s Olympic records. Later Mark Spitz was Michael Phelps’ biggest booster to win more medals.

Frazz14 hrs ·

Just to pre-empt any squabbling, car chases in movies are pretty subjective, and a whole lot of them are good. (Car chases in real life, of course, are universally bad.) That’s why Caulfield is saying saying no one’s filmed a better one. Total hedge, but an apt and necessary one. Seems to me there’s a particularly mind-boggling one in “To Live and Die in LA” where the chaser and pursuer are going the wrong way down a rush-hour LA expressway, leaving you to gape, “how did they DO that?” I also recall a chase in Mel Brooks’ “Silent Movie” starring Paul Newman and taking place in wheelchairs. Laughed myself into a stomach-ache. And if it’s laughs you want out of a car scene, go straight from there to “Foul Play” with the “Kojak Bang Bang” scene. And then stay put, because I have a hunch Caulfield is right and that there’s an autonomous-vehicle chase in the works somewhere. And in the right hands, it’s going to be money.

Knight Rider had autonomous vehicle chase scenes 35 years ago and Herbie the Love Bug did it 45 years ago. Been there. Done that.

I still say, the Las Vegas car chase in Jason Bourne!