Super Bitchin' Muscle Car

I was at the LA Shortsfest when I saw the title of this film listed in the festival program and was immediately dying to see it. Having grown up in the '80s, I love the word "bitchin'". And I love muscles cars--my first car was a '69 Firebird. But it was a pleasant bonus that the short also featured ignorant rednecks. I like anything about the South. I thought the film did a great job of illustrating how pointless and hatred-producing the "us vs. them" mindset is. Plus, I learned some interesting things about muscle cars. I think it'd be great if Cronin, the writer-director, made a feature about these kinds of characters, set in this world (of muscle car restoration and fanaticism). I liked how the short was shot, and I found the plot suspenseful. I'd like to see more of the director's work. But I think it's going to be tough for him to top the title of this film.

Take ten minutes out of your life and laugh at the rantings of this white trash film. If you are gay and easily offended, get over it and learn to love to laugh at yourself. Aside from the witty dialogue and hilarious one liners, this film has violence too! It is not to be taken too seriously and the Director obviously does not intend to effect a change in the world. The movie's only agenda is to make fun of what is already known to be a taboo subject - white trashers bashing gays who drive imports or mopars - if you do not know what a MOPAR is ... then you need to see this film. ...If it has been too long since you've observed red-necks talking s**t in a backyard that is riddled with junked cars... you need to see this film. If you have forgotten that gay men can too be tough, muscle driving maniacs who also KICK ass... you need to see this film. But, if hearing the word faggot spat from the lips of a cross eyed gimp may offend you, save the ten minutes and rent The Crying Game again.

We live in a "post" world...post-millennium, post-modern, post-war, post-Feminist, but one still very much steeped in political correctness. "Super Bitchin' Muscle Car" is the kind of film gives a one-finger salute to the tyranny of PC, making rough comedy out of the larger-than- life but very real characters and their take on diversity, mechanical and otherwise.

One of the film's strengths is its every-penny-on-the-screen aesthetic...and the budget (posted after the last credits) is most appropriately counted in pennies. The film is shot like a stage play...allowing the actors to really chew up writer/director Dan Cronin's clever dialogue. That leads to the next strength...the actors deliver solid performances in characters that are sometimes unsympathetic or written in broad strokes.

"Super Bitchin' Muscle Car" is flat-out fun...a muscular, funny and unflinching short film for people who don't have time for PC.

Super Bitchin Muscle Car takes our nation's politically correct pretentiousness and shoves it right up our gas guzzling bottoms. The film exhibits a rare sort of courage; the courage of a film maker to have fun revelling in the grimiest, greasiest parts of himself. We can't help but have fun here too. And at the same time, a least in a small way, we're forced to examine these parts of our own - "unacceptable" - subconscious. It's the sort of thing John Waters has strived to do for years, but it's different here because Mr. Cronin's not a fairy . At least I don't think he is. The acting is fun to watch, the camera work is top notch and the cars are gorgeous. Super Bitchin Muscle Car is an utterly unexpected little gem.