Automotive-Themed Movies & Video.
This site & corresponding blog are for enthusiasts of car movies: movies about cars, or where cars are a central theme.
It's the largest list of car movies on the net: hundreds, each with my own review.
I'll also cover TV shows which have an automotive theme.
Fast and Furious 4 brings back the full original cast: Paul Walker, Vin Diesel (not a lot of offers these days...), Michelle Rodriquez (hopefully dry and well behaved, as well as over getting dumped in real life by Vin after the 1st film was completed), and the luscious Jordana Brewster.
F&F 4 is currently scheduled for release on June 5, 2009 (date and full title subject to change). It's been in production for the past few months and the first trailer has just been released.
While I liked the storyline in Tokyo, this time the story returns to the original characters. It's great to see them all back, and from the trailer
We've seen the stories over the past few months about the STI that was built specifically for the film. It apparently has a leading role.
We're not happy with the presence of muscle cars in the film... the old-school Charger makes a return appearance.
When the last time you saw a Ford RS200 in a film? Any film? Anybody who can identify this car is a serious driving enthusiast!
Jordana Brewster had a secondary role in F&F 1 - she made friends with Paul Walker's character and then ditched him to escape to Mexico with her brother. It looks her character is back together with Paul Walker's again. Her own career has also taken off since the original F&F so we are lucky to have her back. Speculation on the net is that she drives an NSX Type R in the film... the trailer would seem to support that.
It's a real shame that Michelle Rodriquez has had such a tough time with celebrity. Despite a promising debut in Girl Fight, she didn't continue her line of serious acting. She is talented... she is attractive, she does have a good personality on-air. But she has a drinking problem that may be the root of more fundamental issues.
Michelle shows her athletic prowess... and assets.. on the hood of a Buick Grand National during the tanker heist sequence.
Yikes! The racing must have been really exciting to get this kind of reaction from these two spectators!
Stay tuned for another trailer in the Spring of 2009. In the meantime, collect and view the full series (including the original classic F&F):
The always excellent Japan Car Blog reviews the latest episode of Top Gear where Jeremy Clarkson raced a Bullet train across Japan. The Hamster and James May were in the bullet train and their journey also included a shuttle bus, another train, a ferry, and a ____________ (can't say, don't want to spoil the surprise or the great soundtrack that plays during it). Jeremy got the GT-R and a 400-mile route to follow from western Japan thru Tokyo and across the bay to the finish.
Their blog includes low-res segments of the race: http://japancarblog.com/2008/07/top-gear-clarksons-ego-in-gt-r-vs-bullet-train/ (suggest <right click> and <open in new tab>) or the entire episode is available via torrent sites. They also correctly point out that some of Jeremy's comments are culturally offensive. Actually the entire cast makes more than a few gaffes, and they all look tired and glad to get it over with. James May looks particularly worn out, or perhaps he is just tired of Jeremy Clarkson. Jeremy's GT-R was fabulous, although his navigation system was entirely in Japanese - which causes some issues when he accidentally turns it off and immediately gets lost.
There is some controversy... both teams end up at the finish only 3 minutes apart. Many forums and some news articles suggest the "race" wasn't actually one. Decide for yourself, but despite the obvious choreography this is certainly the best segment this year.
The scenery along the route is beautiful, the shrine where the race ends is going on my list of places to visit, and there are enough details shown that the trip could be duplicated.
The episode was particularly meaningful to us because we want to take a similar drive across Japan and have been looking over navigation options. Ideally, we need a Microsoft Streets & Trips of Japan, in English. Unfortunately, there is no such thing since the Japanese have apparently all moved to phone-based GPS years ago. While we certainly won't be able to get a GT-R rental car, we will need a rental car with a navigation system. We'll need to figure out the sequence of buttons that bring up an overhead map, which we will have to follow along the best we can without any ability to actually read Japanese. This may not be as tough as it sounds... we'll supplement it with paper maps that we can mark up ahead of time and the nav system will at least keep us going in the right direction.
