I had traveled half-way across the country to spend some quality time with my father. We were drinking Tomintoul scotch whiskey in his Colorado cabin. It was snowing outside and we were quiet, watching a movie, entranced. I turned to my dad and shared with him the undeniable truth I had gleaned from the film: "Transporting is the greatest job on earth." He sipped his drink, reflected on his years of wisdom, and nodded: "Yes. Yes it is."

If you're unfamiliar with Luc Besson's Transporter series — or wonder why a father and son would spend a portion of their few, precious hours together watching a movie about a guy and his car — its appeal can be summed up in two words: Jason Statham. The titular star doesn't make transporting look easy, of course. Adhering to a strict moral code while transporting goods for less-than-reputable businessmen is taxing. The guy has to make BMWs perform stunts that would confound a physicist. Cars just don't move like that, and if you're carting around a petite young woman in the trunk, as a transporter often does, you've got to factor in her continued survival as a goal. Plus, the job keeps you so busy — maintaining your pristine black suit and kicking the crap out of nameless thugs — that you don't get much of a chance to enjoy your secret seaside villa. (Incidentally, The Transporter has five named thugs in its credit list — Thugs 1 through 3, Little Thug, and Giant Thug — but Statham seems to brutalize quite a few poor, uncredited thugs, as well.) And getting your work finished in a timely manner is complicated by your nagging sense of honor. Human trafficking? Crap, you can't transport when you know that's going down. A wan model, wearing nothing but an unbuttoned nursing uniform and two uzis, kidnaps the rich toddler you're driving to school? Shit, doesn't look like you're punching out early today. And with all that going on, when does Statham find the time to sculpt his guns?

This is what you think about when you experience Jason Statham movies. You ask the big questions.

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IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963) & RAT RACE (2001)



I can’t say for sure whether I’ve ever watched It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World all the way from beginning to end in one uninterrupted sitting, but I’ve definitely seen every part of the movie numerous times: mostly during lazy Sundays as a kid, when Stanley Kramer’s three-hour, star-studded tale of random strangers racing for treasure played (thanks to endless commercial breaks) like an all-day Laff-Olympics, featuring generations of comedy all-stars ranging from Buster Keaton to Milton Berle, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers, Sid Caesar, Ethel Merman and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo by the 1963 edition of the Three Stooges (with Joe DeRita on drums). More than a few strands of Mad, Mad’s chaotic, uneven DNA wound up in the seminal fluids of the far less epic (and epochal) yet funnier than expected Rat Race, featuring another group of random celebrity strangers (including John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Seth Green, Jon Lovitz, Kathy Najimy, Whoopi Goldberg, Dave Thomas, Amy Smart, Breckin Meyer and Cuba Gooding, Jr.) involved in another episodic race against time for treasure...but this time, with original songs by the Baha Men! (AO)

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