Motorama (1991)

Motorama is an ethereal story set in a landscape of earthly if solitary beauty, reminiscent of An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge meets Thelma and Louise but also unlike anything you've ever seen. (The only thing I've run across that comes close is a Star Trek: Voyager episode ten years later where an immortal member of the Q continuum wants to leave by suicide and explains that alternate universe by depicting a cryptic scene very much like most of the desert-road, gas-station, and wayside-diner vignettes in Motorama.) Child star Jordan Christopher Michael precedes Joel Haley Osment by five years and sustains the entire quirky narrative quite well as the resourceful ten-year-old Gus, who leaves a dangerous family situation by driving a red Ford Mustang cross-country on a quest to play and win a retro gas-station game called Motorama. I enjoy how matter-of-factly most adults accept a small boy driving a car cross-country (while Gus tells a child who asks him to play "Get lost, kid"), and how Gus scams, escapes, or endures the many scrapes he encounters. I esp. like John Diehl (Gordon Liddy in Nixon) as Phil, the gas-station attendant who stands by the highway flying a kite towards God, and Robert Picardo as a policeman. Pay attention to the details of each state as Gus travels: Bergen (the Long State), Exeter (the Last State), etc. Last of all, think about the story, because it's a lot deeper than it looks on the surface. (By the way, I found this movie in a manner as quirky as the film itself: I grabbed a Blockbuster video case under the display of a sci-fi movie I had missed, got home to find it was a case for some slasher movie, opened it up and found Motorama. What a serendipitous pleasure!) Rated R for four-letter language and one quick back-seat tussling scene. [6/2/05 updated 8/17/05 and 12/9/07] 4.5 stars.