I thought I'd mention the upcoming movie Rush, since it's opening tomorrow and I'm sure the studio will reward me for helping them out with publicity. That is how it works, right?
As a racing fan, I've always been disappointed that there's never been a good auto racing movie. You'd think a sport that's such a visual spectacle would lend itself well to film. There was Grand Prix, which offered great cinematography, but with self-consciously arty directing that was a distraction. And a rather one-dimensional story didn't help.
Days of Thunder was much worse: a talented cast and crew all underachieved, and the special effects were quite disappointing. That is, they were disappointing because they weren't actually special effects: in those pre-CGI days, they had to use actual cars driving around actual tracks. So how did it end up looking fake?
And the less said the better about Driven, the Silvester Stallone vehicle (Hah!) about Indy Cars. I've seen parts of it on TV, but I don't think I could sit through the whole thing. Though I did see the YouTube video someone put together of all its ridiculous crash scenes.
I was kind of surprised on the choice to focus Rush on James Hunt. You have the budget and talent to finally make the good auto racing movie and you chose him as the best guy in the history of motor racing to tell as story about. Of course, I got to know him in the eighties in his second career as a kind of annoying commentator rather than as an exciting and charismatic driver and playboy. Niki Lauda on the other hand was already a legendary multiple-world-champion, rather than just being Hunt's frenemy as Rush seems to play it.
But I'm sure it's a good movie. I should know, the ads have shown us pretty much the entire thing.
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