Going all Siskel and Ebert on shit

More Breck Epic next week...

After I race this weekend and spend a miserable amount of time recapping my lackluster efforts. I am not recovered from the Breck Epic just yet, and it's probably not the smartest thing to do with the Shenandoah 100 coming up in just another week...

but whatever.

I've wanted to race the River's Edge Marathon all year, and regardless of the lack of a river in the immediate area or even the remnants of an edge, I'm going. Should be a stacked SS field with 3 of the top four SS'ers from the Turn and Burn overall are already signed up.

I did go see Premium Rush last night. Was it as bad as I thought it would be?

No.

It was worse.

I know Bike Snob will cover this ad nauseum, but as a messenger I have to give my opinion... have to.

I sunk down low in my seat. I searched the room for sympathetic eyes. The only other courier I saw in the area was former employee of a few different companies, Keith; AKA Big Time, Citizen, Sergeant Elias.

Even if I bought into the fact that the main character (Wily) played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a daredevil with mad skills, the plot was still weak, the acting terribly odd, and the action sequences just plain strange and stilted.

He never had brakes in the movie. Don't know what's up with this photo. Rear brakes on fixies are the new tight jeans and tattoos.

There were lots of death defying acts of riding prowess. The audience cheered. Some pumped their fists in the air. Hoots and guffaws burst from the crowd as cyclists were hit by cars and tossed into the street in all manner of ways. I thought that was pretty funny as well.

I'm sure some of the audience was thinking, "Fucking cyclists getting what's due."

One of Wily's protagonists was Manny.

Manny is famous for being the only courier in NYC with a carbon bike with a carbon cockpit and carbon wheels that never has to worry about his shit being stolen. I just noticed that his saddle is slammed back in a most unaesthetic manner as well. Unngh. He can also afford a huge ass truck that would be the envy of every African American redneck in NYC... on his $80 a day salary.

World famous messenger Squid Bolger makes a few cameos. Early in the movie, he walks into the offices of Security Courier (Wily's employer) as if he works there, but later when the dispatcher calls in the "Calvary", he calls Cycle Hawk... Squid's company IRL. Yeah, you'd have to be a real geek to know that.

I stand accused.

There are plenty of points where any cyclist in the audience must have cringed. One of the main characters runs into the office and trues a wheel that was keeping her from making deliveries... in about twenty seconds. Riders sprinting though downtown New York, racing against time and crooked cops, talking on their phones... hardly out of breath.

It was just that bad. Every moment. I woulda had to take notes to cover all my points of contention.

I looked over at The Pie multiple times and apologized for bringing her.

We walked out and waited for Keith to exit the theater. As soon as our eyes met, we started laughing. No one else got the joke.

"Running reds and killing peds."

Good Lord.

It's like someone took my life and put it on the big screen... the same way I felt about Legends of the Fall.



I will not see another messenger movie until Kevin Bacon makes Quicksilver 2.