James Sallis, Hossein Amini, and Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011
#6, 2011 Skandies
When I first started in on the 2011 Skandies back in January someone warned me to skip this one, I guess because it's a violent actiony thing and I tend not to be into those. But there are exceptions — though I don't think it's the deepest thing in the world, I am a faithful Game of Thrones viewer, for example — so I gave Drive a shot anyway. And, no, I wasn't traumatized or anything. I probably could have found a better way to spend a couple of hours, though — I doubt I'll remember much about it in a few days. So what's a forgettable trifle like this doing at #6? It looks like the Skandie voters were impressed by (a) the fact that the movie passes itself off as a midlist '80s thing, with synthy songs on the soundtrack and all the credits done in Mistral, and (b) a scene in which the protagonist is trapped in an elevator with his love interest and a guy who looks threatening, sees that the guy has a gun in his coat, and kisses the love interest for a long time (the lights dimming dramatically) before turning and bashing the guy's head in. And, again, not really what I'm into, but I wasn't scarred for life. More the Immortal of movies than the Geek Love is I guess what I'm saying.
