S4E33.5: Duel

Finally watching this one for myself and gotta say I love how it starts like „POV: you are the wee sporty car“ and already the trucks and buses and so on what pass you are TOWERING above you and very intimidating just in their size

I really think the feminizing angle is super interesting, as this man suddenly becomes a victim of gendered violence- nobody else really believes him or cares, and he is deliberately isolated and singled out

Given the thematic comparisons between the level of predation women vs white men expect day to day, could we say, maybe... Duel is wordplay on Dual? Or is that too dorky?

Just finished watching this movie. Holy shit, what a film. I also want to say, I don't remember if y'all mentioned it on the pod, but the train and truck share a visual bond. The front bumper has friggin railroad ties welded on it!

There is also Jeepers Creepers i would argue truck v car

As a continuation of your study of relationships between the Car and the Truck, have you considered watching the original Mad Max trilogy? (Live shows?)

I feel like Thelma and Louise may fall under the remit of Truck season which does really make me want you to cover it

Sorry I'm kinda late for the truck party but I've seen a Ukrainian movie about a space trucker called U are the universe a little while ago in a festival and it was a pure banger.

I felt like i had seen this film without seeing it then i realised this is where the 'Wheel of Fortune' episode of JoJo's comes from.

Seeing themes in this of car vs pedestrian in that cars will just decide to kill or main you, here the car is made into the smaller "unit" vs the truck as per pedestrian / bike vs car

not only does this kind of gas station metaphorically exist in the southern california desert, I have 100% been to a gas station that was alone in a vast expanse of sand and included 1) zero running water, 2) the largest dog I have seen in my life, 3) concrete? palm trees?, and 4) a bathroom filled with the owner's collection of pet scorpions. Sometimes you desperately have to piss, your only choice turns out to be in front of a live studio audience of giant murder bugs and you just think "I have to learn the name of the person who owns this place, she must be the most interesting person alive."

Banger episode, I finally understand why duel is so sticky in my mind in spite of watching it once like 20 years ago. Also if we're doing truck season I recommend the masterpiece Maximum Overdrive.

Please watch convoy in truck season

I'm weirdly anxious to listen to this one, despite the show covering more fraught/horrific movies. I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm a man who drives a personal vehicle for a living. Also, wife and I did have the first road rage incident in as far back as I can remember earlier this week, with an old white guy driving a big pickup truck. Spirit lifted by the "passing lane ahead? I sure hope it does" Is Deliverance the canoeman's version of this?

I think they should do an episode on Death Race (2008) to further look into the truckman and the carman dynamic.

>is it socialism or barbarism? >it's a nice future sir >Looks inside >barbarism

Something something anxieties get solved by gay sex. Wait?! Is this why we are unable to drive & do math?!

Orville Peck is: The Trucker from The Dual (???)

Ok I have never seen this movie, except I have. This HAS to be what that one episode of Dexter's Laboratory was based on. Where his dad arm wrestles the trucker. It's like shot for shot in some scenes! I can see the episode play by as yall describe this movie lmao

"Is a Space Shuttle a truck?" (sadly) It was supposed to be

I am surprised they didn't mention Dennis Weaver, the star of this movie. He was in the early TV Version of Gunsmoke, but they let him go because he was upstaging James Arness as the show's hero. Weaver had more charisma, and his character was more interesting. In 1970, he got a Cop show that was "What if Gunsmoke, but in the modern world?" So he played a New Mexico Marshal who comes to New York and works with the NYPD. It was during a break from this that he filmed Duel. Probably a nice break to play a "Normal Guy." Also, A Plymouth Valiant was in no way a midlife crisis performance car. It was a generic 4-door sedan. It's been since the late 1970s and early 1980s since I've seen Duel (as a late night tv movie.) I didn't recall they'd placed Chekov's radiator hoses in there. It was completely believable and credible to me that if you drove a Plymouth Valiant hard and then tried to climb a hill, it would overheat, no other explanation necessary. I am sure Victoria could tell you far more than I. Stock footage from this movie was reused in a retelling of the plot in "The Incredible Hulk" instead of tricking the truck driver - the Hulk beats up the truck in the end.

