Chick Flick Road Kill: A Behind the Scenes Odyssey into Movie-Made America (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Portraits on book covers and big screens paint the road as an icon of freedom: endless, unhindered, and devastatingly open..." (more)
Key Phrases: filming locations, North Dakota, Twin Peaks, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 2001, 26-year-old Oakland, Calif., waitress Rebensdorf was "tired of my every image being the refuse from some since-forgotten flick." Hoping to defuse the creeping Hollywood romanticism within and inject some "oomph" into her life, Rebensdorf takes her Suzuki Sidekick ("the Tonka Toy of the automobile industry") across the country to visit the places where her favorite movies and television shows were set and/or filmed. Despite the title, Rebensdorf is almost entirely unconcerned with "chick flicks": her first stop is Brownsville, Ore., where director Rob Reiner shot Stand by Me; after that, she drives north to Washington, where iconic 1990s TV series "Twin Peaks" and "Northern Exposure" were filmed; later, she ventures to Devils Tower in Deadwood, S.Dak., site of the alien landing in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Alternately delighted and disappointed (the Snoqualmie Falls from Twin Peaks' opening credits "just make me miss the soundtrack"), Rebensdorf is always entertaining. Her strongest work takes place in New York City just weeks after Sept. 11, where she writes on the difference between what she saw on motel room TVs and the situation she encounters on the streets. Grounded in Rebesndorf's sharp voice, finely balanced between sincerity and cynicism, the 9/11 chapter provides the melancholy heart of this funny, smart and swift travelogue.
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Product Description

As a child of the 1980s, Alicia Rebensdorf was raised by TV and movies. But when she, like so many of her generation, found herself a bored twentysomething, waitressing and wondering why life wasn't as she imagined it would be, she devised a plan: She'd visit the locations of the shows and movies she grew up with and try to come to terms with her nostalgia for places and scenes that purported a real America.
Chick Flick Road Kill explores Rebensdorf's relationship to popular culture and media mythology. From the streets of Fargo, North Dakota, to the bleachers of the still-intact field from The Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa, Rebensdorf learns that her generation's sense of America is, indeed, as flat as its two-dimensional TV screens.
What's more, she discovers the America behind the Hollywood myth —  one that's far more exciting when freed from the mystique and power of pop culture's romanticism.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press (January 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580051944
• ISBN-13: 978-1580051941
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,553,098 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Love This Book!, April 10, 2007

By	Meghan Kelly (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I couldn't put this book down. It was laugh out loud funny and honest. The beautiful, witty writing lead me on a trip across the county to places I have never been to, but I had seen many times in the familiar movies I grew up with. It made me want to visit the river of Deliverance and a magical spot in Georgia. I could relate to the author's searching, her expectations and her doubt.

5.0 out of 5 stars You don't need wanderlust to love this road trip!, April 9, 2007

By	Marty Olson - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Part of it was that I knew of the places she wrote about, either because I'd been there, or had seen them in the movies, but mainly because it was just such beautiful writing!! I was captivated seeing things through her eyes, the depth of her responses, the honesty. Here are JUST a few of my favorite descriptions:
"Here, like pictures drawn in grade school, land and sky meet in a thin-lipped line. The sky is absolutely all over - I can't look anywhere it's not - yet it feels light as tissue, as if I could poke through it with a finger.

Being in the presence of the Mississippi, so shiny and big and alive, feels like how I imagine it would be to be next to a whale, astounded so much mass can move.

In the sky, homing pigeons do laps, their bodies angling at the same moment, disappearing like a knife turning on its side, then turning back, black and bodied again.

I navigate the road's rare meat, the loose bloody heaps of deer and raccoon, others as stiff and whole as furniture.

The warm air rushes in as if it's about time. The humidity makes me feel lovely and grimy and young.

It's unfair how everything is striking when it's fleeting. Yet all my attempts to thwart this, trying to prolong a moment by stopping to savor a town or a view, tend only to prove it true, the high ache of passing a place collapsing the moment I try to capture it.....So now, as I drive, I try to ride that heartbreak, accepting that the very thing that makes this moment spectacular is that which will make it end."

But this book is more than just mesmerizing metaphors. It's full of self-deprecating wit, personification of cars and other inanimate objects, terrifying situations, and soul searching insights that helped me understand why I both love and hate this country.

Encore!! What's next?! I'll be waiting.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a smart book that reads easily, February 13, 2007

By	C. Pressler "gladwellian maven" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

i just started reading this book and i love it - perfect balance of humor, insight, skepticism and adventure... rebensdorf's candidness and honesty are unique (and severely lacking from so many fluff books out lately). it's so refreshing to hear a gen x woman defy tired trends like chick lit and self-important shallow non-fiction with wit and genuine introspection. not to mention taking the road trip we've all dreamed about. can't wait to see what she does next.