Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Prof. Popinjay

This is a classic! An epic tale of two stalwart runners with unshakable integrity! One, a man of Jewish heritage facing persecution from unsympathetic genitals and the other, a role model to Catholic and Protestant children from Ireland! Their respect for each other is palpable and yet they are forced to be rivals! Both deserve victory but inevitably one must lose! Who will it be!?! By the end of this film, I promise, you’ll be so bored you will not care!

It’s ironic. I cannot figure this out. Movies about speed and people with amazing abilities pertaining to speed are always filmed in slow motion! I may not be into sports much. Nevertheless I tend to love sports movies because they’re always about integrity and perseverance! And yet I draw the line at movies about runners because for some reason they are just so BORING! This is coming from a man (myself) born and raised in Eugene, Oregon! Home of Steve Prefontaine, and Bill Bowerman, perfector of the running shoe! Heck! My own mom was best friends with Mac Wilkins’ mother! By rights track and field movies should be my favorite. It just does not translate into cinema.

Ultimately what was the climax of “Chariots of Fire”? Will Eric Liddell run on the sabbath!?! What’s to be done!?! Will he forfeit to maintain his integrity and beliefs!?! SPOILER ALERT! Another runner comes in and switches places with him so that Liddell can run on a different day. OMG the drama! The suspense! My heart… was in my throat. Glad we solved thatZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ wha? There’s still three hours of footage left!?!

Of all the films about running I’ve seen, the only one I’ve liked was a short film called “World Record” from the Animatrix, a series of short films pertaining to the matrix movies. As for “Chariots of Fire” unless you want to see what everything parodies when it goes into slow motion and plays that signature electronic music by Vangelis, just skip this.

I thought I was done but I brought up Vangelis. Their music is interesting and pioneering in the area of early electronic music. It’s not bad. I just don’t know why it was paired with a film that took place in the 1920’s. It might be iconic but heard non-subjectively, it undeniably dates this film to the 80’s whereas a more traditional score might have made the film even more timeless. If only it was interesting.