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.
After trying to find this film for many years, courtesy of TCM, we finally got to see it. It stars Bill Travers and Ed Begley, as well as Jack Brabham appearing as himself! Based on a book of the same name.
This is a terrific racing film. The central theme is the development of new tires for a Jaguar racing car, then their application on race tracks. The film opens at LeMans, and with the famous running start. The secondary theme is the death of several racers and the lives of the people surrounding them.
Actual historic footage is used. It's fascinating - and it's scary. You'll like this film for it's historical historical footage of LeMans, Silverstone, Sebring, and especially the Mille Miglia. The original Mille Miglia was one of the all-time greatest racing events on the planet, in our humble opinion. Although this film does show why it had to be canceled in it's original form.
This is a very obscure film and is not listed in many film databases. It's very rarely shown, although we did catch it recently on TCM.
There are a couple of minor mistakes in the film: one is this crash of the Spaniard in his Corvette. Note how it changes into something else entirely in the midst of the crash and roll. But, all in all, a good film and a worthwhile addition to your collection - if you can find it.
On our companion site, CarMovies.DrivingEnthusiast.net/, we have reviews and commentary on well over 100 movies where cars are the central theme or the main supporting character. You'll also see our ideas about the top car movies of all time, as well as the worst.
Tools & Links for Media: Car Movies and TV post number # 2675
And you thought our coverage of Fast & Furious had ended? And you were wondering why we never covered the movie Cars? Here, in one fell swoop, is coverage of both:
Tools & Links for Media: Car Movies and TV post number # 2653
Yes, it's Smokey and the Bandit - a terrible film that... somehow actually worked out well. Burt Reynolds and long time pal Jerry Reed were at their peak. Gleason went over the top with a very politically-incorrect performance that finally tires the audience. And of course Sally Fields was a sweetheart. The film was extremely popular, and originally grossed approx. $66M dollars. The total gross has risen since then to over double that. Sequels Smokey and the Bandit 2 and 3 were so unbelievably terrible that we won't mention them here. Just remember the first and the best. Here's the original trailer:
Tools & Links for Media: Car Movies and TV post number # 2646
USA Today reports that the opening weekend of Fast & Furious 4 achieved the biggest spring debut of all time, generating $72.5 million. This is for any film ever made - and it also set a record for the highest opening of the first 4 months of the year.
This was around $30M more than industry analysts had predicted. And it's also more in it's first weekend than Fast & Furious 3 (Tokyo Drift) made during it's entire run.
We stand on what we've said about this not being a car enthusiast's movie. Judging from the print reviews, it opened at about $70M than the reviewers thought it was worth. We contributed our $9.00 to that grand total.
So it's pretty clear that while a decision hasn't yet been made on a Fast & Furious 5, the studio execs and franchise owners will decide to make another one very soon. Lets hope it's a better film than this thing was.
Tools & Links for Media: Car Movies and TV post number # 2624
Note the reference to Vin Diesel's huge ego... he wanted the 4th installment to be just about him. Lets hope he comes to his senses (does he have any?) and stays out of the way during development. He has already pretty much killed off his career with this kind of heavy-handedness - without F&F what does he have left?
We predict that once the studios see the poor returns on #4 that this idea will be shelved.
Reading the above, we'd guess that Vin Diesel will require the director's seat before he'll agree to appear in #5. This reminds us what happened to Star Trek V when William Shatner directed and then proceeded to make the worst Star Trek movie ever. Hmmm. I wonder whose ego is bigger - Vin Diesel's or William Shatner's?
In any case, who won't be in it? Michelle Rodriquez! Why did they kill her off?
Tools & Links for Media: Car Movies and TV post number # 2623
Saw it last night at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin TX (and where else would you want to see a film on a Friday night?).
Folks, it’s not a car film. Cars are very much secondary. We're disappointed.
In F&F3, in Tokyo, you had a blending of storyline with cars. Cars were the priority, and the storyline was developed enough to support it. We were in a strange place and a different culture, there were a lot of great cars everywhere, there was underground racing (drifting), there was Keiichi Tsuchiya (granted, only a few of us would recognize him – but what a treat for his fans). There was the subplot about Lucas Black having to decide what to do with his life – but cars would straighten it out and provide the way forward for him.
Now in F&F4, we have the original cast and a large set of cars (the makers of the film claim the largest set of cars ever assembled for a F&F – but that is clearly not true). In the press tour, you had Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriquez, and Jordana Brewster all claiming that this is a car film and that the cars would be the attraction. And yet there were only a handful of cars that stood out in the film. Paul Walker’s blue R-34 stood out. The STI, for which people were flown in from Japan to build, was only used for exterior shots and it ended up being raced on dirt. The cars in the first street race scene were not detailed technically had nothing of interest to people like us with a JDM interest.