Gonna get FTL back for Armageddon?

this reminds me one time i was the trucker, i played tag with the only other driver on the road in the dark of rural nc, given i was a not particularly threatening teenager but in the cars, no one can tell me

Recommending Devon unlocks this whenever everyone wants a break cause this is a banger

I have a relative who worked on a low budget horror movie called "The Truck" but it was about a possessed *pickup* truck so not quite the same ballpark

Y'all could investigate the space that is created when the Carsmen and Trucksmen lay aside their eternal feud and instance form a loving bond. I am of course talking about watching Smokey and the Bandit.

Scrolling through this comment section and noticing I'm not the only weirdo asking for Convoy anymore Proletarian, multiracial, anticop/military, treats sex workers like people

Ep suggestion for the CarMan v. TruckMan internecine warfare series: The Hitcher (1986). Imagine the Duel truck could be a man and that man were Rutger fucking Hauer endlessly tormenting C. Thomas Howell with psycho-sexual glee across the usian southwest. And he does, of course, enlist multiple trucks to his cause. It's got everything! Cruelty as masculinity, knife play, violence in place of sexuality, a small graveyard's worth of cops getting defunded to a permanent end. The performances from Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rutger Hauer, and C. Thomas Howell are great, the unsettlingly long, very well filmed establishing and atmospheric scenes don't shy away from taking the time they need, every single shot belongs there, and on and on.

Apparently Spielberg was way more invested in the look of the truck than the car; all he wanted was the car to be red, not to indicate sportiness but to stand out against the desert background and to resemble a "bleeding animal." Meanwhile, the truck has details like a bunch of license plates on the front bumper (trophies from previous kills) and gets a little grimier with every scene.

"The truck that comes for you and turns you into a woman" - new pitch for an A24 arthouse horror.

I like the idea that the truckdriver has literally fused with the truck in some horrible 40k Servitor sort of way. He is the Truck and the Truck is Him.

Ngl, I kind of hate this "city slicker" stereotyping of country people as horrible evil rednecks. There's something deeply classist about it in a way that boarders on racist if they weren't also white. Like, these are just poor people who live in the country. And it's even more insulting when it's coming from the cultural reproducer of American bourgeois ideal that is Hollywood. Especially when it's Horror, THE genre of dehumanization and othering.

I kinda want you to do one of those Dekatora movies. just imagine what if you turned a truck into a 70's Casino, that's the culture.

"... and it just becomes yaoi" EDIT: Chuck and Sneed swapped businesses?

Happy 5th birthday gang! Also, since you're doing Armageddon in a couple of weeks, please, please, pleeease try and get some drops from the dvd commentary. It's basically 2 hours of Ben Affleck going, "yeah, I told Michael Bay this script didn't make any sense and he told me to shut tf up"

Some Truck recommendations as well, "Space Truckers" a literal movie about Space Truckers from the 1990s and the ultimate truck movie- MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, the one and only movie directed by Stephen King (while coked off his ass) and based on his short story TRUCKS about trucks that come to life and kill people.

A sociological thought re: the hats. All the working men in the diner wear hats. But note this is *just* before the plague of adults wearing baseball hats began. A glimpse of a forgotten world.

I'm having a fucking great time listening to this ep, I'm under the covers, I've got my sketchbook, I gotta lil non acholic drink, and I'm listening to 3 awesome ppl get truck pilled, I love this!

I hope all this trucking and carman stuff culminates in Mad Max live shows because i would kill to see those outfits

Carman propaganda.

As someone being stalked by a particularly persistent Tesla CyberTruck out here in the middle of nowhere, Barstow, California? Thank you for the solidarity, friends! (I'm fine, don't worry. It's a CyberTruck, he hit a tiny puddle and exploded.)

