Your Favorite "Racing" Related Film

[AndreaModa]

An interesting post I just spotted on Twitter, here's a few shots of 'Rush' the film currently being made about Hunt and Lauda in '76.

Looking pretty sweet I must say!

[tommykl]

An interesting post I just spotted on Twitter, here's a few shots of 'Rush' the film currently being made about Hunt and Lauda in '76.

Looking pretty sweet I must say!

I like what I see...

All that's missing is Daniel Brühl with third-degree burns on his face and a missing ear

[Sunshine_Baby_[IT]]

We occasionally have movie reviews on this site. So I was curious to know what particular race car related film we like. For me it would be "The Love Bug". Most of the Herbie films are good to watch, but I always like the first one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kgJYMDgDFk

I've watched the first one last week and the second one last night. I love that movies too.

[pasta_maldonado]

My favourite racing film is "Driven"




Just joking, it's shite

[Stramala]

Initial D. Movie based loosely on the identically named manga/anime series. It's a proper drift movie, not like F&F:Tokyo Drift.

[Sunshine_Baby_[IT]]

My favourite racing film is "Driven"




Just joking, it's shite

I've not still watched it. Is it really so horrible?
I found it on youtube (someone posted it, but in Spanish), maybe one day I'll watch it.

[Klon]

I've not still watched it. Is it really so horrible?

Depends on your approach - if you want a serious racing film, yes it is. If you only want a mind-numbing action film ... WITH CARS ... then you should be fine. If I turn my serious brain off, I kind of like it - although that holds true for music made by Jacques Villeneuve and David Hasselhoff, so you shouldn't just take my word for it.

[WaffleCat]

Should I be slightly embarrassed that the only racing movie I watched before 2012 was Cars?

Thankfully I was able to watch Senna this year,so all is well

[pasta_maldonado]

although that holds true for music made by Jacques Villeneuve

Jacques Villeneuve didn't make music. He just arranged a loose selection of sounds.

[tommykl]

So far, Le Mans. I recently bought Senna and Grand Prix on DVD and I'm planning on watching both during the holidays, so that should change soon.

[Sunshine_Baby_[IT]]

I've not still watched it. Is it really so horrible?

Depends on your approach - if you want a serious racing film, yes it is. If you only want a mind-numbing action film ... WITH CARS ... then you should be fine.

I understand.

[DOSBoot]

I've not still watched it. Is it really so horrible?

Depends on your approach - if you want a serious racing film, yes it is. If you only want a mind-numbing action film ... WITH CARS ... then you should be fine.

I understand.

Pretty much explains it. As long as you don't take it too seriously, then it's not as bad as a lot of people say it is. It's not a great movie, but it's nowhere near Stallone's worst film. I have it on DVD, so I thought it was good enough. But for the casual viewer, I would go the "watch before you buy" approach just to be safe.

[Sunshine_Baby_[IT]]

Pretty much explains it. As long as you don't take it too seriously, then it's not as bad as a lot of people say it is. It's not a great movie, but it's nowhere near Stallone's worst film. I have it on DVD, so I thought it was good enough. But for the casual viewer, I would go the "watch before you buy" approach just to be safe.

As I said, I found it on youtube. It's in Spanish, and I know just a little the language... but anyway I will try to watch it there!

[eurobrun]

My favourite racing film is "Driven"




Just joking, it's shite

I have a DVD of Driven, but I have never watched it though.

[JeremyMcClean]

My favourite racing film is "Driven"




Just joking, it's shite

I have a DVD of Driven, but I have never watched it though.

I saw a used copy of Driven recently. I ran screaming in the opposite direction.

[DOSBoot]

My favourite racing film is "Driven"




Just joking, it's shite

I have a DVD of Driven, but I have never watched it though.

I saw a used copy of Driven recently. I ran screaming in the opposite direction.

I got hair on my chest. So I don't feel guilty owning one. I was able to get a used copy for $2.50 at a flea market. Which is probably what the film is worth.

[Stramala]

I got hair on my chest. So I don't feel guilty owning one. I was able to get a used copy for $2.50 at a flea market. Which is probably what the film is worth.

I watched it for free on the internet (just to see what all the fuss was about)

What I can say without doubt is, there are porn movies with a stronger plot development than Driven. And better acting too.

[Nuppiz]

I got hair on my chest. So I don't feel guilty owning one. I was able to get a used copy for $2.50 at a flea market. Which is probably what the film is worth.

I watched it for free on the internet (just to see what all the fuss was about)

What I can say without doubt is, there are porn movies with a stronger plot development than Driven. And better acting too.

I watched it on telly a few years ago. And I must say that I was ashamed that one of our very few internationally recognized movie directors (Renny Harlin) was involved in that pile of manure.

