Human Highway
| Human Highway | |
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VHS cover
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| Directed by | |
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| Music by |
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| Cinematography | David Myers |
| Edited by | James Beshears |
| Distributed by | WEA |
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Release date
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Running time
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88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Human Highway is a 1982 American comedy film starring and co-directed by Neil Young under his pseudonym Bernard Shakey. co-directed the film and acted along with Russ Tamblyn, Dennis Hopper, and the band Devo. Included is a collaborative performance of "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" by Devo and Young with Booji Boy singing lead vocals and Young playing lead guitar.
The film was shown in only select theaters and was not released on VHS until 1995. It received poor reviews upon its premiere but has received favorable reviews more recently.
Employees and customers spend time at a small gas station-diner in a fictional town next to a nuclear power plant unaware it is the last day on Earth. Young Otto () has received ownership of the failing business by the Will of his recently deceased father. His employee, Lionel Switch (Neil Young), is the garage's goofy and bumbling auto mechanic who dreams of being a rock star. "I can do it!" Lionel often exclaims. After some modest character development and a collage-like dream sequence there is a tongue-in-cheek choreographed musical finale while nuclear war begins.
At the destroyed gas station-diner post nuclear holocaust Booji Boy (Mark Mothersbaugh) is a lone survivor, but after his cynical prose the opening credits are a return to present time prior to apocalypse. [Some edits of the film place this scene at the end, including the most recent Director's Cut.]
At the nuclear power plant nuclear garbage persons (members of Devo) reveal that radioactive waste is routinely mishandled and dumped at the nearby town of Linear Valley. They sing a remake of "Worried Man Blues" while loading waste barrels on an old truck. Meanwhile, Lionel and his buddy Fred Kelly (Russ Tamblyn) ride bicycles to work. Fred states that Old Otto's recent death was by radiation poisoning. They remain unaware of the implications as Lionel laments it should have been himself that died because he has worked on "almost every radiator in every car in town."
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Wikipedia