Why not a tour bus? Because the greatest feudal castles, shrines, and other historical sites across Japan can't all be reached by subway or bus, or even by tour companies. And the automotive places we'd want to visit such as Twin Ring Motegi and the Honda museum can't be reached by train without spending an inordinate amount of money on taxis at the other end. And our planned trip to the largest AutoBacs dealer, while it can be reached by subway, would be impractical considering the amount of "souvenirs" we're planning to cart out of there.
Plagiarize - it's an ugly word. It means that you don't have an original idea and blatantly copy one from somebody else. It is, unfortunately, a situation that has occurred before on Top Gear.
Top Gear started a new season in Europe last month and enthusiasts everywhere are working hard to see the broadcasts... by whatever means they have at their disposal. We don't want to know about illegally pirated copies and torrent downloads - perhaps if they'd skip the silly idea of attempting to recreate Top Gear for Americans and just send us the originals...????.
Season 11, Episode 1 has a typical/Clarksonian stunt involving the cast building their own police cars (at a cost of no more than 900 pounds) and equipping them (500 pounds). So few quid doesn't yield much in the way of valuable police equipment... and of course the guys aren't trained in legitimate police tactics. So of course improvisation is the order of the day. That's where Clarkson makes his mistake... blazingly stealing from the most famous movie scenes ever filmed: Willliam Wyler's fabulous chariot race in the 1959 Ben Hur.
You may remember that the character Messala (Stephen Boyd) hated Ben Hur (Charlton Heston). In a chariot race, Messala ups the stakes (no pun intended) by mounting sharpened spikes on the axle of his chariot.
As needed, Messala would bring his chariot next to an opponent...
Cutting the wheels apart.. what catastrophic results. At this point I'll stop because what eventually happened to Messala is exactly what he deserved, but too terrible to show in a family blog like this.
Getting back to Top Gear... after 10 seasons of mayhem, ideas have apparently run out. Introducing what Clarkson calls the "Bodecea Spike". Check your history books for references to Bodecea - she was one of the most famous and heroic Brits ever. But we happen to know that such a spike was in use even earlier in time, in the much earlier days of the Roman Empire.
Mounted on the rear wheels of Clarkson's police car, he attempts to catch the Stig, playing an escaping bad guy...
Ready to bring the Stig to an abrupt halt...?
Rammed into the side of the Stigs car.
The results? Here's the entire scene:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Now lets go back and watch the original Ben Hur chariot race (caution: bloody ending!). The production standards here, are, ahem, entirely different than those of Top Gear!
Well... some folks thought this might be a great summer movie for car enthusiasts... unfortunately, it's not a great movie for anybody.
On the car front, a handful of nice cars and one that appear to have been pulled from the staff parking lot are used throughout the film. From the trailers you might think the red Viper is the automotive star of the film... and you'd be wrong.
After an impossibly silly stunt early in the film the Viper isn't seen again. Indeed - and very oddly - in the very next scene an old C4 Corvette is substituted - totally out of style with the Jolie character. Perhaps the budget ran out and only allowed for one Viper stunt car - and indeed some people believe that the C4 was digitally inserted over the Viper. Worse, when the Jolie character is shown shifting, it's a clearly a Viper shifter being moved. And that's the end of even the slightest interest for car enthusiasts.
And speaking of being moved, several Viper Club members had reserved seating in the theater. There they were, all but one with t-shirts featuring the big grinning worm, and the other with a shirt featuring racetracks the wearer had clearly never seen. After some glee from the appearance of the Viper very early on, they sat in glum silence for the rest of the overly-long nearly 2-hour movie.
Angelina Jolie gives an oddly wooden characterization, and even tosses in one naked butt shot. Does the UN Goodwill Ambassador need to do that?
James McAvoy as the reluctant hero does better, but his writers spend a huge chunk of the film explaining what a sad loser his character is: his best friend is bonking his live-in girlfriend and his boss looks like a refugee from the movie Hairspray (could that be John Travolta underneath?). And then there is Morgan Freeman, for some reason given an acting credit when he can't act at all. He delivers his lines with the same lack of enthusiasm as he has done since before the gadawful Million Dollar Baby. I'm sure he could have tried a bit harder for his multi-million dollar fee. Freeman can do better than this... although he hasn't for a very long time.
