Thank you, Walter Hill

Happy 4th of July! 

As I type this, my neighbors are celebrating the birth of the nation by getting drunk and being loud.  I love my country but hate my neighbors.

For the past few days, the heat down here in Texas has been torturous.  As I do not react well to warm weather in general (much less the agony of a Texas summer), I did not go out to see any fireworks tonight.  The idea of being surrounded by thousands of sweaty strangers did not appeal to me.

I would have probably spent the whole day at home (today is the first day of my vacation from my day job -- I'm free to concentrate solely on my writing until July 13th) if I hadn't decided to watch a 1978 film called The Driver.  Directed by Walter Hill, The Driver is (reasonably enough) about a driver.  Ryan O'Neal is an ice-cold outlaw who sells his services as a get away driver to various criminals.  Isabelle Adjani is the woman with whom he has an odd little affair.  Bruce Dern is the detective who is obsessed (little surprise here as when hasn't a Bruce Dern character been obsessed with something) with busting him.  The film really is classic Walter Hill -- part thrilling action and part philosophical hokum. 

(Walter Hill really is the poor man's Michael Mann and that's definitely meant as a compliment for both directors.)

Anyway, as you might imagine of a film called The Driver, a good deal of the film is taken up with scenes of Ryan O'Neal driving.  Indeed, the Driver is a contender for the best car chase film ever made.  As a result, it is impossible to watch the movie without then being filled with an irresistible urge to go out and drive around aimlessly yourself.

So, that's what I spent most of tonight doing.

The upshot of this is that I found myself cutting through a Wal-Mart parking lot at the same time a nearby fireworks display was going off.

So, thanks to Walter Hill, I got to observe the traditional 4th of July fireworks after all.

And best of all, I got to do it from the privacy of my own car.