Thursday, April 6, 2017

Thursday Movie Picks: Cars/Racing


Yup, it's Thursday, and these are my Thursday Movie Picks. Yup, I skipped last week. Truth of the matter is ya boy met his match last week. The topic was television period dramas. I had nothing. I'm not much of a TV watcher, though I have watched more over the last year or two. When I do watch, it's not any period drama, unless we're talking a show that was actually made forty or fifty years ago and is set in its own present. Then again, that doesn't count so I took a zero on that little quiz. This week, I'm back with a vengeance. The topic is something I can pick a hundred movies for off the top of my head. Thank you to our host, Wanderer at Wandering Through the Shelves for picking this one. We're talking cars and/or racing. I'm especially hyped to talk about this because I am on the verge of revisiting the series that has become one of my guiltiest pleasures: The Fast and the Furious franchise. These movies are so craptacular I can't help myself. That said, I refuse to suggest any of them because that's a bit too obvious. Let's dig a little deeper, shall we? Oh, see if you can spot the theme within the theme...within another theme.

Death Race 2000
(1975)
I've actually suggested this for a prior topic, so I didn't go too deep, but I have good reason to, as you'll see a little later. To refresh your memory, this is about an annual cross-country race known as the Death Race. Of course, this one is taking place in the year none of us in the 70s thought we would ever get to, 2000. Drivers don't just have to be first to get from one end of the country to the other. They also earn points by running down pedestrians. Those drivers include Rocky Sylvester Stallone before he made the steps of The Philadelphia Museum of Art famous, and David Carradine dressed in a manner inadvertently foreshadowing his own death due to the outfit he's wearing. It's all perfectly ridiculous or, as I like to say, so bad it's awesome!


The Car
(1977)
Santa Ynez is a lazy California town far, far away from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. Not much happens until Satan comes to town driving the monstrosity known as the Lincoln Continental Mark III and starts running down any pedestrian who dares to be on the road. How do we know it's Satan? Well, for starters, there's no one actually sitting in the driver's seat. And you only find that out if you manage to get a look inside. After all, the tint on the windows is a rather hellish red. James Brolin plays the cop tasked with figuring all this out and stopping it. And we get a movie that's so bad, it's awesome!

Death Race 2050
(2017)
Yup, A sequel. This time around, we're in the year of...screw it, you see the title. Anyhoo, the premise is exactly the same, if a bit more explained. It seems that in the year 2050, automated labor has caused unemployment to rise to 99%. Having people run down during the race provides a measure of population control. The camp and silliness of it is the same as the original. Best of all, they somehow got Malcolm McDowell to be in this thing. I mean, he knew what he was getting into, right? After all, it plays more like a remake than a sequel. A few years back there was an actual remake starring Jason Statham. It was updated and gritty...and terrible in all the wrong ways. This one is terrible in the ways that tickle you to death. Yeah, it's so bad it's awesome!



22 comments:

  1. I've seen bits of Death Race 2000 but never the whole thing as I just like the premise of it. I've heard of The Car but I have never seen that film as I discovered through Guillermo del Toro's couch gag for The Simpsons a few years ago.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh man, I have to find that couch gag. I haven't watched The Simpsons in years.

      Delete
  2. I kind of love Death Race 2000 unabashedly. Yeah, it's terrible, but it's terrible in the right ways that make it so worth watching.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've heard of Death Race but I've never seen it. I haven't seen any of your picks this week.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh all of these sound amazingly crap-tastic, and I thank you for bringing them (except the original Death Race, which I have heard of and want to see) to my attention!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I liked Death Race remake...but that's probably most definitely just because of Jason :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well that's quite the collection Dell. I'd agree Death Race 2000 is crap but seeing it as I did after Stallone had hit big in Rocky it was fun to see him pre-fame...that is in something beside's A Party at Kitty and Studs!

    The Car!! What a blast from the past when Mr. Streisand was trying to make it as a feature star.

    Haven't seen the Death Race sequel.

