Death Race 2000 (1975)—30th Anniversary Edition V-Day: Part 1. 12:01 AM Frank hates Delta Airlines. Fucking hates them. He’s tried to fly them several times and has never really gotten anywhere he wanted to go. He now sits at his laptop attempting to dial-up the Internet in an Atlanta, Georgia Comfort Inn hotel room. He is not supposed to be in an Atlanta hotel room. He is supposed to be in Panama City, Florida for a very important business meeting. So he celebrates Valentines Day, now officially after midnight on February 14th by listening to “Till Tomorrow” (McLean 1971): a pretty, sad (or pretty sad?) song, though Frank would like to change the music from the few MP3’s he has downloaded to his laptop. He’d also like to change his clothes. But his CD’s and his clothes her both in the canvas knapsack. And Delta Airlines had lost his luggage. Frank hates Delta Airlines. Fucking hates them. Delta had kept his 5 PM flight on the ground for three hours in Detroit, Michigan. At 8:10 Frank had asked to be re-routed. He would never make his 8:30 connection in Atlanta. The answer from the skybitch, errr, “Ramp Agent”: Frank cannot be re-routed until he has “officially” missed his connection at 8:30. The flight to Atlanta is leaving at 8:15. She gives Frank 2 options and asks him to “guess what he should do.” He can: A. Demand a re-route, in which case, it not being officially 8:30 yet, he will forfeit his entire ticket and have to buy a new one. Or, B. he can get on his proper, though delayed flight, and hope a hole opens up in the space/time continuum which allows his plane to make it Atlanta in 10 minutes—leaving him another 5 minutes to find his next gate. Unless of course a second wormhole opens up on Concourse C (one, much, much faster, then those moving sidewalks) which allows him to... So, Frank took two Valium and boards his plane to Atlanta, where he was given a 10 oz Dasani for his trouble, and flew to a connection which was not there. Surprisingly, he is told by the Customer Service manager who greets the angry passengers, his baggage should have made the connecting flight and be en route to Panama City ahead of Frank. He is also told that if he gets in a line the next available customer service rep available will re-route him and offer him some help with accommodations for the night. This is not the case. Frank hates Delta Airlines. Fucking hates them. Delta has no other flights til midmorning the next day. (Frank will miss his meeting; his boss will hate that). Delta considers weather, being the cause of the flight delay, to be an “Act of God.” Delta does not offer hotel rebates when planes are delayed by God. (Frank will now be paying for rooms in Panama City and Atlanta; his boss will hate that, too.) Frank hates God. Fucking hates him. Outside the airport, Frank flagged a taxi and got in. The driver informs him that taxis do not go to hotels. Frank went to the bus ticket window. Guess what? Buses don’t go to hotels either. Frank grabbed a 40 oz. Icehouse and waited for an airline shuttle that sounded cheap. The Comfort Inn was like a winner, and with no baggage to hand the eastern European driver with the funny William Powell mustache (The Thin Man; Van Dyke: 1934), Frank hopped right in. He nestled in the back with his Icehouse sloshing sleepily amongst the valium, and, as the shuttle driver wings perilously thru beltway traffic, Frank imagined him to be David Carradine as Frankenstein, in Death Race 2000 (Bartel 1975), a Roger Corman production currently available in a special 30th anniversary edition by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. In this film of the not too distant future, road rage is a national sport where race drivers earn points for running over pedestrians. Of course, this is a fantasy. In our civilized 2006, an athlete would never get away with harming another human being. And also, of course, commentary on America’s love of the barbaric in the media is not hard to come by (and often particularly overblown by Oliver Stone [cf. Natural Born Killers 1994]). But this movie is also a dark commentary of the road movies of the 1960s and 1970s (cf. It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Kramer 1963)—not that Corman’s satire was too effective; after all, Burt Reynolds went on shortly after on make a career out of such movies (cf. Cannonball Run, Needham 1981). But, fuck all. It's just a fun, though sick, film. If you don't take the death in Death Race seriously, that is. Obviously, for many, it is hard to. You know who you are; please do not watch this 'light' film. But right then, Frank just dozed and imagined his hotel shuttle, piloted by a gentle Carradine, taking out evil Delta employees, as they leave their cushy jobs, another day of bilking customers finished. They are crossing streets, absorbed in fighting over Frank’s pressed shirts and CDs unaware that whoosh! Here comes old Frankenstein ‘round the bend and— Frank’s shuttle is taken down by six cop cars. Frank hates cops. Fucking hates them. But, They make it to the Comfort Inn before they are stopped and the driver is hauled out and cuffed and Frank is interrogated. The shuttle drivers are running some scam of charging lost airline passengers for the supposedly free service. Frank is able to forgo his $5 tip when the officers frown on his sticking it in the drivers cuffed hands. He gets a room for a few hours, attempting to dial up the internet…