If you’re looking for something to extend Truck Season (tm), I’d adore a KJB analysis of Smokey & The Bandit

Absolutely need to watch the Sam Peckinpah directed 1978 classic Convoy as the finale of Truck season. As a proud Trucksman myself Convoy got me wanting to be a Truck driver. The movie has a lot to say about Racism in rural America, Unions, police, Federal oversight and most of all The nature of Man and Truck. Also Kris Kristofferson is a fucking good dude. HIGHLY SUGGESTED. Also Smokey and the Bandit for Truck shenanigans and Jerry Reed. If you need more information on Truck culture feel free to ask me.

Buddy of mine drives a hazmat tanker truck. He told me he doesn't wear a seat belt because if he's in a bad enough wreck to where he would need a seat belt, it probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

i actually really appreciate the transformers movies

The truck, bus and train are united as those that are driven in service to others against the car that drives for itself only

I want you to look at the 1984 movie 'Tank'. There are a lot of 'guy drives vehicle in manly way for noble goal' movies of that era, and Tank is among them. It features an army man driving a stolen Sherman tank to save his son from corrupt southern cops. Of particular note is in the end where the cops use a good ol' boy with a Panzershrek to try and take it down. There was a deliberate choice to give cops an implicitly fascist weapon to kill the Sherman, symbol of American triumph in WW2.

Listening to this in a dump truck right now, you humble carmen better watch out.

This movie sounds like the 'defeated male leaves' meme but it's a white collar guy instead of a lion

I grew up trucking with dad. As a seven year old kid, I would go under the trailer and pull out a pin so he could move the rear axle of the trailer. For this reason I am biased in favor of the trucker, especially since cars seem to do everything possible to be killed by trucks.

Pedantry alarm: wheedle means to cajole by flattery

Mad Max Fury Road would make sense as the culmination of truck season, it being the best and most truck movie, but I think the Mad Max movies as a series almost deserve their own season

just want to say that while watching before listening, i thought “nova’s gonna say this is about dave experiencing what it’s like to be a woman” in the cafe scene and yes indeed she just said it. thank you november, you have trained me well

1971 is also the year Straw Dogs came out. I haven't seen it since I was an impressionable teenager, so can't say if there's a truck in it... but it's got plenty to say about masculinity.

If we're going truck season you've gotta do Convoy, the most prolitarian cop hating truck movie ever made. The theme song kinda slaps while explaining the movie to you: https://youtu.be/Sd5ZLJWQmss?si=J4H2kGX4BSAxUxjJ

I regret to inform you that many, if not most, truckers are petit bourgeois. And let us not forget the side the teamsters took in Chile, nor the trucker convoy

I never realized that the ZZ/Chariot fight in JJBA: Startdust Crusaders was partially based on Duel til now, neat!

Another film that hits the same beats of "being pursued for unknown reasons with a potentially sexual reading is The Hitcher, starring Rutger Hauer. I think these two are definitely in conversation with each other, and I'd love to potentially see what you make of it someday.

I saw this in a theatre a few years back and I loved every second. Can't wait to listen

I haven't seen this film in 30 years.. absolutely going to re-watch this ASAP. Awesome episode.

The death of the truck here reminded me of The Last Run, a true Car Movie.

Alright, next bonus episode for Truck Season has to be Smokey and The Bandit

You should put The Fablemans on the list sometime, because it really unlocked Spielberg's films for me. A fascinating insight into the neurosis and hangups of one of America's most popular filmmakers

As a trans trucker Listening to KJB this has been a dream come true today

this episode was very good! really felt like i was watching the movie. I kinda wish i had...

This is Maximum Overdrive erasure

Holding out for you to watch Smokey and the Bandit. It's got everything! Trucks, corrupt cops (but I repeat myself), insane 70s fits, Burt Reynolds and a theme song that won't leave my head no matter how much I beg it to.

Duel definitely sounds like Kink.

Watch Convoy next!

Im very much enjoy trucker season! i hope for convoy or big trouble in little china someday

Did Dexter's Lab or Cow & Chicken parody this one? I'm having some vague recollections of seeing a cartoon from my childhood reference some of the visuals that are being described.

Deeply enjoying Truck Season, somewhat amazed at how many Truck Films there actually are. One assumes a Transformers is totally out of the question? They‘ve an awful lot to say about masculinity… 👀

Hell. Yes.