Vanishing Point (Audio Review)

Posted by on April 10th, 2007   Filed under: Audio Review, Movie Review

Vanishing PointWelcome to the very first episode of Film Junk Quick Review! Alright, i’ll admit the name is pretty lame, so i’m open to suggestions. Anyways, this is the show where I (being me, Jay) give a quick audio review of a classic (or not-so-classic) film that i’ve managed to watch on DVD recently. This week, in honour of the release of Grindhouse, I checked out Director Richard C. Safarian’s ‘Ultimate Car Chase Movie’, ‘Vanishing Point’. Released in 1971 by 20th Century Fox, the film is definitely a cult classic and features one hell of an extended car chase. If you happened to be one of the few folks who loved Tarantino’s ‘Death Proof’, you’ll definitely want to check out the main inspiration for his grand finale that, for many, has now taken the top spot as the ultimate car chase scene in film history. Have a listen, and stay tuned for future episodes of my Film Junk quick reviews!

Download the mp3.


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SCORE: 3 stars





  • audio reviews. good idea. if you fill me in how to upload audio to that thing i might be able to finally get more active in the site again.

  • Henrik

    A quick fix of junk? This is a fun idea. Not exactly my kind of movie (I’m totally not into cars) but hopefully this thing will be kept up for awhile ;).

  • Good stuff, I love ‘Vanishing Point’, I agree if you think “Michael Bay” style modern car chases are the be all and end all you might not like this one. Much like Cool Hand Luke (though a very different movie) it’s got that real spirit of the individual feeling to it, a kind of cry for a “real” freedom where a man can down a bunch of amphetamines and just drive as fast as he can across the desert in his Dodge Charger and no one can tell him to stop till he’s done.

    Grindhouse is not coming to the Uk till June sadly (So I have to wait for “Death Proof” and after it’s box office results over there, I get the feeling they will now split it up in the UK like they are doing for non-English speaking territories.

  • P. S.

    Vanishing Point was an educational movie at best. Granted, the whole movie is a car chase, so that kinda makes it cool. The end blows though. It was pretty much a 1.5 hour commercial for the new 70’s Dodge Challenger at that time. It was pretty much commissioned by Dodge. Five 1970 Challengers were used I believe. 3 were totalled, 2 survived, while one of those 2 was stolen by a prostitute and recovered later.

    Oh, and just for the record. Death Proof sucked. Tarantino is a hack and is not responsible for the only good part of that movie, the car chases. When will you people realize that he has no talent.

  • Jeff

    Somebody’s jealous.

  • P.S. – To take your arguement against Tarantino as far as saying he has, without a doubt, NO talent screams grandstanding in an attempt to be controversial. If you don’t like his movies, fine. If you think he’s unoriginal, fine. But to say he has NO talent is to assume that ANYBODY can do what he’s doing, which we all know isn’t true thanks to the films of Guy Ritchie.

  • P. S.

    Giggle. Agreed. He is doing what he loves. He’s got that going for him. I just find it a shame that this guy Tarantino makes a few films that are consistently sub-par and only as good as those he has hired to work on, yet, critics laud him as the best thing since sliced bread, and then when real, accomplished and artistic directors come along, ie Michael Bay, Brett Ratner, & Paul W.S. Anderson, and make phenomal, if not social critiques, critics lambast them as horrible money making hacks. I just think its very sad. ;-)

    And you’re right Jeff, I am jealous. :D Jealous that this guy somehow is considered an auteur when he rips other people off. But I guess thats how he makes his living.

  • P. S.

    Oh yeah, a correction on my first post, 4 of the 5 Challengers were totalled, while the 5th was stolen by a prostitute and later recovered.

  • Ian

    This is a great idea. My friend had me watch this movie about 10 years ago and I found it to be awful. All muddled with pseduopolitical hippies vs. ignoramus authority with the “deep” bitter ending. I guess it rubbed me the wrong way for sure since the protagonist wasn’t really all that empathetic.

  • That’s funny because the first thing I did when I got home from seeing “Grindhouse” was add “Vanishing Point” to my ziplist.

    Great idea with the mini reviews too!

  • cool i never new that there was 5 cars in the film..so dose “1” still live? would lov more input on it ? any takers ?

  • ..sigh…another dead web page…