[Pointrox]

I've seen it a long time ago. So long, that I totally forgot how these bashed crash scenes looked like. Until I came across this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwqQlrb4XIE
Bloody hell - it's worse than I thought.
Gives a few good laughs though

[pasta_maldonado]

I've seen it a long time ago. So long, that I totally forgot how these bashed crash scenes looked like. Until I came across this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwqQlrb4XIE
Good grief, it's so crass I can't even start to describe it. Gives a few good laughs though

The unrealisticness of them makes me laugh. in the first crash in the video, the car spins into a tyre barrier in front of a wall, then goes through a completely different wall And if some of the crashes actually happened, there would be fatalities. And how does a racing car end up in a lake? What amazes me is someone must have thought 'Wow! hat looks good!

[Stramala]

And how does a racing car end up in a lake?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmO2aM_1S4Q

[BlindCaveSalamander]

I've seen it a long time ago. So long, that I totally forgot how these bashed crash scenes looked like. Until I came across this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwqQlrb4XIE
Good grief, it's so crass I can't even start to describe it. Gives a few good laughs though

The unrealisticness of them makes me laugh. in the first crash in the video, the car spins into a tyre barrier in front of a wall, then goes through a completely different wall And if some of the crashes actually happened, there would be fatalities. And how does a racing car end up in a lake? What amazes me is someone must have thought 'Wow! hat looks good!

Worst of it all was how the one car pitched up into the air, careened through in slow motion, while the other cars breezed past underneath, not in slow motion. How the bathplug did that get past editing?

[dr-baker]

I've seen it a long time ago. So long, that I totally forgot how these bashed crash scenes looked like. Until I came across this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwqQlrb4XIE
Good grief, it's so crass I can't even start to describe it. Gives a few good laughs though

The unrealisticness of them makes me laugh. in the first crash in the video, the car spins into a tyre barrier in front of a wall, then goes through a completely different wall And if some of the crashes actually happened, there would be fatalities. And how does a racing car end up in a lake? What amazes me is someone must have thought 'Wow! hat looks good!

Worst of it all was how the one car pitched up into the air, careened through in slow motion, while the other cars breezed past underneath, not in slow motion. How the bathplug did that get past editing?

I know, totally unbelievable. In TT: Closer To The Edge, Guy Martin said, "I hate it when people use the word unbelieveable. I'll say it when I see a man eat his own head, because that, I think, is unbelieveable." That crash was genuinely unbelievable. The film Michel Vaillant was much more plausible with their lorry ending up in the lake...

[midgrid]

And how does a racing car end up in a lake?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmO2aM_1S4Q

A more obscure example from one of my favourite defunct series.

[Captain Hammer]

I think the ultimate racing film would actually be a television series. Films are like short stories, but television series are like novels. There's more content, so there's more opportunity to develop characters and themes, even if the budget is smaller. And you get to do a whole lot more with subplots, too. For example:

Season 1 - Introduces the main character, a former racer who was rated good enough to be World Champion, but quit the sport before his time. He is convinced to come back with a brand-new team (the team name and show title would probably be the same thing), where he is partnered with an upstart new rookie. But politics get in the way, and in the middle of the season, the rookie leaves (this is Hamilton and Alonso in 2007, turned up to eleven). He becomes the major antagonist of the season, and narrowly loses the World Championship in the final race - but in a twist ending, his new team successfully manage to get several cars, including the main character, disqualified from the results, and he is crowned World Champion. Significantly, his replacement at the team is found to have the same technical inconsistency as the main character, but the rookie's team never challenges the legality of his car (like McLaren trying to get Nico Rosberg and the BMW Saubers thrown out of the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix to make Hamilton champion, but ignoring Nakajima's car when nakajima finished behind Hamilton).

Season 2 - The battle between the new World Champion and the main character is in full swing, but off the track, the new President of the sport is about to cause trouble. Both he and the World Champion are of the same nationality, and that nationality has been absent from the sport for some time. The President starts manipulating the rules to favour the World Champion, in the hopes of making him a double World Champion (yes, all of this is based on Balestre playing the rulebook to favour Prost). The main character ultimtely wins the World Championship, but the President tries to kick him out of the sport. In protest, all of the teams get together and form a breakway series unless the president leaves (yes, it's 2009 all over again).

