That quartet of words conjures up images of burning rubber, revving engines and lightening fast pit stops.
This weekend the new Ron Howard movie Rush tries to capture the excitement of Formula 1 racing. Daniel Brühl stars as Niki Lauda, the real life Austrian driver and three-time F1 World Champion who faced off against British legend James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) at the 1976 Formula 1 World Championship at Fuji in Japan.
The story of their rivalry promises not only a great sport story, but also pedal to the metal action and fiery crashes. Like racing kingpin Dale Ernhardt Sr. once said, “You win some, you lose some, you wreck some.”
Just ask the producers of Days of Thunder, who destroyed 35 cars during the shooting of the Tom Cruise racing flick.
Loosely based on the relationship between crew chief Harry Hyde and driver Tim Richmond—played by Robert Duvall and real life racing enthusiast Cruise—and set in the world of Nascar, Days of Thunder is essentially Top Gun on four wheels, but it does feature some thrilling scenes and deafening engine noise.
As for the autos, most were Chevrolets fitted with fake stock cars fiberglass bodies. Not exactly built for the kind of speed required for the film, they regularly broke down and at one point half the fleet was in the shop.
Whatever James Garner’s Grand Prix lacks in story—there basically isn’t one—it makes up for with exhilarating racing footage. To fulfill director John Frankenheimer’s wish for realistic race scenes the cars actually raced at speeds of up to 130 miles per hour. In the past racing sequences had been shot at slower speeds and then sped up in post-production, but Frankenheimer felt that technique would look fake to an audience who was now used to watching racing on television.
Equally exciting for race fans is Le Mans. The advertising tagline for this 1971 film raves, “Steve McQueen takes you for a drive in the country. The country is France. The drive is at 200 MPH!”
“When you’re racing, it… it’s life,” says Michael Delaney (McQueen). “Anything that happens before or after… is just waiting.”
For a brief period in the mid-1970s the name Linda Lovelace lived at the very center of popular culture, particularly if the alphabetical listings in your movie collection weighed heavily toward the XXX.
We first meet Linda Boreman (Amanda Seyfried) as a naïve twenty-year old, living at home with her strict parents (Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick). Her ticket out of the oppressive household is Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard), a strip club owner who sweeps her off her feet, marrying her just six months after they first met at the Moonlight Rollerway.
He’s a charmer until an IRS audit for tax fraud throws his life into a downward spiral. To crawl out from under the weight of debt he sells Linda into pornography, accepting $1250 to showcase her special sexual skills in a film called “Deep Throat.”
The ploy worked. The film became a sensation with everyone from Walter Cronkite to Johnny Carson and Bob Hope commenting on about it on television. Called the “Gone with the Wind” of pornography, the movie grossed an estimated $600 million and made Linda, now renamed Lovelace, the “postergirl for the sexual revolution.”
With success, however, came humiliation, physical and sexual abuse and a loss of personal identity.
Based on Linda’s tell-all “Ordeal,” “Lovelace” should be a cautionary tale, warning of the dangers of controlling spouses among others things, but plays more like a semi-raunchy Movie of the Week.
There are some good performances. Seyfried hits a career high, playing Lovelace as a vulnerable, innocent and fragile woman swept away by an obsessive man who tries to pass off sexual violence as passion.
Sarsgaard hams it up as Traynor, the wild-eyed psycho who, in one scene takes out his anger on a blow up effigy of Linda. He’s a bad man, but too broadly played to be truly convincing.
Solid supporting work from a who’s-who of indie film—Juno Temple, Chris Noth and Hank Azaria, among others—impresses, but Sharon Stone, unrecognizable as Linda’s cruel mother, is a stand out.
The film’s period details grab the look of the time—Crushed velvet jackets! Flares! Shirts open to the navel!—and archival news footage sets a tone, but it’s all veneer. The script, which features not one but two “6 Years Later” title cards, is relatively linear in its telling of the tale, but relies on big moments rather than insight to get its point across. With so many damaged people on display, it would have been interesting to explore how a man like Chuck can come to dominate those around him.
Documentary filmmakers turned feature directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman also invert the First Rule of Cinema, “show me, don’t tell me,” loading up scene after scene with unnecessary exposition. In one superfluous scene a radio announcer begins an interview with the words, “This film has become a phenomenon,” seconds after a montage visually showed us the movie’s success.
