Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

in response to Arcadia's query from another thread, i am gonna proffer some remarks about the movie Point Break.

Point Break is remarkable in that it proves that cinematic aesthetic space does not obey the laws of conventional Euclidean geometry or reason. by all criteria it should be an awfully wretched work. it:

1 ) is an American movie made after the Great Depression and NOT directed by Capra, Orson Welles, Woody Allen or Richard Linklater;
2 ) is about bank robbery and has the cops as the heros and the robbers as villians;
3 ) is about surfing;
4 ) has a cameo appearance by members of a rock band;
5 ) stars Keanu Reaves;
6 ) stars Patrick Sweaze;
7 ) stars Gary Busey;
8 ) stars Lori Petty;
9 ) has two skydiving sequences

all in one film. anyone of these elements alone should be enough to scuttle the ship, but the combination of them -- well, the probability of a decent picture emerging from that combination is astoundingly improbable, like less than the probability of finding life on any given planet in outer space! (indeed, its even less than the probability of there being a good Tom Hanks movie.)

and yet. and yet. it is an entertaining and almost thoughtful movie and has some very well constructed scenes.

e_dog, you are my favourite pretentious git :)



Aside from myself, that is.

I´ll write the title in the turquesa list! thanks.

That scene where the slightly less than bright Johnny Utah dives outta the plane, without a parachute of course, to make sure Brodey doesn't getaway from him gets me everytime. I'm like,

"That stupid fucking cop just jumped out an airplane without a chute."


The climactic beach ("I can't live in a cage, Brah") scene was filmed at tiny little hidden away Indian Beach here on the north Oregon coast. They must'a spent a fortune flying all those Aussie cops up here just for a couple of minutes of film. Guess they wanted all the realism they thought the audience deserved. Especially since we're talking the fifty year storm, here.

re: the skydiving thing

there's reports online that during some shots while in the air the stuntdouble or actor portraying Johnnie Utah has goggles on whereas at the jump and on the ground he doesn't.

but i'm thinkin, forget the damn goggles if suspension of disbelief is a problem! (after all, he coulda had a pair in his pocket, right, and adjusyted em midair.) the real thing is how e defies the laws of physics by catching up to his target despite jumping much later (okay, his aerodynamics must have been really sharp, perhaps Swayze's hair functioned as a kind of air-resistance chute) and from a plane hat traveling threw the air and so must be like maybe hundreds of yards from the previous jumper. i guess Johnnie Utah's athletic training really paid off for that trick.