Season 3 - The teams win their battle, the main character is crowned World Champion, and he patches up the rift with his former team-mate. But trouble is brewing when the former President comes back and challenges the legality of the sport's ruling body to make legal judgements (like Briatore appealing his ban). Testifying against the organisation, he successfully gets the governing body's charter suspended, triggering an arms race in the sport as teams start spending while the stewards are unable to penalise them. In the middle of all this, a crooked Russian banker steps forward and tries to take the team into receivership, since they borrowed heavily from them (based on Genii borrowing money from Vladimir Antonov to buy Renault). Anarchy rules the sport, but a solution to the stewards' ability to penalise teams and drivers is found. However, the team is on its last legs financially, and its saviour is the President. Who then fires the main character on the eve of the title-deciding race.

[simonracer]

And how does a racing car end up in a lake?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmO2aM_1S4Q

A more obscure example from one of my favourite defunct series.

Or:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d59qphndDz8

[Sunshine_Baby_[IT]]

I think the ultimate racing film would actually be a television series. Films are like short stories, but television series are like novels. There's more content, so there's more opportunity to develop characters and themes, even if the budget is smaller. And you get to do a whole lot more with subplots, too. For example:

Season 1 - Introduces the main character, a former racer who was rated good enough to be World Champion, but quit the sport before his time. He is convinced to come back with a brand-new team (the team name and show title would probably be the same thing), where he is partnered with an upstart new rookie. But politics get in the way, and in the middle of the season, the rookie leaves (this is Hamilton and Alonso in 2007, turned up to eleven). He becomes the major antagonist of the season, and narrowly loses the World Championship in the final race - but in a twist ending, his new team successfully manage to get several cars, including the main character, disqualified from the results, and he is crowned World Champion. Significantly, his replacement at the team is found to have the same technical inconsistency as the main character, but the rookie's team never challenges the legality of his car (like McLaren trying to get Nico Rosberg and the BMW Saubers thrown out of the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix to make Hamilton champion, but ignoring Nakajima's car when nakajima finished behind Hamilton).

Season 2 - The battle between the new World Champion and the main character is in full swing, but off the track, the new President of the sport is about to cause trouble. Both he and the World Champion are of the same nationality, and that nationality has been absent from the sport for some time. The President starts manipulating the rules to favour the World Champion, in the hopes of making him a double World Champion (yes, all of this is based on Balestre playing the rulebook to favour Prost). The main character ultimtely wins the World Championship, but the President tries to kick him out of the sport. In protest, all of the teams get together and form a breakway series unless the president leaves (yes, it's 2009 all over again).

Season 3 - The teams win their battle, the main character is crowned World Champion, and he patches up the rift with his former team-mate. But trouble is brewing when the former President comes back and challenges the legality of the sport's ruling body to make legal judgements (like Briatore appealing his ban). Testifying against the organisation, he successfully gets the governing body's charter suspended, triggering an arms race in the sport as teams start spending while the stewards are unable to penalise them. In the middle of all this, a crooked Russian banker steps forward and tries to take the team into receivership, since they borrowed heavily from them (based on Genii borrowing money from Vladimir Antonov to buy Renault). Anarchy rules the sport, but a solution to the stewards' ability to penalise teams and drivers is found. However, the team is on its last legs financially, and its saviour is the President. Who then fires the main character on the eve of the title-deciding race.

I think it could be a good plot!

[Faustus]

This is not a film so doesn't strictly fit in this thread, but I thought it was excellent anyway. BBC4 here in the UK a few days ago showed a documentary on Gordon Murray about his Formula 1 career and his new city-car project. It was called 'How to go Faster and Influence People - The Gordon Murray F1 Story'. Well worth watching and I definitely recommend it.

[dinizintheoven]

I will track that down and watch it. Top Gear magazine had a feature about Gordon Murray's miniature city car last month.

[WaffleCat]

I've seen it a long time ago. So long, that I totally forgot how these bashed crash scenes looked like. Until I came across this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwqQlrb4XIE
Good grief, it's so crass I can't even start to describe it. Gives a few good laughs though

The unrealisticness of them makes me laugh. in the first crash in the video, the car spins into a tyre barrier in front of a wall, then goes through a completely different wall

Actually,it's more crappy than just going through different walls.First,he spins in the middle of a tight pack of cars heading into a 90 degree turn in a street track where there is a tyre wall backed up by concrete barriers.Then it suddenly cuts to an almost completely different shot of a car going straight on through a red and white tyre barrier by a hairpin with no sign of other cars anywhere around the turn and then flips upside down in a gravel trap on a road course...

[nome66]

Season 2 - The battle between the new World Champion and the main character is in full swing, but off the track, the new President of the sport is about to cause trouble. Both he and the World Champion are of the same nationality, and that nationality has been absent from the sport for some time. The President starts manipulating the rules to favour the World Champion, in the hopes of making him a double World Champion (yes, all of this is based on Balestre playing the rulebook to favour Prost). The main character ultimtely wins the World Championship, but the President tries to kick him out of the sport. In protest, all of the teams get together and form a breakway series unless the president leaves (yes, it's 2009 all over again).

hhhmmmmmm Senna?