    There are a lot of racing flicks out there and yet at first all I could think of was Gone in Sixty Seconds which didn't really fit and was a terrible movie to boot but then I dug back and came up with the requisite three and then just this past weekend I caught my bonus which is so of its time and place I just had to use it.

    Winning (1969)-Frank Capua’s (Paul Newman) dream is to win the Indy 500 and he is spurred on by his messy private life including a troubled marriage to Elora (Joanne Woodward) who is also involved with his main rival Luther Erding (Robert Wagner). The film inspired Newman’s lifelong love of racing and has some exciting scenes of the sport. While it doesn’t deliver on its ambitious tagline “WINNING is for men who live dangerously! WINNING is for women who love recklessly! WINNING is for young people who live for now! WINNING...is for everybody!” it’s a decent film with many of the stars of the racing circuit making appearances.

    The Great Race (1965)-At the beginning of the 1900’s The Great Leslie (an all in white clad Tony Curtis) and his arch nemesis Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon equally black covered with a handlebar moustache and top hat to boot) compete in the title race from New York to Paris with henchmen in tow, Hezekiah (Keenan Wynn) for Curtis and Max (a hilarious Peter Falk) for Lemmon. Also competing and covering the race for The Sentinel newspaper is pioneering and rambunctious reporter Maggie DuBois (Natalie Wood at her most beautiful). MANY complications occur along the way including a western town brawl and shootout and an enormous pie fight. Blake Edwards directed tribute to slapstick and old time serials is zany fun with beautiful costume & set design, a game cast and for car lovers fantastic automobiles. The score was provided by Henry Mancini and includes the Oscar nominated “The Sweetheart Tree”.

    The Big Wheel (1949)-Watch out Mickey Rooney’s on the skids in more ways than one! Billy Coy (Rooney) has something to prove, his father was a legend in the midget race car game until his death in a crackup, now Billy is trying to show his worth. The story is standard cocky hothead knocked down a few pegs until his learns the necessary life lessons junk but if you're a race fan and don't mind the obvious rear projection shots it has a certain entertainment value. Additionally parts were filmed at the Indy 500 raceway providing a glimpse of it in its infancy. Aside from Rooney there’s a good cast including Spring Byington, Thomas Mitchell and in a small part Hattie McDaniel in her last theatrical feature. This was made just as the Mick’s major star period was ending.

    80’s Flashback Bonus-Catch Me If You Can (1989)-When her small Midwest high school faces closure class president Melissa Hanson (Loryn Locklin) is persuaded by school bad boy Dylan Malone (Matt Lattanzi) to gamble on the illegal car races he runs. Everything goes well at first but then the local mob moves in so Melissa and Dylan take drastic measures to save ol’ Cathedral High! Full of 80’s music (the film’s score is composed and performed by Tangerine Dream) 80’s fashion and of course 80’s hair complete with headbands!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DR2000 is the most perfect type of crap. I'm glad I haven't seen A Party at Kitty and Studs...I think.

      Yes! You've seen The Car! I love it for all it's terribleness.

      Haven't seen any of your picks, but I'm definitely interested in Winning. I mean...Newman.

      Delete
  7. I haven't seen any of these f these but I wanted to see Death Race and The Car because I heard they are horrible.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I've been meaning to watch Death Race 2000, sounds fun. The teeth remind me of Peter Weir's first movie The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), which had some imaginative vehicles.
    Off the top og my head, Rush (2013) w/Chris Hemsworth I enjoyed. The feature-length documentary Senna (2010) is brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've never heard of The Cars That Ate Paris, but that is one helluva title. I'm very interested, now.

      Rush is an excellent film. Haven't seen Senna.

      Delete
  9. Satan drives a Lincoln Continental? Who knew? :-)

    ReplyDelete
  10. I wanna see The Car. I do like that are so bad they're awesome

    ReplyDelete
  11. I haven't seen any of these but I love that Lincoln and now I really want to see The Car.

    ReplyDelete
  12. They are. 2050 is streaming on Netflix right now. Even though it's a sequel, it plays like a standalone, so it doesn't matter what order you see them in.

    ReplyDelete