Favorite of the Favorites: Chaos in Motion

Welcome back to Meet Me In The Lobby, where the films of July had one thing in common: motion. Cars launched off ramps, skaters carved through the city, a pair of suited men tore across state lines with half the police force behind them, and at one point, I found myself watching a dozen lunatics in a mad dash for a bag of money. These weren’t quiet, contemplative watches. They were all about speed, spectacle, and the absurd ways people collide with each other when the chase is on.

Back to the Future (1985)
Skate Kitchen (2018)
The Blues Brothers (1980)
Rat Race (2001)

It was a month of pure chaos, each film finding its own way to keep me on my toes. Back to the Future is still a blast: a teenager hops into a DeLorean, time-travels back to the ’50s, nearly erases his own birth, and somehow makes rock ’n’ roll happen early. It’s ridiculous, it’s sharp, and it still moves at lightning speed decades later.

Skate Kitchen hit completely differently, an urban hangout film that makes skating culture feel both dangerous and liberating, with the added joy of centering girls who are carving out literal and figurative space in a male-dominated world. It’s gritty and tender at the same time, and it makes ollies in city streets look like acts of rebellion and community all at once.

The Blues Brothers? Still unhinged. Still loud. Still basically a two-hour car chase, with some of the best rhythm and blues performances ever captured on film crammed in between the police pileups. It’s big, it’s dumb, and it’s still glorious.

And then there’s Rat Race.

⚠️ Warning: what follows will sound like absolute mayhem. I promise I’m not hallucinating... I swear! It’s just Rat Race being Rat Race. 

The film begins in Vegas, which makes sense; where else could you launch a story this insane and shameless? John Cleese, in peak chaotic billionaire mode, gathers a group of strangers and tells them there’s a fortune waiting across the country. Cue the race! Cue the carnage!

The Cody brothers are the crown jewel of idiocy here. Two scheming morons who should never be trusted with heavy machinery, let alone aviation equipment, end up in a hot-air balloon with a cow dangling beneath them like some kind of deranged county fair attraction. It’s so spectacularly stupid that you can’t even be mad; honestly, you just can't help but laugh at their comedic commitment.

Meanwhile, Jon Lovitz’s family takes a detour straight into pitch-black comedy. They’re Jewish; and somehow end up stealing Hitler’s car, crashing into a WWII convention, and getting swept into a crowd that could not be less forgiving. Lovitz, covered in soot and panicked improvisation while on stage at the WWII convention, turns the whole fiasco into one of the most tasteless yet hilarious moments in the film.

And then, of course, the Lucy bus. An entire vehicle crammed with Lucille Ball impersonators goes off-course and collides head-on with the racers. It’s surreal, overwhelming, and instantly unforgettable; the kind of gag you can’t believe someone pitched in a writers’ room with a straight face.

The cherry on top? Rowan Atkinson’s narcoleptic character, sprinting toward the finish line, just about to open the briefcase of cash, only to collapse into a dead sleep mid-run. It’s the perfect example of Rat Race’s sense of humor: bad timing dialed up to absurdity, a spectacle wipeout so precise it feels like fate itself is in on the joke.

And here’s the kicker: all this mayhem, all these wipeouts, all these Lucys... it’s all for cash. But when the dust settles, the racers crash straight into a charity fundraiser headlined by Smash Mouth, and the prize money ends up being donated onstage. It’s the stupidest, most brilliant punchline imaginable.

If you don’t believe me, watch it yourself. I swear on John Cleese’s mustache: every single thing I just described actually happens in this movie.

See you next time,
✌ Kelsey Faamausili