[Sunshine_Baby_[IT]]

The old Herbie movies are between my favorites, but my absolute favorite got to be Days of Thunder. I loved that movie when I first saw it. I as a small kid back then and absolutely love everything car related. Later I understood that the movie was, well, let's say not that good, but by then it was too late as it became one cherished item of my infancy. I still see it when I catch it in some obscure movie channel.

I finally watched "Days of thunder" and I have to say that, even if it is not that good movie, I really liked it.

Pit crew eating ice-creams made me think about Kimi Raikkonen.

[Jeroen Krautmeir]

So I was bored waiting for FP1 to start, and with something like 2 hours to spare, I decided... Why not watch a movie? And since I felt like it, why not watch a racing movie?

However, since I had only just rewatched Cars, which I ended up watching twice in a week, I didn't really have a racing movie to watch. I mean, I couldn't watch it a third time!

Then it struck me... I was reading a random racing blog I found, when one of the posts mentioned that movie. The movie. Le Mans. So I decided to try my luck, and googled the film. And sure enough, I found it!

Click here for the movie

Suffice to say, I was just in no mood to watch FP1 after that. I had just witnessed true racing, sportscar racing in probably its heyday, oh and Steve McQueen. Watching Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton slipping and sliding on a dry track, with Nico Hulkenburg complaining it was like rain... I don't know, I guess they had a point, but for me, during the moment, it just showed me how much motorsport has paled. Formula 1 moving to electricity? I'll take the turbo monsters every day of the week. The complete bathplugging mess that is now 'IndyCar'? The CART and Pre-Split days will always take me away. And well... I don't know much about sportscar and endurance racing, but, I think it's fair to say that it, just like F1 and Indy, will never ever be the same again.

[S951]

make capeta into a live action / tv series

[pasta_maldonado]

If the RWRS was made into a film, who would you have play your characters?

[Jocke1]

Grand Prix. Hands down.

then nothing...

then the rest of them.

[Wallio]

I've seen it a long time ago. So long, that I totally forgot how these bashed crash scenes looked like. Until I came across this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwqQlrb4XIE
Bloody hell - it's worse than I thought.
Gives a few good laughs though

Why were they racing on an oval in the pouring rain? Didn't they know this would happen?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=funydo99Q5Y

Indycar didn't.

[Jeroen Krautmeir]

Just watched Days of Thunder. I guess you could say it really got to me. Great story, great scenes, great lines, great everything. Someone link me to a film about Group B rally cars and I will kill myself for not being born in time for the 70s/80s (although to be fair the film was released in 1990). Golden Age of Racing.

For some reason Russ Wheeler reminds me of a certain German who likes to point his finger at everybody all the time...

[Wallio]

Days of Thunder actually isn't that bad if you can get past Tom Cruise and the wrecks. Cole Trickle was heavily based on Tim Richmond and Mr. Quaid was a young Mr. Hendrick, and Robert Duval (who steals the movie in my opinion) was based off Harry Hyde. A good amount of footage for it was taken from backmarkers entered in races just to be camera cars, Like Le Mans.
As for Group B, google "Too Fast To Fast". It was never released on DVD as far as I know, but theres clips onljne. Its simply rallye pornography.

[HonoraryNortherner]

Just watched Days of Thunder. I guess you could say it really got to me. Great story, great scenes, great lines, great everything. Someone link me to a film about Group B rally cars and I will kill myself for not being born in time for the 70s/80s (although to be fair the film was released in 1990). Golden Age of Racing.

For some reason Russ Wheeler reminds me of a certain German who likes to point his finger at everybody all the time...

There was a documentrary shown on BBC4 a couple of months ago about Group B, and it was brilliant. Lots of great footage plus interviews with the likes of Rohl, Mouton et all, even Roland Gumpert. Not sure if it came out on DVD or not, but I hope it's on youtube as i'd love to see it again (would check but youtube is blocked at work.... :S). A great insight in rally at that time.

I must admit I do prefer documentaries, as I've always held the belief that racing at its best doesn't need dressing up, it has all the ingredients all ready to be a fantastic story, whether it be bravery, action, danger, inter-personal rivalries and politics. I've never seen Le Mans yet but from what I've heard I'll definately make an effort to check it out.

As for films, I thought Cars was fun with all the in-jokes. I saw driven as a 10 year old an loved it, but haven't seen it for a while, not sure how it would look now.... From memory it did seem a bit 'liberal'. I though Senna was ok, but kind of skipped over quite alot. I don't like the way they portrayed Prost as the bad guy, to me that seemed unfair.