“Lovelace” attempts to tell an edgy personal story, but squanders good performances from Seyfried, Stone and supporting cast, in a movie that is too, simplistic, too tame and too timid to do justice to Lovelace’s horror story.
Like everyone with a television on June 10, 2007 I had a meltdown just before 10 pm. My TV fritzed out in the closing moments of the most anticipated series finale since the bar at “Cheers” shut its doors almost fifteen years before.
As Tony Soprano and family sat in Holsten’s diner in Bloomfield, N.J., surely about to put a cap on the years of mind games, mayhem and mafia drama, the screen went dead.
Before I could pick up the phone to complain to the INSERT MAJOR CABLE PROVIDER HERE the music of Journey filled the screen and I realized that the show’s creator had given us an anti ending. Nothing wrapped in a bow.
The series finale of “The Sopranos” made the internet explode. Many people were confused and angry because they wanted tangible closure on the people they had been watching for 86 episodes.
I was upset as well. The ending was audacious, but in moment, not very satisfying. Did Tony and family get whacked, sent back to the primordial ooze, never to be heard from again? Did they enjoy their risotto and go home? Debate ensued, and became quite heated.
I was reminded of the uproar after watching the series finale of “Dexter.”
Seven seasons in, the serial killer with a coconscious show had become stale, but a marvelous turn by Charlotte Rampling as Dexter’s mentor livened things up as the show wound down to its final moments.
Would Dexter find happiness with his serial killer girlfriend? Would Deb survive the bullet that prevented her from arresting murderer Oliver Saxon? Would hurricane Laura throw a wrench into Hannah and Dexter’s escape plan, or would the relentless bounty hunter Jacob Elway find them before the heavy winds blew in?
That’s lots of plot questions to be answered, but more importantly there were larger themes to deal with. Is it possible for a psychopath to ditch his “dark passenger” and embrace life over death?
By and large the show answered these questions, mostly in very predictable ways, and frequently with no regard for reality. SPOILERS! How are we to believe that Dexter could walk undetected through a crowded parking lot with a dead body in tow? How did Dexter survive sailing directly into a hurricane?
It felt safe, and as someone on twitter wrote, “Meh.”
The internet didn’t explode after at 10:01 pm on Sunday. Instead a show that ran for 84 episodes took the easy way out, wrapped up storylines in unbelievable ways and feeling like a letdown.
But it also made me think about the simple beauty of “The Sopranos” finale.
“Dexter’s” sign off reminded me that when you try and please everyone the result is middle of the road pap. In its early years “Dexter” pushed the envelope in terms of violence and dark themes, but the ending was pure Hollywood. No nuance or ambiguity. Just giving the audience what they want.
Except I think we should be more interested in what the filmmakers, writers and actors want. That’s how David Chase ran “The Sopranos.” He respected the audience enough to allow them to bring their own interpretations to the end of the series.
“There’s more than one way of looking at the ending,” he said. “That’s all I’ll say.”
Richard compares the modern music documentary–think “One Direction: This is Us”–to old school fictionalized stories of the lives of musicians on and off the road. Which is more realistic? “A Hard Day’s Night” or “Katy Perry: Part of Me”? Click HERE to find out!Click HERE to read about some of Richard’s favourite–and most realistic–music movies.
The Devils was one of the most controversial films ever made, considered to be blasphemous, indecent and downright demonic — but top Toronto film critic and author Richard Crouse wasn’t put off. In Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of The Devils(ECW Press), Richard writes about a film so notorious that people have been talking about it for forty years.
Raising Hell examines this unique film in all its horrible glory via new interviews with cast and crew, including an exclusive interview with late director Ken Russell.
Today we welcome Richard to Open Book as part of our Proust Questionnaire series. In his answers to the Proust Questionnaire, Richard tells Open Book about sock lust, a flower with an appetite and the best meal to be had in Toronto.
The Proust Questionnaire was not invented by Marcel Proust, but it was a much loved game by the French author and many of his contemporaries. The idea behind the questionnaire is that the answers are supposed to reveal the respondent’s “true” nature.
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What is your dream of happiness?
Writing a perfect sentence… and having someone there to read it.
What is your idea of misery?
Being thrown in jail for something I didn’t do, or spending time at a cottage.
Where would you like to live?
Exactly where I live right now.
What qualities do you admire most in a man?
Kindness.
What qualities do you admire most in a woman?