And worse, muscle cars were given equal footing to JDM imports. Sure, Vin has his Charger repaired as you’d expect. And his 454 Chevelle (seen in the first film after the credits rolled, as he made his escape into Mexico). Remember that in F&F1, he said those kinds of cars were old school, and he raced an RX-7 and built up a Supra TT. His crew had a GT-R, an Civic, and similar JDM cars. In this film he street races the Chevelle and takes the Charger to the big finale race in Mexico. JDM cars are not for him. Speaking of the Chevelle, it’s back end is jacked up and it looks absurd as he street races it. It can’t handle, and the excuse given in the press tour was that it had the muscle to be equal to the imports. Of course it is pitted against Paul Walker’s R34 GT-R – which should have had the muscle and certainly had the handling but which came out second. Insulting to us all… and also the same lame excuse that muscle car types always give.
The media reviews of the film were universally negative, but one comment stood out. Twice, leaving the line in a race, Vin Diesel stands his car up at a 45 degree angle (which you know isn’t the fastest way to leave the line). One review pointed out the obvious muscle car allegory, that this was in reality an “erection”.
Three other muscle cars are highlighted in the film:
a Mustang with every possible lousy piece of fiberglass attached. Car enthusiasts – whether JDM or muscle, don’t drive crap like that.
the bad guy’s car, a ’72 Gran Torino fastback. Just like Clint Eastwood’s, except it was bright green. Suggestion – remember the scene in “White Lightning” where the agent opened the hood of Burt Reynold’s Galaxy 500 and there was a full NASCAR 429 under there? That established the credentials of the car. This Gran Torino had no credentials whatsoever and none of the other cars did either. That’s a bad thing – car enthusiasts want to see the credentials.
Vin Diesel’s Buick Regal Grand National. The opening scene is the one you’ve seen in the trailers: stealing the fuel tanker. It’s similar to the original film in that a member of his crew has to climb aboard the target – only this time it’s Michelle. Vin uses the Regal to direct the heist, and we find that the car is able to drive backwards at 60-80 MPH. Neat trick in that they choose the body-on-frame Regal because the body could easily be reversed, making a car that had 4 gears to go what is now backwards and only 1 to go forward. That’s wasn’t explained in the movie and of course there is now way to do that in reality.
Let’s talk about how the races were made. In the first film, the races were staged but didn’t rely on CGI for the cars (obviously the signature engine graphics were CGI – and BTW we only see such graphics in this new film twice and the second time is underneath a bus). Nearly the same for the 3rd film – everything you saw could be done (I’m ignoring the terrible 2nd film). Not this film – the ridiculous race thru the tunnel leading under the border from Mexico was all CGI – and worse, it showed.
Speaking of which, that’s the plot. It’s about running drugs into the country from Mexico – and the running is done in ostentatious street racing cars. How do they get over the border? They don’t, they race under the border in a tunnel. So the race thru the tunnel is all staged in CGI. Nobody notices them approaching the border in these cars, nobody notices them leaving the border in these out-of-place cars. Cars that would be lucky to get 100 miles on a thankful. Ridiculous.
Why are they involved in running drugs? Because the drug lord’s enforcer killed Michelle Rodriquez’ character. That’s right, she is dead, and she appears in very little of this film. We can’t imagine why they killed her off… but given her (current? former?) problems with drinking perhaps that’s all they thought they could get out of her. Or perhaps that’s all she wanted to do with Vin Diesel after he dumped her in real life “dating” after F&F1. In any case, there won’t be another F&F with the original cast.
And then there is Jordana Brewster. Yes, she is hot. Unfortunately, despite being an accomplished actress, her part in this film was tiny and very much secondary. She and Paul Walker have one hot love scene – or at least 10 seconds of one as he slams her onto the kitchen counter while her brother is working in the garage on his Charger. She does a good job otherwise, although she appears a bit bored.
Jordana is also present in the last scene, where Vin Diesel is on his way to prison to serve a 25-year to life term. The prison bus is travelling down a highway out in the middle of nowhere. Anybody who can’t predict what happens next didn’t see the 1st film. Paul Walker, Jordana, and Vin’s remaining crew all appear in hot cars (Paul Walker out of place in the mysteriously reappearing Charger – which was previously blown up in the 2nd tunnel chase, and Jordan in a previously unseen NSX) and hover around the bus. Then the scene ends and the credit rolls. Do they free him? Are they just giving him a send off? Is this the opening for another film? We never find out. Do we care?
