Synopsis - PITSTOP

A waitress. A murderer. A trucker. A cop. A philandering teacher. A runaway student. A wronged wife. A suicidal Buddhist. A refugee poet. When these nine travelers cross random paths in a godforsaken gas-food-and-lodging stop along a California interstate, their lives transform over the course of a day. Relationships dissolve, and begin anew with strangers. Tacky dreams are lost and found. Good taste and sense head south. Twenty four hours pass; all move on.

Beneath a deceptive B-movie surface, PITSTOP is about connection and loss, longing and lies, and the greed for instant gratification that permeates American culture. At its center is a doppelganger story with fatal consequences, a case of mistaken identity between teacher and killer, one running from the law, the other running from his suburban life, with both roles played to camp perfection by actor Time Winters. In this dark comedy, everyone eats in the local greasy spoon, and there consume their karmic desserts.

This is a debut narrative feature for filmmaker Dennis Lanson, who made documentaries in the early 80's about place, work and culture.

Directors Notes - from a screening at Boston's MFA

I used to drive up Highway Five, the quick route between LA and San Francisco, and marvel at how much of nothing was there. A quintessential American landscape, I thought. Flat open land. Cars like walls. Cardboard road food. Cardboard people, at least on the surface. And beneath that surface? Who could know? Beneath the blandness, serial killers lurked, fantasy blossomed, desire ran wild. Love and betrayal lived under deep deep cover. What if a group of travelers, with different agendas, were thrown together briefly in the same random spot? What if two of them had the same (random) face? Filmmakers I admire and grew up with include Bunuel and Godard, and the road films of Wim Wenders, and mostly forgotten little numbers like Two Lane Blacktop. Out on the road, anything can happen, there's always the possibility of breaking free, of instan t change. Or, of course, disaster.

In documentary work, I've looked at the culture with a view to understanding my own place in it - as consumer and commodity, perpetrator and victim. I've looked at McDonald's hamburgers, at Vietnamese refugees, at uranium miners in Wyoming. Pitstop is an extension of this journey.

CHARACTER BREAKDOWNS

Floyd Bach
An escaped con and accused murderer looking for love in all the wrong places. An innocent man who gets lucky after a lifetime of bad breaks.

Dick Rulvac
Floyd’s spitting image, a high school history teacher, married with children, running hard from mid-life with a sexy student. Headed for Brazil or oblivion, whichever comes first. He does time for the other man’s crime.

Julie Rohr
She’s beautiful, a bombshell, and only seems brainless. There’s heart behind this honey, she’s just young. Big error in judgment: actually loving the horny prof who’s whisking her away. If only he’d love her back.

Amanda Mann
Worn-out, hard-edged bored waitress, wiping up a lifetime’s worth of spilled road food from the same counter in the same squalid town where she grew up. Going nowhere and knows it. Wants to settle, with a "decent" man.

Rhonda Rulvac
Dick’s pretty, smart and extremely angry wife, in hot pursuit of her husband and his bimbo. One wonders why he let her go. And why she’s hangin’ on.

Grif Morgan
A bullshit-for-brains trucker, equal parts bible-thumper and womanizer, landing in town for his monthly squeeze only to find she wants what he can’t give: commitment.

Danny Fox
A short blunt local cop. Like high school chum Amanda, spent a lifetime in this dump. Hits on her daily. She’s spurned him for years. Partners in the search for a missing perp, they discover they’ve been soulmates all along.

Esther
A suicidal, kinky, and ethereal beauty, lost in a world of her own, whose heart and life are saved in the nick of time by Floyd.

Max
A Balkan poet and wannabe filmmaker enroute to LA, stranded in town until his jalopy is repaired, pursuing/ recording/romancing his dreams (his camcorder always in hand). The Lucky Innocent and Witness of our story, he winds up with The Prize.

NEW See Pitstop on the Web:

To Pitstop streamed in its entirety: http://www.alwaysi.com