See above… and dark curly hair.
What is your chief characteristic?
Self-sufficiency.
What is your principal fault?
Impatience.
What is your greatest extravagance?
My (uncontrollable) lust for buying Paul Smith socks.
What faults in others are you most tolerant of?
Drunkeness and ego.
What do you value most about your friends?
See above… actually, loyalty, humour and patience.
What characteristic do you dislike most in others?
Incompetence.
What characteristic do you dislike most in yourself?
My intolerance for incompetence.
What is your favourite virtue?
Diligence.
What is your favourite occupation?
Writing.
What would you like to be?
Keith Richards’s guitar pick.
What is your favourite colour?
Anything that isn’t taupe.
What is your favourite flower?
Audrey, the man-eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors.
What is your favourite bird?
Lyrebird, an Australian bird that can mimic any sound in the world.
What historical figure do you admire the most?
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. Thanks for the BLT’s!
What character in history do you most dislike?
Jay M. Arena, creator of the Child-Proof Cap.
Who are your favourite prose authors?
Hunter S. Thompson, Truman Capote and Richard Matheson.
Who are your favourite poets?
Ogden Nash, George Carlin and Edgar Allen Poe.
Who are your favourite heroes in fiction?
George Bailey, Ferris Bueller and Ziggy Stardust.
Who are your heroes in real life?
The people who read my books and watch my shows.
Who is your favourite painter?
Andy Warhol.
Who is your favourite musician?
In cascading order… David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits.
What is your favourite food?
The Piquant Shrimp at Southern Accent on Markham Street in Toronto.
What is your favourite drink?
Most anything in a pint glass… but especially Guinness.
What are your favourite names?
Andrea, Max, Jack and 国.
What is it you most dislike?
Wilful ignorance.
What natural talent would you most like to possess?
The innate ability to know how many chili flakes is too many.
How do you want to die?
While watching The Godfather… Part 62, which will star an actor who hasn’t even been born yet.
What is your current state of mind?
Cautiously optimistic.
What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?
Convincing my publisher to let me write a book about The Devils, a decades old movie not many people have seen.
What is your motto?
With a nod to Dr. Thompson: Buy the ticket, take the ride.
“Barry Avrich’s account of the life of this most unlikely revolutionary of the 1960s counterculture is energetic, iconoclastic and well researched, examining Guccione’s long and audacious career, most notably as publisher of the hugely influential pornographic magazine Penthouse and producer of the porn epic Caligula.”
SYNOPSIS: The story is fairly simple. Best friends Keller and Grace Dover (Jackman and Maria Bello), Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis) and their kids spend Thanksgiving together. (more…)
“Death Wish,” the Charles Bronson revenge drama, painted its main character as a vigilante hero, someone who evened the score when the police couldn’t.
“Prisoners,” a new child abduction drama starring Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal and Terrence Howard, isn’t as cut and dried. It asks the question, How far would you go to get the information you need to protect your family?
The story is fairly simple. Best friends Keller and Grace Dover (Jackman and Maria Bello), Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis) and their kids spend Thanksgiving together. After dinner the youngest members of the family, Anna Dover (Erin Gerasimovich) and Joy Birch (Kyla Drew Simmons) go for a walk and never return.
Panicked, the family search the neighborhood and when they come up empty the police are called with a description of the girls and a suspicious RV that was seen in the area. The camper is racked down and Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) arrests a suspect, Alex Jones (Paul Dano).
Keller is convinced the police have the right man and when Alex is released, he takes matters into his own hands. Kidnapping Jones, he tries to beat a confession out of him. When that doesn’t work his methods escalate.
There is a serial killer subplot woven into “Prisoners,” but it detracts from the core element that makes the movie interesting. Jackman brings the full weight of Keller’s anguish to the screen, and his performance carries with it the moral dilemma of the movie. The serial killer element feels tacked on, as though screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski felt he needed to up the tension with a “Criminal Minds” style plot twist.
It’s too bad, because the last hour—the movie clocks in at 150 minutes—feels unnecessary. The procedural elements is interesting until the red herrings start and the movie moves away from the ethical question that propelled the first half.
“Prisoners” is compelling stuff. At its heart it is a family drama with a twist. But as is, it almost feels like two movies.
“If you think the last four words of the national anthem are gentlemen, start your engines,” joked comedian Jeff Foxworthy, “you might be a redneck.”