Justin Lin directed the film, same as F&F3. The direction is good, and the movie moves right along quickly. He gave it a good try, but we see the heavy hand of Vin Diesel here, who was one of the producers of the film and undoubtedly had undue influence on its storyline. There were a bunch of continuity mistakes, such as when Vin Diesel is shot in the shoulder and had bullet holes in his leather jacket and dripping blood. The holes in the jacket disappear in the next shot.
There is also an short appearance by the character Han from F&F3. We aren’t told why he is still alive since he had burned to death street racing in F&F3. Odd… perhaps on the timeline for this film is actually "F&F 2.5"?
Now to get realistic. We didn’t have high expectations going in, and you have to suspend some degree of disbelief going to a F&F movie anyway. As you know, we’ve stuck up for these films in the past because we’ve enjoyed the JDM element in them (and very much disliked the muscle element). We liked F&F1 a lot, followed by F&F3. F&F2 was the low point. But this one is the next worse. We have to doubt there can be a fifth.
Tools & Links for Media: Car Movies and TV post number # 2616
The Chariot was a fully functional vehicle designed and built as a prop for the Lost in Space television show back in the sixties.
You may remember that show: the Robinson family along with heroic pilot Don West are sent on a 5 year mission in deep space to test new technologies. Their mission is sabotaged, and the saboteur is stranded with them. While the writing was terrible, the props were nicely done. The Chariot was one such prop, built to transport the family on planetside trips away from the ship.
While a series of miniatures was also built for certain types of shots, the full size Chariot was fully functional. It made it's first appearance in Episode #1 and was lost for many years after the show was canceled. In more recent years, a fellow by the name of Chris Tietz found it's remains and started a restoration. The status of that is an unknown at this point in time. Has any reader got any new news on this?
The Chariot was based on the chassis of a 1965 Thiokol Snow Cat - everything above the treads was designed and built expressly for the show based on ideas that scientists and engineers had at the time for what would be needed on a Class M planet. And the Chariot was actually functional - it was driven in many episodes. Here's an image of what a Snow Cat looked like:
It'd be interesting to know if the Chariot was ever driven by members of the cast outside the studio lots. You may remember a classic story of The Munsters, where one day the entire cast - in full makeup - decided on their own to take the Munster Koach out for an unauthorized drive around Los Angeles, and attracted all kinds of attention. Can you imagine seeing them go by?
Creative shows like The Munsters and Lost In Space were just two of several shows in the sixties that featured unusual and creative vehicles. A lot of kids grew up on shows like this, along with even earlier ones such as Route 66 (Martin Milner, George Maharis) and Highway Patrol (Broderick Crawford). These shows had a healthy influence on developing early interests in creative fiction, cars, the space program, and electronics.
Lost in Space didn't do well in the ratings. After a very promising and well written pilot episode (very good science fiction), the show was slightly retooled before it went on the air to add the nefarious Dr. Smith and the questionable "Robut". And it was re-targeted at a very juvenile audience. The show was a bust from episode #2 or #3 onwards, but somehow managed to last 3 seasons before it was thankfully and finally killed off. It never attracted the more mature fans that Star Trek did, and it certainly never had the storylines or character development to do so. The 1998 movie of the same name and general plot was ridiculously poorly written and was a financial bust.
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After trying to find this film for many years, courtesy of TCM, we finally got to see it. It stars Bill Travers and Ed Begley, as well as Jack Brabham appearing as himself! Based on a book of the same name. 
Saw it last night at the 
And worse, muscle cars were given equal footing to JDM imports. Sure, Vin has his Charger repaired as you’d expect. And his 454 Chevelle (seen in the first film after the credits rolled, as he made his escape into Mexico). Remember that in F&F1, he said those kinds of cars were old school, and he raced an RX-7 and built up a Supra TT. His crew had a GT-R, an Civic, and similar JDM cars. In this film he street races the Chevelle and takes the Charger to the big finale race in Mexico. JDM cars are not for him. Speaking of the Chevelle, it’s back end is jacked up and it looks absurd as he street races it. It can’t handle, and the excuse given in the press tour was that it had the muscle to be equal to the imports. Of course it is pitted against Paul Walker’s R34 GT-R – which should have had the muscle and certainly had the handling but which came out second. Insulting to us all… and also the same lame excuse that muscle car types always give. 
Why are they involved in running drugs? Because the drug lord’s enforcer killed Michelle Rodriquez’ character. That’s right, she is dead, and she appears in very little of this film. We can’t imagine why they killed her off… but given her (current? former?) problems with drinking perhaps that’s all they thought they could get out of her. Or perhaps that’s all she wanted to do with Vin Diesel after he dumped her in real life “dating” after F&F1. In any case, there won’t be another F&F with the original cast. 