If there was a saving grace for this film, it was the theater we choose to see it at. Those of you readers in Austin or Houston TX are very familiar with the terrific Alamo Drafthouse chain - a locally-owned set of theaters that also serve food and drinks. The Alamo makes any stinker of a film (except No Country For Old Men) a good time - as does a nice date.
Since I've already shown the trailer for Wanted in an earlier post, I'll instead show an important safety instructional video from the Alamo Drafthouse itself. That says everything that needs to be said about the Alamo!
Both Paul Walker and Vin Diesel reprise their roles from the 1st Fast & Furious for this 4th installment of the series (not counting the 1955 original - how many readers have seen that?). The series has earned over $600 million worldwide so far.
Set your calenders for June 5th, 2009!
About his quick cameo in Fast & Furious 3 (Tokyo Drift), Diesel recently explained his interest in a full return: "I saw how people related to the characters' stories as much as the cars and action." You may also remember that the DVD of the 1st film added an after-credit scene of him driving a muscle car while hiding in Mexico... perhaps an indication way back then that the originators of the series had a return in mind for his character.
Readers will find several pictures on the net taken during the shooting of the film over the past several months. The following three were officially released by the studio this month.
Rumor has it that Michelle Rodriquez will reprise her role as Letty in the new film as well, although apparently she is killed off early in the film. Could that have been because of her recent jail sentence, and reputed unreliability? Or was it because she had an affair with Diesel during the making of the 1st film and was summarily discarded by him afterwards?
Lets hope that Jordana Brewster also returns - for the entire film. Her date with Paul Walker's character in the film at the Cuban restaurant was memorable, although at the end of the film she unfortunately choose to leave with her brother instead of facing prison.
OK, I admit it: there's some dumb stuff in these films (especially #2), but as a whole I like 'em because they're lots of fun. I saw the first one 3 times when it came out, twice with car clubs, and saw #3 twice (the ending with the cameo by Vin Diesel was great, and the cameo by Keiichi Tsuchiya was even better - but how many people know who he is, or his history?), and of course all of these films are a part of my movie library. Anything about Americans in Tokyo interests me - I want to work there professionally for a year someday. I've also been to Universal City in Los Angeles to see some of the F&F cars on display. Several were also shown at last November's Los Angeles Auto Show.
Memorable moments in the franchise:
the Lightning pickup full of parts for the Supra build-up in #1 - something that no enthusiast could resist. There's nothing more I'd like to do than order an enormous load of parts for a Supra TT and start a serious build up (although the orange paint and graphics wouldn't be a part of it for me).
the appearance of the black S2000 in #1... although it was unused.
The race party in the desert. Who wouldn't want to attend that?
Driving a GT-R around town!
Deplorable/silly moments:
reprogramming your engine while in the middle of a race... with a laptop hidden under your passenger's seat.
silly children in bright colored cars in #2... especially the embarrassing pink S2000.
All the racing scenes in #2 - clearly the writing had to change if the series was going to continue.
Speaking of #2, it was obviously the low point in the series. I didn't have high expectations for #3, but it turned out to be a fun film and well done. Generally, I don't like drifting, but I do intend to someday drive some of the mountain roads in Japan where drifting started.
But lets get back to #4: the first image probably reveals a significant moment in the plot, suggesting truck hijacking is again part of the film.
The next two are undoubtedly Dominic Toretto's return to his many street admirers, and his reunion with Paul Walker's character.
After an impossibly silly stunt early in the film the Viper isn't seen again. Indeed - and very oddly - in the very next scene an old C4 Corvette is substituted - totally out of style with the Jolie character. Perhaps the budget ran out and only allowed for one Viper stunt car - and indeed some people believe that the C4 was digitally inserted over the Viper. Worse, when the Jolie character is shown shifting, it's a clearly a Viper shifter being moved. And that's the end of even the slightest interest for car enthusiasts.
