Gas Food Lodging

I recently watched this film with my husband who grew up in Deming, NM where the film was made. Very authentic story with regard to the lack of anything to do in the small desert towns of NM and the constant desire to get the heck out of there either by running away or using your imagination. Shade is a fantastic character and you will easily fall in love with her. Additionally, once you discover the reason for Trudi's attitude, you'll root for her too instead of wondering her problem is with everyone. This film is a real catch. Wish I heard about it sooner, my husband just remembered it one day when he was telling me how excited everyone was that a movie was being made in Deming. We were surprised to find it was available on Netflix.

I have seen this movie three times, and each time I see it, I appreciate it more. This is a story about a mother and her two daughters, and the personal struggles each go through as they try to be a family. While the movie is slow-paced, I highly enjoyed the cinematography. The ages of the three main characters gives a special insight into the difficulties facing women at different stages in their lives.

GAS FOOD LODGING (1992) *** 1/2 Brooke Adams, Ione Skye, Fairuza Balk, Donovan Leitch, Robert Knepper, James Brolin, David Lansbury, Jacob Vargas. Delightful and at times melancholy story of a single mother raising her troubled daughters as a truck stop waitress. Balk is winning as the introverted younger sibling who has a penchant for Spanish melodramas and '70s nostalgia. Directed nicely by Allison Anders, her debut.

I admit I am biased- I have always loved Ms. Adams since "The Dead Zone"...Stephen King at his earliest, and best.

This film is quirky and interesting. It is one of the few actually worth buying on DVD. Not just for the performances, which are excellent, by the way.

The visuals are noteworthy. New Mexico, the Southwest; a visual palette reminiscent of the artist Georgia O'Keefe. Beautiful photography, and a dysfunctional family trying to survive- two young girls living with their disillusioned mother.

This film addresses a niche which is not mainstream, but real...disappointed Americans living and working , trying their best, yet opposed by the realities. This film deserves 10/10- a must see.

Allison Anders motivation in making this film may be obscure, but I'm glad she made it. This, her debut feature, runs like a meandering stream through rivulets of teenage angst and single-mother frustration in small town New Mexico. Maybe its' the Mexico bit that made this movie seem more foreign than traditional action-based, marketing-oriented, formulaic American movies.

I'd heard the term "trailer trash" via Jerry Springer and guests, but this female family of free (alright, forget the alliteration - three) are far from "trash", just down on their luck. The mother, Brooke Adams is a waitress on a low income trying to bring up her girls; the older one, Ione Skye, discovers through a fraternisation with a gallant, geologically quizzical Englishman (for once, not Hugh Grant), that relationships beat one night stands.

Ione's brother, Donovan Leitch, also appears in this film, but it is Fairuza Balk as the younger teenager, who is outstanding. She wants the best for her mother, which she has difficulty in securing, but her film-buff instincts and a predilection for Spanish movies, enable her to find fulfilment for herself.

The movie concludes in a somewhat enigmatic manner without all loose endings tied up. But hey, when in life are any loose endings tied up? Our end, like this film's, leave us wanting more.